Opera Geek

Obsessed, totally obsessed. A proper geek.

There are a number of topics I can claim ‘geek’ level on. As a child I was car mad, could name almost any car, spec level, age, model, engine etc.  I am also a sport obsessive and in particular a massive West Ham United fan, though I no longer have the squad numbers memorized. It is quite normal to be football and sport mad but I also have an obsession with sports shoes and specifically football boots. Check out my twitter feed and you will find pictures from my trips to football boot shops, retweets of numerous articles about Adidas Predator’s (my personal favourites), Nike Magistas and general football boot-obsessed behaviour.

Despite all this, my highest level of obsession is with Tenors. Not just singing, though obviously I am into that quite a lot and music as a whole is quite awesome, but specifically Tenor singing. I am a true Tenor geek, and not afraid to say so. I happily spend my time listening to and watching endless videos of great tenors, from Pavarotti to Wunderlich, Gedda to Bjorling, Caruso to Larui – Volpi. My obsession also seeps out into my day to day life.

Modest Mussorgsky  Tenor

It was yesterday evening, during another three hour rehearsal for Oper Stuttgart’s forthcoming show ‘Khovanshchina’, stood in a large, rotating, wooden box with three ‘prostitutes’ and Andri Khovansky, that I realised the extent of this obsession. For Andri is played by a Tenor and we have the lovely Estonian Tenor, Mati Turi, performing the part.  Having been in the box for about ten minutes, and despite the smiles and general friendly atmosphere in there, I left knowing nothing about the three ladies playing the prostitutes but could almost write a book about Mati.  

Mati is a very interesting man. From 1988 to 1990 he spent two years in the Russian Secret service followed by some time at University and then twelve years as a professional choral singer in Estonia. Only becoming freelance in around 2006, he has since performed, amongst many other works, both Siegfried and Parsifal for companies across Europe including ReissOper in the Netherlands and Opera North in Leeds, UK. In the musical run of the opera last week, when I was in awe of the selection of singers on show, it was a ringing Top A from Mati that gave me the biggest smile. He has a great voice and is a lovely man, he is also a great colleague to learn from.

During the rehearsals this week, of which there have been many, Mati has been great. Friendly, jovial, and then ‘on it’ when needed. Committed and genuine as a performer, he asks questions, a lot. This is the thing I have learnt most from him. Last night, during a scene where I am basically his slave, he was asking questions of the director and assistant all the time. ‘Why here?’ ‘Why now?’ ‘Why am I doing this?’ and so on. I have no doubt that he has put a lot of work into the character himself and now he is constantly searching to make it the best he can with the help of the staff at hand.

It’s easy not to ask questions, of course. Easy to stand there, wait to be told where to go, how to do it. Not to slow things down. That’s useless though. Particularly in a role like mine where I sing so little but am on stage for so long. Questions must be asked, ownership of my character must be had so that wherever I happen to be standing on the stage there isn’t a black hole, with nothing happening, but there is a live character enhancing the piece.

Russian – German – ouch

As I mentioned last week, these small roles are a challenge. Particularly in the case of the Mussorgsky where I am on stage for most of Act’s 1 and 3 yet don’t sing very much at all.

The other big challenge with the Mussorgsky continues to be the language. With rehearsals being conducted mostly in German my concentration is constantly tested. Add on top of this my struggles with a language I have only sung in once before, Russian, and it makes for a challenging week. Sometimes it feels as if my brain can’t take anymore language in and I feel a bit like a 32gb iPad 2 when ideally I’d be a 64gb iPad Air.

My main song, Kuska’s song, in Act 3, is my biggest challenge. Not vocally. Vocally it’s very easy. It is fast though, with no time to think and 4 pages of almost non-stop Russian. It takes place straight after I’ve Cossack danced across the stage for a minute. ‘Higher, higher’ the director said. Higher, higher I tried. I stopped, I tried to breath, I tried to remember my first line and….. nope, gone. De ja vu. So many Russian words rushing through my head and none of them the one I needed.

Mati was kind, though. ‘Such a difficult role to do, Tom, nothing for ages, then running across the stage and singing that fast thing’. He has a point.

In my defence, this was the first time through this section. It will be fine, I will make it as good as possible. We do have another four weeks before first night.

Full time opera house

Over those four weeks Stuttgart are showing me exactly what life at a full time opera house like this can mean.

Der Freischutz performances continue, production for Khovanschina continues, plus 8 days of production rehearsals and opening of Ariadne auf Naxos and also the rehearsals for and performance of an Opera Studio anniversary concert on 2^nd of November.

It really is great to be involved in so many performances and at a house like this. I imagine I may be quite tired at the end of November though. I am also more aware than ever of the use an opera studio has for the Opera house itself.

I am not complaining here, but my voice is my voice. It is a young lyric tenor voice, suited to the tenor roles of Mozart and Donizetti and others. Yet here I am singing Kilian, a character low tenor (baritone) part and Kuska, a character Russian Tenor part. Both parts that in another generation would be sung genuine character tenors who are suited to the roles. For the opera house I am a cheap way to fill these small parts yet when it comes to the directors and the conductors they ultimately want someone who is suitable for the role. ‘Don’t sing it too beautifully’ ‘Make it sound more like a drunk old Russian soldier’ ‘It’s not about your voice’'Make it more character tenor like'. All phrases that I’d hope not to hear if I were singing roles more suited to what I can offer.

Such is the way in an opera studio though.

Next step

I must remember that the Opera studio in Stuttgart is only for a year. I am enjoying myself and it is a good finishing school before my next step, preparations for which continue, starting with an audition in the coming week a four hour train ride away from Stuttgart, in Northern Germany. (that is as much as I am giving you in terms of destination….)

As I have mentioned previously, I am ambitious. I want to be singing the main tenor roles, the Ferrando’s, Nemorino’s, Edgardo’s of the operatic world and ultimately in the best opera houses possible. Hopefully the next step will take me closer to realising these goals.

This brings me back to my Tenor geek-ness.

I often wonder when listening to various singers, current or from the past, how they gained their success. Which doors opened for them and when. I wonder who inspired them as singers, if they went through difficult moments or had to sing a load of small roles somewhere before they were given the opportunity to shine.

Take Mati Turi, a busy singer, singing major roles in good houses across Europe. He didn’t start performing operatic roles properly until he was into his late 30’s.

I remember talking to Welsh Tenor, Dennis O’Neill, about his early career. At 28 he took part in a competition at the Wigmore hall, singing Schubert, Britten and Handel. He says he hadn’t yet discovered he true voice, yet a few years later he was understudying Alfredo Kraus and Nicolai Gedda in Italianate Lyric repertoire and then eventually became the Verdi tenor of choice.

Then there is Joseph Calleja, the Maltese tenor, who competed in the final of the Operalia competition in his early twenties and has been working pretty much non-stop ever since.

My old teacher, Ryland Davies, performed Count Almaviva is Rossini’s Barber of Seville with Welsh National Opera aged 21 and before he was 30 had recorded Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He was generally considered to be the leading Mozartian tenor of the time.

Own path

All this information is very interesting, to me at least. What it really shows though is that the path to success is different for everyone. The path to a sustainable operatic career depends on so many things and all one can do as a singer is be prepared and make the most of every opportunity.

In the meantime, I will continue to listen to and be inspired by great tenors from every age. My tip for this week is Piotr Beczala singing ‘Di Rigori’ from Der Rosenkavalier. Enjoy!

Have a lovely week,

Tom