The cover holds a single image. Inside it, though, live at least three versions of Alexandra Căpitănescu and none of them is willing to win over the others.

It’s easy to reduce Alexandra Căpitănescu to a simple headline: the girl who won Vocea României, then took Romania to Eurovision, then went back to physics lectures as if nothing had happened. The press has tried that a few times. It never held for more than a paragraph, because she’d already changed direction before the headline had time to dry.

Today, Alexandra is on the cover of Touch. Not to confirm anything we already knew about her, but because, in every conversation we’ve had, she has consistently refused to stay still in one position long enough to be easily framed. She talks about the laws of physics with the same conviction she uses to talk about a song built around the word “choke.” She trained on “Alone,” alone on a stage full of strangers, and carried that same solitude onto a stage with far more cameras. For one summer, she sang folk-metal too, just to see what happens inside the noise.

She has never chosen a single direction, and she doesn’t seem to be planning to now. The conversation that follows isn’t about how Alexandra Căpitănescu got here. It’s about what she knowingly refuses to leave behind in order to get somewhere else.

INTERVIEW

Right after the shoot wrapped, makeup still intact, Alexandra talks about the contradictions that shape her with the same ease she’d use to talk about a rhyme. None of it sounds like image management.

1. You grew up with voice as ambition and physics as backup plan or was it the other way around? Which one blinked first when you had to choose?

I grew up with voice as ambition and physics as another major passion. Out of a wish to keep developing and to learn as much as I can, I like reading into things, discovering subjects from different fields, and staying up to date with what’s happening around me. I think each of them grows a different part of me, and I don’t feel the need to give up one for the other. But if we’re talking about an actual choice voice wins.

2. You were in the Touch shoot today, under the lights, made up, posed. Which version of you surfaced in front of the camera that you didn’t recognize from your other photos?

I think a much more feminine, more self-assured version of me came through. I’m used to seeing myself on stage, where my energy is much stronger, more rock, more “in motion.” Today, in front of the camera, I discovered I can carry that same force without doing much at all. It was interesting to see myself in a more mature, more owned, and maybe even slightly sensual light.

3. I’ve never seen you in these clothes on stage. How do you feel the difference between how you dress to sing and how you let yourself be dressed today, just to be looked at?

On stage I like to move a lot, to feel the crowd and vibrate with them. And because I can’t stand still, I try to dress as naturally and as “me” as possible that’s exactly what my audience values: authenticity and the way we are. Today was different, because I let myself be pulled out of my comfort zone a little. I didn’t have to think about whether I could run across a stage, whether I could jump, or whether the outfit could “survive” my energy. I just got to wear it and see what it brought out of me. In the end, authenticity doesn’t live in one particular kind of clothing.

4. “Choke Me” is a title that suggests suffocation, control, a limit. What happens to you right before you can’t breathe on stage anymore?

Right before that moment, I think everything disappears. There are no cameras anymore, I stop thinking about whether I sang it perfectly or hit the right move. It’s just me, the crowd, and the song. On stage I sometimes reach a point where I give so much of myself that I feel like I have nothing left to hold back. And, paradoxically, right when I feel like I can’t anymore, that’s when I feel freest because that’s when the crowd shows up. That’s where I get the most beautiful energy, from them.

5. You had a calm message for the Moldovan audience after a low score from their jury. Where does that calm come from is it trained, or has it always been yours?

I think it’s a mix. Part of that calm has always been in me, but I’ve also learned not to react in the heat of the moment, especially when emotions run high. At Eurovision I understood that a score can’t define either the value of a song or the connection you have with people. For me it was important to separate one jury’s vote from the Moldovan audience from the people who wrote to me, who supported me, who stood by me. I didn’t feel like I had anything to hold against them, more like I had a lot to thank them for.

6. You study particle physics, or something close to it laws that don’t negotiate. Music seems like the place where you can break any rule. Which of the two worlds lies to you more often?

In both physics and music, creativity is essential to actually performing well. In physics, of course, we’re talking about experiments that may or may not lead to a result close to the theory, and from there you can draw different conclusions: either you repeat the experiment until you reach the expected result, or you repeat it hoping to find something unexpected. From where I stand, music can’t hide the truth either. We can dress an emotion up in metaphors, but at its core it stays exactly what we feel, even when it hurts.

7. You were a temporary member of a folk-metal band. What are you looking for in noise, when the rest of the world wants you clear and pop?

Myself! And it shows in what I sing, what I feel, and in the community we’ve built around it. Music is felt, and the first feeling always starts with the artist. If I don’t believe in what I’m singing, I can’t ask the audience to. In that noise, I find a lot of honesty, and the freedom to be exactly who I am without trying to fit into a formula. I’m not running from pop, or from any other genre, but rock and everything that comes with it lets me be myself, with all my intensity.

8. Your band is five close friends. What does the music lose when your bandmates are, first of all, people you care about?

I think you gain enormously on trust. When I get on stage with them, I don’t feel like I have session musicians behind me I feel like I have people who know me, who can read me with one glance. Sometimes we disagree, precisely because we care, but I think that helps the music too. You don’t have to always agree to be together. And on stage, that friendship between us comes through.

9. You did a tribute tour for Laura Stoica. What did her voice lend you, and what did you refuse to take, so it would stay yours?

I think what I borrowed from Laura was the courage to never sing at half power. She had an incredible strength and honesty, and that’s what inspired me the most. But I never wanted to copy her voice or her way of performing. A tribute, to me, doesn’t mean becoming the person whose songs you’re singing. It means respecting their music enough to let something of yourself pass through it too. Laura has to stay Laura, and I have to stay Alexandra.

10. At 15, someone on a stage saw you before you saw yourself. Does that part of you the one from before you were seen still exist, or did you lose it along the way?

Yes, it exists, and I hope it never disappears. It’s the part of me that simply enjoys everything happening in her life right now. Obviously, I’ve grown since then, I’ve been through a lot of experiences, and I’ve become much more aware of myself as an artist. But the 15-year-old is still there. I think I owe her a lot, and I try never to forget why she started singing in the first place.

11. If “Căpitanu'” was the first stage name you claimed, what did you want to command and what did you actually want to escape commanding?

I think “Căpitanu'” was more about ownership than about commanding anyone. I’ve always liked knowing where I’m headed and having a say in what I do. But at the same time, through music I wanted to escape exactly the idea that I have to do things a certain way just because that’s what’s expected of me.

12. In a world that wants you to be either a physicist or a singer, either Romanian or international where do you refuse to choose?

I refuse to choose between all the things that shape me. I don’t think I have to give up physics for music, or Romania to have an international career. And I don’t think I have to be just one thing to be taken seriously. I’m all of these things at once, and I like the contradiction between them.

And maybe that’s exactly where the interview ends and the portrait begins: in the contradiction she refuses to resolve.