Marina Abramović: Final 12 months, a buddy who I used to be working with on my opera challenge “7 Deaths of Maria Callas” in Naples informed me, “It’s a must to come to Majorca and listen to the voice that’s closest to Callas’s.” There was no means I wasn’t going. Sondra was singing [at the Cap Rocat hotel], and the efficiency broke my coronary heart. Afterward, I used to be invited for dinner, and we talked about our painful backgrounds. The whole lot was taking place — the loss of life of her mom similtaneously her divorce. I felt like my youthful sister had simply come out of the cosmos.
Our work could be very emotional. My public cries, her public cries. All of us cry. It comes from the deep honesty of the work. We’re not appearing or pretending. We imagine what we’re displaying. Sondra’s Medea [at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2022] blew my thoughts. She crawled, she had blue legs from the accidents, her make-up was operating — she didn’t care.
Sondra doesn’t have youngsters, and I by no means needed to have them. So many ladies begin as the good artist after which, as moms, they will’t proceed with the identical depth. Proper now, for those who informed me to go to New Zealand, I’d be prepared in 10 minutes. I don’t have any commitments that maintain me away from what I need to do. I’m 76, and I’ve work booked till 2028. I’ve no time to consider dying. I work after which, when my physique offers up, it offers up. Picasso made a whole bunch of erotic artworks within the years earlier than he died. That’s the life pressure that artists ought to have.
Sondra Radvanovsky: I’ve lastly gotten to the purpose the place I don’t care for those who assume I’m fats or ugly, an excellent or unhealthy singer, an excellent or unhealthy particular person. That’s what I’ve discovered from Marina. She’s given me the power to be susceptible and to take dangers. Earlier than “Medea,” I’d by no means been keen to go that near the hearth, so to talk. It’s thrilling, however it may be harmful. Think about singing a really vocally tough opera whereas crying. After watching Marina, I made a decision to attempt it.
We’re each robust ladies, and there’s a phrase that’s normally used to explain robust ladies — [the word for] a feminine canine. I can’t think about rising up with Marina’s power in her era. She didn’t simply step out of her field, she screamed from the rooftops, and I take into consideration the hate mail she will need to have obtained, the nastiness and the phrases used to explain her.
There’s additionally a religious aspect to us each. Sooner or later, we have been sitting in Marina’s condominium in New York when a dove landed on the railing of her balcony. I all the time equate a dove with my father visiting me. She mentioned, “In all of the years that I’ve lived on this condominium, a dove has by no means landed there. It’s destiny, future, no matter you need to name it.” I mentioned, “That’s why we’re kindred spirits: We each imagine in one thing greater than us. It’s the place our artwork comes from.” We sat there for a number of moments, trying on the chicken.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.
