Thoroughly Modern Mimi

Despite what the French might tell you, sometimes the more things change, the more they are, well . . . different.

Take opera stereotypes, for example. Your parents might have anticipated that a young soprano making an L.A. debut as Mimi, such as Ana Maria Martinez this week in the revival of “La Boheme” at the Music Center, would have a few Paminas and Adinas in her past, although Debussy’s Melisande might puzzle them. If you knew she was a Placido Domingo protegee, as Martinez is, a zarzuela role or two might not surprise you, or even that she created a part in a new Menotti work. But doing the same for Philip Glass?

Or consider Martinez’s idea of carry-on luggage. A diva of yore might understand the poodle (named Philip, because “he looks like a prince”) in its carrier, but what would she make of that new laptop computer?

Allow for a little paradigm shift, however, and Martinez becomes almost a model for the new opera singer. Stylistically omnivorous and thoughtfully pragmatic about career, she reserves her greatest passion for the characterization and psychological development of her roles.

“It’s the psychology of the character that really moves me to want to portray it. Live theater, and particularly opera, is so much about the human condition and helps us to understand ourselves more. We can purge ourselves when we are at the theater,” Martinez says. “As far as I am concerned, the performer is the messenger, not the message. As a vehicle, as a messenger, you become, in a way, a canvas for the audience, where they can paint what they need to. And everybody will paint something different.”

Martinez, 29, comes by her interest in complex, psychologically volatile opera characters naturally enough.

“My mom’s a singer,” she notes, speaking in a morning interview during rehearsals here in August, with Philip in her lap. “Actually, she sang with Placido when I was 6 years old, in Puerto Rico. She did the role of Micaela in ‘Carmen,’ and he did the Don Jose. I remember that vividly, the whole experience.

“My father is a psychologist and a psychoanalyst, which has been a huge influence in my life. My stepmother is also a psychologist. So I view life like that, not in a judgmental sense, but very sensitive to the human psyche.”

Bicultural, Martinez was born in San Juan but moved to New York when she was 6. She spent three months every summer and her sophomore year of high school back in Puerto Rico, however, and that year proved crucial to her development as an artist.

“My high school production of ‘Oklahoma’ was when I decided I wanted to do this for a living,” Martinez recalls. “I was 15. I thought they would give me Ado Annie, but they gave me Laurie, so I thought, ‘Wow, they must think I can really sing.’ I had to be virtually shoved out from the wings, and I thought I was going to be sick. But then it was like I was performing but I was also out of my body, watching the whole thing happen. I remember feeling wonderful about it, and feeling that the audience really appreciated it.

“As Joseph Campbell says, follow your bliss. That was it. That was the first time I was really passionate about it.”

After high school, Martinez spent a year in Boston as a musical theater major, before transferring as a voice major to Juilliard, where she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

“When I went to Juilliard, I really didn’t know how to read music. I was very intimidated by that fact, but they were very wonderful about it, taking me from point one to really being able to sight-read very complicated things. My ear was always strong, and that’s what helped me.”

Her studies bore more than purely academic fruit. In 1993, Martinez was a national finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, and in 1994 she won first prize at the Eleanor McCullum Auditions at the Houston Grand Opera. The following year she won the Pepita Embil Award at the Placido Domingo International Voice Competition in Madrid. She sang in concert with him there, and in Palm Beach and Buenos Aires, and she sang Mimi to his Rodolfo for a televised gala in San Juan. Domingo will conduct the first three performances of “Boheme” here in Los Angeles.

“My first experience with him was in Madrid,” Martinez says. “We were doing the Garden Scene from ‘Faust,’ and I just kept thinking, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, it’s Placido!’ At the same time, he has this calming effect. He’s such a good colleague, he gives you your space and very much lets you take your moment and is very supportive of that.”

All of that work on sight-singing also paid off in professional auditions, landing her the dual roles of Felicie and Adelaide in the world premiere and a U.S. tour (though not the one that came to California) of a major “film opera” project, Philip Glass’ setting of the dialogue of the Cocteau film “La Belle et la Be^te” (Beauty and the Beast) performed live with the film.

“They wanted some opera singers for this project, and I did an audition. They had given me a piece from it, which was all handwritten, that Philip wanted to hear. I couldn’t quite make heads or tails of it, so I thought I would just sight-read it and see how it went. I was very relaxed. Philip Glass was there, and he’s this very, very wonderful, gentle man. I guess they liked it OK, because I got the contract.

“I was playing the part of [Beauty’s] two sisters, and there weren’t many high notes. Once I said, ‘You know, Philip, right here, a high C would be great.’ So he took me up on it. He was very open. I ended up loving it, how it all synchronized with the film. It was a lot of fun.”

Don’t imagine that because Martinez revels so intensely in the psychological dimensions of her roles that she is all intellect and no voice. Critics as well as composers and competition judges have been impressed.

“She has a voice beautiful enough to make many another lyric soprano envy her. Her singing easily cut through the orchestra and never turned shrill, even at the highest dynamic levels,” Stephen Wigler wrote in the Baltimore Sun after her Washington Opera debut earlier this year as Solea in “El gato montes.” Reviewing the same production in the Washington Post, Tim Page noted her “full, fresh voice, sure dramatic gifts and an uncanny ability to keep up with her character’s myriad changes of mind and heart.”

Not surprising, perhaps, Martinez describes vocal production in almost psychological terms of development.

“I was doing Pamina all last year in Bonn, Germany; I did 20 performances there. Between those performances I would go to other theaters and do other roles, always coming back to Pamina. That was an incredible gift, because Mozart is medicine for your voice.

“But it was fascinating to observe how it changed. After I came back from doing the Solea, I think I was singing the fullest-voiced Pamina in my life. Then after some performances as Adina in ‘Elixir of Love,’ height and overtones were even more present in the voice, and more subtlety, because of course, Donizetti is bel canto, so you’ve got to do all of those other things. So Pamina was enriched in different ways and I thought it was very interesting to see how all of these roles affected each other. And thanks to Pamina, every other role got started off in a good line.”

After her “Boheme” here, Martinez also makes her New York City Opera debut with Mimi. Other debuts this season include Adina at the Vienna State Opera and Michigan Opera Theatre, and Pamina at Opera Stuttgart.

And Philip the poodle and that laptop? Both play similar roles in anchoring the constantly traveling Martinez.

“Philip’s great company. That’s primarily why I decided to get him. It’s not so isolating to have a friendly constant wherever you go,” she says. “And the Internet helps so much to not be isolated. With the Internet, you can have constant communication with people and it doesn’t feel so far away from home.

“This year I am home for only about a month in all, but I think it is important to know, deep within the recesses of your mind, that you actually do have a home.”

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“LA BOHEME,” featuring Ana Maria Martinez, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. Dates: Saturday and Sept. 9, 12, 16, 19 and 24, 7:30 p.m.; Sept. 21, 2 p.m. Prices: $24-$135. Phone: (213) 365-3500.