BEAUTIFULLY VOICED AS SHE MAKES HER L.A. OPERA DEBUT, RUSSIAN SOPRANO ANNA NETREBKO IS TURNING HEADS.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

The sun beams down warm and bright over a November morning near Farmers Market. Soprano Anna Netrebko, with borrowed sunglasses, sits poolside and finds our city's unseasonal warmth, well, perhaps a bit too ... something.

``I would not live here,'' observes Netrebko, ``because it's too beautiful for me. I need something different. I need some darkness or whatever. Because I'm Russian. But of course it's really nice here. Lots of energy with all the movie stuff around.''

As diplomatic as she is forthright, Netrebko balances any perceived dings with something a little more positive. And it's not as though Netrebko - who performs with the Los Angeles Opera for the first time Saturday in the title role of ``Lucia di Lammermoor'' - is sitting around shuttered in a rented apartment marking the days before she can get out of town.

These days the soprano is a hot property both for her acclaimed voice (``Netrebko can be habit-forming,'' raves the Washington Post) and her looks (she was featured in a glam shot in Vanity Fair's music issue in November). Recently, she completed a set of MTV-style videos to accompany the release of her Deutsche Grammophone solo album ``Opera Arias.'' The last video, shot in a Brentwood swimming pool, found Netrebko singing Dvorak from atop a swan.

``Lucia'' and ``Opera Arias'' cap off a whirlwind 2003 for the 32-year-old soprano that has taken her back and forth from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg - her artistic home base - to Munich, Salzburg, London and Florence.

Her 2004 calendar is no less packed, with a return to the roles of Musetta in ``La Boheme'' (at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan); Donna Anna in ``Don Giovanni'' (at the Vienna Staatsoper); and Violetta in ``La Traviata'' (Munich's Bayerische Staatsoper), all roles she has sung before. She expects to return to Los Angeles to sing Juliet in ``I Capuleti ed i Montecchi'' in two years, one of four major roles she's scheduled to perform with the company.

``When we signed her up three years ago, we didn't sign up a star, fortunately,'' says L.A. Opera artistic director Edgar Baitzel. ``But she will be when she sings these roles. She's a special artist, and this assignment is only the beginning of some exciting future plans we have with her.''

Married to the role

Presently, Netrebko is plenty occupied with Lucia, the mad heroine of Sir Walter Scott's 1819 novel ``The Bride of Lammermoor'' brought musically to life by Gaetano Donizetti. Netrebko says she shied away from the role for years, thinking it too formidable.

She changed her mind after braving it. ``Only when I had already done this on the stage and I saw the video, I thought, 'Yeah, it can be good,' '' she says. ``I think it was my biggest success in Russia. I don't know why. I talked to my manager and I said, 'Listen I think I have to sing this role somewhere else.'

``The role is whatever you can imagine, and at first it's almost impossible to sing,'' she continues. ``Of course I love the music. There is a lot of possibility to act all that you can. The mad scene is incredible, and any soprano is dying to try to sing that.''

For ``Opera Arias,'' she chose roles - and music - that she bothloves and that she has performed on stage (as well as a couple she hopes to do). Lucia is present, as is Musetta, and ``Giovanni's'' Donna Anna (she has also sung Zerlina from that opera, but doesn't especially care for the role). And despite her lineage and home base at the Mariinsky and with the Kirov Opera, the willowy and dark-haired Netrebko doesn't want to be tied down with too many roles in Russian operas.

Not that she needs to worry about being pigeonholed, says Lotfi Mansouri, who brought Netrebko to the United States for her American debut in 1995. Now the general director emeritus of the San Francisco Opera, Mansouri directed Netrebko in ``Ruslan and Lyudmila,'' a co-production with the Kirov.

``She went on stage and I just fell in love with her,'' says Mansouri. ``She's so intelligent in the way she makes every note a kind of dramatic expression. It's not just sound. She's incredibly gifted, but it's a natural gift, not phony. No way.''

Toil and tears

Her Cinderella-like discovery story is well-documented. The daughter of a geologist father and engineer mother, Netrebko was exposed to music and theater as a child. Her interest in opera blossomed while she was a student at St. Petersburg Conservatory.

When barely out of her teens, Netrebko did indeed scrub the floors of the theater where she now sings. ``My first year at the conservatory, I sort of wanted to be around the theater, the performances and rehearsals,'' she says. ``I was working there, but it was many years before I started to sing.''

Kirov Opera director Valery Gergiev, who is credited with her discovery, has been a mentor. Through Mansouri she has developed a strong relationship with San Francisco Opera, performing with the company's young artists program and appearing in nine productions since ``Ruslan and Lyudmila.''

Netrebko has also sung with - and for - L.A. Opera general director Placido Domingo, but at least one of those memories is bittersweet.

``I auditioned for him and it was the worst audition I have ever done,'' recalls Netrebko. ``I completely lost my voice and I even stopped and just started to cry. I was so disappointed. I was so surprised when they took me and gave me the opportunity to sing 'Rigoletto' in Washington.

``Like Gergiev, (Domingo) trusts young singers,'' Netrebko adds. ``If he sees they can grow up with time and work, he trusts them. That's how you grow up: by singing on the stage.''

Netrebko speaks in accented English, the only other language she speaks. Singing in English, however, is another matter. Netrebko finds the language difficult when it comes to music.

``I sang Handel's 'Messiah in B minor' and 'Judas Maccabaeus,' but it was very bad,'' says Netrebko of her performance at Florence's Maggio Musicale Festival. ``My boyfriend was in the audience and I said, 'I tried so much to pronounce everything. Did you understand something?' He said, 'Yes, I understood two words: Judas and Maccabaeus.' ''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR 

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30, Dec. 4, 12 and 17; 2 p.m. Dec. 7, 14 and 20.

Tickets: $25 to $170. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) A SOPRANO with SIZZLE 

Russian opera star Anna Netrebko brings movie-star looks to L.A. debut

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer

(2) no caption (Anna Netrebko)