“This music will break your heart into a million pieces”

She is at the center of the action in the film, as the cameras on stage capture the action. This doesn't make it any easier for the singers, Beatty says: “The camera shows absolutely everything. “If you had a piece of lettuce in your teeth, you would show it,” Petty says with a laugh. “It's hard to have a shadow following you all the time. You don't have a private moment. As a singer, sometimes you step away to clear your throat. You can't do that with the camera, you have to stay in character all the time. We have to make it believable for the camera, you can't play with emotions. You have to To feel it.”

Speaking of feeling: How does the singer feel in the midst of all this tragedy coming on stage? “I'm very emotional, especially at the end. I have to keep myself completely under control,” she says. “Sometimes it's very difficult. This music is so beautifully written, it will break your heart into a million pieces. The director, Marie-Eve Signerol, asked me if I could cry at one point. I replied: There is no need to ask me, what will I do such-and-such?

the future

Betty has already sung “Sly Little Vixen” in Vienna and has recently appeared on stage several times with Cecilia Bartoli at the Salzburg (Witsun) Festival. How did you actually get into singing? “The singing profession chose me more than the other way around,” she says. “I started singing when I was 14 years old. My parents said I had a beautiful voice. I liked the compliments! It was easy for me and it was fun, but I didn't think right from the beginning: This would be my job. I won second place in the 'musica sacra' competition “In Rome – and then things went from there in quick succession.”

But it's not an easy profession, is it? “It's really hard for the new generation to find good-paying jobs,” Beatty says. “Fewer and fewer people want to do this job. Unfortunately, there is still a misconception about opera: that it is for old people and only tells old stories. This is not true.”

Some prejudices, though outdated, persist: “I still meet people who say to me: 'You're not fat, how can you sing opera?' For many, opera still “has the aura of being old, dusty, long, … expensive – and not: open to all and also funny. If people don't come because they think opera is boring, opera will die. That's how sad it is.”

She has a lot of plans for herself after “Romeo and Juliet”, this year again in Salzburg and Bregenz – but above all: a vacation.