Soprano Jo Su-mi: 'I gave up love, friendship, family — and I'm more beautiful now'

First Asian to win the Maria Callas Special Award

40-year career built on relentless perseverance

'There are no shortcuts — art demands failure and life'

"It was like a lion finally freed from its cage — I couldn't wait to get on that stage and show everyone what I could do. It was my debut, but from the moment I sat in the dressing room I craved the stage like someone who had already stood on it a hundred times."

The year was 1986, at the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste, Italy. Jo Su-mi, then 23, was ready. Cast as Gilda in Rigoletto, she had spent the three months before her debut studying acting under an Italian actress, drilling her Italian accent, facial expressions, gait and the line of her neck. That preparation gave her confidence, she recalls. Forty years after her world-stage debut, Jo — now at the very pinnacle of her art and still holding that position — carries the same fierce brightness in her eyes she had at 23.

Meeting recently at a hotel in Seoul's Samseong-dong, Jo (64) looked back on that moment. "What I know for certain is that I prepared enormously," she said. "To prove myself as a soprano and as an Asian, I memorized an entire opera score — every part, not just my own."

Reaching the top demanded sacrifice, but Jo has no regrets. Being alone allowed her to create; enduring allowed her to become who she is today. Now marking her 40th anniversary with a special album, "Continuum," and a nationwide tour, she says there are not enough hours in the day.

"After a performance I get back to the hotel at 1 a.m., take off my makeup, let the day's weariness go, and wait for the next day with such joy," she said, breaking into a wide smile. "Singing truly makes me happy."

In Callas's room — memories of a fierce fight to survive

Jo remains an icon of firsts. The phrase "first Asian" still appears alongside her name, and on Aug. 2 (local time) in Verona, Italy, she became the first person of Asian descent to receive the Maria Callas Special Award — a moment that encapsulated four decades of a career at the summit of the opera world.

"I heard about the award back in March, and at first I couldn't believe it — I asked, 'Are you sure it's me?'" she said. Established in 1947 and long the preserve of European musicians, the award had finally come to her.

"In a way, I felt the award had been waiting for me. I have been listening to Maria Callas's music since before I was born — my mother said she played it throughout her pregnancy. I adored Callas, and receiving this made me think deeply of my mother, who shaped me into the prima donna I became."

Jo arrived in Verona the day before the ceremony and stayed at the Academia Hotel, where Callas had lodged before her own Arena di Verona debut in 1947. Callas, too, had been 23 when she first took that stage — the same age Jo was at her own debut.

"When I opened the window, the Arena was right there. I imagined how terrified a 23-year-old Maria Callas must have been, standing on that stage 79 years ago with a bandaged ankle — and I felt a strange shiver, because I also debuted at 23."

Jo's glittering career was not built in comfortable circumstances. In the early 1980s in Italy, she was a cash-strapped foreign student for whom even an international phone call or a music lesson was a luxury. That is what drove her to enter competitions. While studying at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, she spotted a prize amount on a poster — and her "competition hunting" began.

"I started entering competitions because I needed money," she said. "I thought: if I win first place, I can eat for a few days, I can live for a few days."

She won first place at every international competition she entered. The Asian soprano sweeping Europe soon caught the eye of an agent, and before long she was cast in the lead role of a Verdi opera at the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi — the first Asian woman ever to take the starring role on that stage.

When the 23-year-old Asian rookie soprano began to sing at her first rehearsal, the atmosphere in the conservative heartland of opera shifted.

"At first everyone had that look — 'Who is this? What's going on?' But the moment I sang, they were stunned. The day of my debut was the day I received more flowers than at any other point in my life. Conductor Herbert von Karajan's secretary was in the audience and introduced me to him afterward, saying, 'You absolutely must see Sumi Jo perform.'"

Her first meeting with Karajan is still vivid. The encounter can even be watched today on YouTube. "The maestro, the moment he saw me, asked if he could touch my hair and if he could look into my eyes up close," she recalled with a laugh. "He felt more familiar to me than family I had known every day."

As she moved between opera houses around the world, what was demanded of Jo went far beyond vocal ability. She learned languages, built relationships with conductors, directors and fellow performers, communicated her needs precisely, and carved out her place with exacting care — all while cultivating the connections that would earn her an invitation back the following season.

"I think people who do this work are born for it. Singing well and commanding a stage might carry you for a month. But sustaining your position at opera houses around the world for 40 years — not just your talent but your standing — none of that comes easily."

'What I gave up was love, friendship, family' — and Jo Su-mi grows more beautiful still

World renown, landmark honors, a place at the very top she has never left — and yet, looking back across 40 years, Jo acknowledges there are things she lost along the way.

"What I gave up was love, friendship — things like that. I have no friends. To have friends you need to meet, share meals, travel together. But in the time I have to myself, there is so much I have to do, so I have no friends. That is the one thing I feel a little wistful about."

Love, too, was among the sacrifices. It was heartbreak that sent her abroad to study in the first place, and even during those years she told herself she would return soon and find love — but music always came first. "I cook well and I have a good personality, yet no man has approached me in the past ten years," she said with a laugh.

Family was another profound presence she had to let go. "In some ways, I sacrificed the most fundamental things," she said quietly.

An ordinary life was never on offer, but the hours of solitude gave back to her in the form of creation. "In the time I spent alone, I was able to make many things and explore myself deeply," she said. What those years taught her is that there are no shortcuts in art — a message she feels compelled to pass on as someone committed to nurturing the next generation of talent.

"Young people today are full of enthusiasm — they think, 'If I work hard I can be on the opera stage right away, I can win a competition.' But having lived this life, I know there are no shortcuts," she said. "Rather than chasing a vague dream, I hope they find the spark that makes them think: this is the path I need to take. That spark — that turning point — is enormously important in a life." Art, in her view, is not completed by talent alone; it requires the experience of failure, and time spent looking closely at life and at people.

"See everything there is to see, let everything that must pass go by. Breathe in the dust when a car drives past. Notice a flower on the side of the road. If someone falls while you're walking by, take them to the hospital. All of these things, one by one, accumulate — and that accumulation becomes art."

Anniversaries invite reflection, but Jo marks her 40th year differently — she looks forward, not back. "Continuum," the special album released to mark the occasion, is not a closing punctuation mark on a career already written. The concert next month (Sept. 4, Seoul Arts Center) frames 40 years of her career as a storytelling concert, but its gaze is fixed on tomorrow.

"Many people have told me that facing my 40 years made them think: I need to try something again. I still have dreams; I need to keep blooming and moving forward. I have no desire to wrap up the past and call it a commemoration. Right now, I am in the most beautiful period of my life."

shee@heraldcorp.com