Leeuwarden is lucky. It is the only Dutch city that has recently managed to get the Caribbean soprano Jeanine de Bique (42) to perform with the German baroque ensemble Concerto Köln. Together they won a classic Edison for best vocal album with Mirrors, about six powerful female characters from 18th-century opera. The singer always highlights them from two sides: in an aria by Georg Friedrich Händel and in one of his contemporaries. ‘Mirror images’ that form the core of her concert.
But for De Bique, these heroines are “also a timeless symbol of all women, who raise their voices, claim their place in society. Like my mother, who raised three daughters alone in Trinidad and Tobago. She also campaigned for women’s rights there – and later throughout the Caribbean. We daughters learned to be kind, loving and humble, but also independent. With this album and the concerts associated with it, I pay tribute to everyone who works to improve the lot of women worldwide.”
The opera characters that De Bique sings about must – often driven by love – survive in a masculine and violent world. “Deidamia, for example, tries in vain to dissuade her beloved Achilles from participating in the Trojan War in which, according to a prophecy, he will die. How many women today have to see their husbands called up to face certain death at the front?”
Then there’s Rodelinda who is pressured to marry a dictator and her husband’s killer (who turns out to be alive, by the way). Her condition seems hopeless. But she stands her ground and protects her son. No matter how much you persecute and humiliate a woman, how much pain we have to endure, somewhere we always find the strength to carry on. For those who feel too weak, for those who are oppressed, for those who want to raise their voice but can’t, the powerful vocals of these operatic characters are a source of inspiration in times of darkness and despair. They embody us, in disguise.”
Vision
On her grandmother’s lap, De Bique heard the chorales of Handel and Bach as a baby in the Anglican church on Trinidad. It was a revelation, she says, when she made her debut in Bachs Matthew Passionlast April in Rotterdam, suddenly ‘O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’ recognizing a song from her childhood.
“That’s the wonderful thing about this music: how it connects a child from Trinidad with people in other parts of the world, and how, in different circumstances, we go through the same experience. Bach’s echoes also reverberate in our modern culture, as Simon and Garfunkel used ‘O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’ as the basis for their pop song american tune.”
De Bique grew up in a singing society, not only in the church but also in the streets, where limbo and calypso reign. “You go out and you want to dance,” she says. “Trinidad is an exuberant society, emotionally and spiritually. No one questioned my choice to become an opera singer. In fact, people raised money for my studies in America. They formed a circle and prayed for me.”
Her mother taught her never to forget where she came from. “Trinidad and Tobago has less than one and a half million inhabitants. In every village from north to south, people know each other by name. They know who you are. When they hear you’re going to America, they’ll check their wallets to see if they can spare $20. Even if they don’t know if you’re going to make it.”
She chose the Manhattan School of Music in Harlem, New York, because her piano teacher and voice teacher – both trained in Europe – thought she could get the best toolbox of singing techniques in the United States.
“How do you choose a place as a twenty-year-old on a small island that goes out into the wide world? No one could advise me. The stars go to Juilliard. But sometimes in life it’s better to take the stairs than the elevator. I went for the brochure that showed people with friendly and open faces, because Manhattan can be a frightening metropolis. I stayed in the shelter of the campus for a long time. It took me a while to feel confident enough to go with the famed A Train to go to Canal Street.”
Far-fetched idea
De Bique received a scholarship, which enabled her to study, but not to live. “I made it through all the donations from Trinidad and especially because my mother took another job to be able to contribute more. She never talks about it herself, but over the years we see more and more clearly the sacrifices she made for us daughters. It was not easy for her to be director of women’s affairs in Trinidad and Tobago. Some mock her, for example, for not driving an expensive car. That was, many thought, part of the status of her job. But my mother didn’t care about career: she cared about the outcome, the real improvement of the lives and political say of women, including her three daughters.”
De Bique is now performing in major opera houses all over the world. She also made an impression in the Netherlands as a prizewinner of the International Vocal Competition and at the Dutch National Opera in Mozarts La clemenza di Tito and Micah Hamels Caruso in Cuba. She discovered Handel’s operas, which she sings in Leeuwarden, in Manhattan. She bought the score from his Alcinawhen she heard a fellow student sing an aria from it.
“Such wonderful music,” she recalls. “It was a big and uncertain purchase at the time, because the Handel revival had yet to get going. This singing was a far-fetched idea. But the premonition came over me that I Alcina would need one day.”