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11 hours ago
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In 2015 I was making my European debut singing the role of Tatiana in Tchiakovsky’s Eugene Onegin in Berlin. I’d been offered the contract at relatively short notice and was assured by the casting director not to worry, my French-Canadian co-star was “a real charmer”. I took it with a grain of salt.
On the first day of rehearsals, Étienne (the charmer) arrived for a brief introduction before he rushed off to debut a very big role, playing Posa in Verdi’s Don Carlos.
The following day when I asked how the show had gone he turned to me and declared, without a trace of irony, “I sang like a god”. He was so earnest as he went on to tell me about the audience’s rapturous response to his brilliance I didn’t know what to say. This level of self-congratulation ran so contrary to my Australian sensibilities all I could do was try not to laugh.
I wrote to a friend that night about Étienne’s amusing amour-propre, which even from those first impressions I found curiously endearing, if slightly unhinged. I was intrigued by his whole vibe.
On a rare day off from rehearsals he agreed to show me around town. It was a glorious spring day and as we ambled through the city our conversation never found an organic conclusion. We walked and chatted for about seven hours; it was very Before Sunrise. By the end of the day something had shifted between us.
Étienne had this whole approach to seduction that seemed almost absurdly dramatic to me. More than once he tried to serenade me with a melodeon – which, if you’ve ever experienced such a thing, you’ll know is quite hard to take seriously. Much to his confusion it was the time we spent sitting on the floor of his barely furnished apartment, laughing and watching Flight of the Conchords together, that stole my heart.
We kept things as private as possible but as we continued rehearsals our connection deepened both on and off the stage. There was such a charge between us it sometimes felt as though we were playing out the storyline of the opera in real life, and vice versa.
As the curtains fell on our first performance, standing hand in hand, the electricity was palpable. It was obvious to me that this went well beyond onstage chemistry or a summer crush. I knew then something serious was happening. I had fallen in love.
As the show wrapped we were forced apart for three months. Étienne headed to a contract at Glyndebourne, while I spent a miserable winter in Australia. We spent so much time on the phone it was ridiculous.
In September I flew to meet him in Marseille. He was deep in rehearsals but defied his director and ignored countless phone calls demanding he return to set while he picked me up from the airport. A few weeks later he absconded from rehearsals in Strasbourg to fly to London for 14 hours to watch me make my house debut as Micaëla in Carmen at the Royal Opera House. And by Christmas he surprised me by cancelling three contracts for the new year and booking tickets to join me in Australia for a month.
In the early days, many of Étienne’s romantic gestures were met with my baffled amusement but the way he prioritised me, and our budding relationship once we were reunited was not something I took lightly. He swept me off my feet once and for all.
Six years ago we bought our first home in Paris where we are based with our eight-year-old son and our apricot miniature poodle, Lily. We continue to tour extensively and still spend hours on the phone. These days Étienne knows his occasional melodeon performances give me a giggle. And we both know it’s the laughs we share that keep our hearts singing.
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Nicole Car is making her debut as Rusalka in Opera Australia’s Dvořák’s Rusalka at Sydney Opera House from 19 July to 11 August
