Recently in Interviews

Connections Across Time: Sholto Kynoch on the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival

‘A brief history of song’ is the subtitle of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival (10th-17th October), which will present an ambitious, diverse and imaginative programme of 40 performances and events.

Alfredo Piatti: The Operatic Fantasies (Vol.2) - in conversation with Adrian Bradbury

‘Signor Piatti in a fantasia on themes from Beatrice di Tenda had also his triumph. Difficulties, declared to be insuperable, were vanquished by him with consummate skill and precision. He certainly is amazing, his tone magnificent, and his style excellent. His resources appear to be inexhaustible; and altogether for variety, it is the greatest specimen of violoncello playing that has been heard in this country.’

Eboracum Baroque - Heroic Handel

Eboracum Baroque is a flexible period instrument ensemble, comprising singers and instrumentalists, which was founded in York - as its name suggests, Eboracum being the name of the Roman fort on the site of present-day York - while artistic director Chris Parsons was at York University.

Schubert 200 : in conversation with Tom Guthrie

‘There could be no happier existence. Each morning he composed something beautiful and each evening he found the most enthusiastic admirers. We gathered in his room - he played and sang to us - we were enthusiastic and afterwards we went to the tavern. We hadn’t a penny but were blissfully happy.’

Soprano Eleanor Dennis performs Beethoven and Schubert at the 2019 Highgate International Chamber Music Festival

When soprano Eleanor Dennis was asked - by Ashok Klouda, one of the founders and co-directors of the Highgate International Chamber Music Festival - to perform some of Beethoven’s Scottish Songs Op.108 at this year’s Festival, as she leafed through the score to make her selection the first thing that struck her was the beauty of the poetry.

Mark Padmore reflects on Britten's Death in Venice

“At the start, one knows ‘bits’ of it,” says tenor Mark Padmore, somewhat wryly, when I meet him at the Stage Door of the Royal Opera House where the tenor has just begun rehearsals for David McVicar’s new production of Death in Venice, which in November will return Britten’s opera to the ROH stage for the first time since 1992.

An interview with Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Oxford Lieder Festival's first Associate Composer

“Trust me, I’m telling you stories …”

In conversation with Nina Brazier

When British opera director Nina Brazier tries to telephone me from Frankfurt, where she is in the middle of rehearsals for a revival of Florentine Klepper’s 2015 production of Martinů’s Julietta, she finds herself - to my embarrassment - ‘blocked’ by my telephone preference settings. The technical hitch is soon solved; but doors, in the UK and Europe, are certainly very much wide open for Nina, who has been described by The Observer as ‘one of Britain’s leading young directors of opera’.

Bill Bankes-Jones on the twelfth Tête à Tête Opera Festival

“We need to stop talking about ‘diversity’ and think instead about ‘inclusivity’,” says Bill Bankes-Jones, when we meet to talk about the forthcoming twelfth Tête à Tête Opera Festival which runs from 24th July to 10th August.

An interview with composer Dani Howard

The young Hong Kong-born British composer Dani Howard is having quite a busy year.

Irish mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy on Salzburg, Sellars and Singing

For Peter Sellars, Mozart’s Idomeneo is a ‘visionary’ work, a utopian opera centred on a classic struggle between a father and a son written by an angry 25-year-old composer who wanted to show the musical establishment what a new generation could do.

London Bel Canto Festival 2019: an interview with Ken Querns-Langley

“Physiognomy, psychology and technique.” These are the three things that determine the way a singer’s sound is produced, so Ken Querns-Langley explains when we meet in the genteel surroundings of the National Liberal Club, where the training programmes, open masterclasses and performances which will form part the third London Bel Canto Festival will be held from 5th-24th August.

Un ballo in maschera at Investec Opera Holland Park: in conversation with Alison Langer

“Sop. Page, attendant on the King.” So, reads a typical character description of the loyal page Oscar, whose actions, in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, unintentionally lead to his monarch’s death. He reveals the costume that King Gustavo is wearing at the masked ball, thus enabling the monarch’s secretary, Anckarstroem, to shoot him. The dying King falls into the faithful Oscar’s arms.

Martin Duncan directs the first UK staging of Offenbach's Fantasio at Garsington

A mournful Princess forced by her father into an arranged marriage. A Prince who laments that no-one loves him for himself, and so exchanges places with his aide-de-camp. A melancholy dreamer who dons a deceased jester’s motley and finds himself imprisoned for impertinence.

Thomas Larcher's The Hunting Gun at the Aldeburgh Festival: in conversation with Peter Schöne

‘Aloneness’ does not immediately seem a likely or fruitful subject for an opera. But, loneliness and isolation - an individual’s inner sphere, which no other human can truly know or enter - are at the core of Yasushi Inoue’s creative expression.

In interview with Polly Graham, Artistic Director of Longborough Festival Opera

What links Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Cavalli’s La Calisto? It sounds like the sort of question Paul Gambaccini might pose to contestants on BBC Radio 4’s music quiz, Counterpoint.

Six Charlotte Mew Settings: in conversation with composer Kate Whitley

Though she won praise from the literary greats of her day, including Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound and Siegfried Sassoon, the Victorian poet Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was little-known among the contemporary reading public. When she visited the Poetry Bookshop of Harold Monro, the publisher of her first and only collection, The Farmer’s Bride (1916), she was asked, “Are you Charlotte Mew?” Her reply was characteristically diffident and self-deprecatory: “I’m sorry to say I am.”

"It Lives!": Mark Grey 're-animates' Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

“It lives!” So cries Victor Frankenstein in Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption: or the Fate of Frankenstein on beholding the animation of his creature for the first time. Peake might equally have been describing the novel upon which he had based his 1823 play which, staged at the English Opera House, had such a successful first run that it gave rise to fourteen further adaptations of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novella in the following three years.

Unknown, Remembered: in conversation with Shiva Feshareki

It sounds like a question from a BBC Radio 4 quiz show: what links Handel’s cantata for solo contralto, La Lucrezia, Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, and the post-punk band Joy Division?

Remembering and Representing Dido, Queen of Carthage: an interview with Thomas Guthrie

The first two instalments of the Academy of Ancient Music’s ‘Purcell trilogy’ at the Barbican Hall have posed plentiful questions - creative, cultural and political.

OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »

Interviews

Luca Pisaroni [Photo by Marco Borggreve]
30 Jun 2011

Luca Pisaroni sings Handel at Glyndebourne

Luca Pisaroni is one of one the more exciting young bass-baritones of his generation. In July 2011, he sings Argante in the first ever Handel Rinaldo at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Luca Pisaroni sings Handel at Glyndebourne

By Anne Ozorio

Above: Luca Pisaroni [Photo by Marco Borggreve]

 

“I really look forward to embodying Argante at Glyndebourne”, he says, “because the music that Handel wrote for Argante is incredibly challenging.” His first aria “Sibillar gl’angui d’Aletto” is not only one of the best-known arias for bass-baritone but also one of the most difficult arias in the entire baroque repertoire.

Argante is a powerful but complex character. Why is Pisaroni drawn to such dark personalities? “When I first performed Tiridate in Handel’s Radamisto at Santa Fe Opera I discovered how exciting it is to portray a ‘bad guy’ on stage. Tiridate is an abusive and violent person and in order to follow David Alden’s vision I really had to push myself. It was really rewarding to explore such a dark personality and to get a great response from the audience. In life you never get away with being the bad guy! On an opera stage you do and everyone loves it.”

After Glyndebourne, Pisaroni will be singing Argante again at the Chicago Lyric Opera. He’s singing Caliban in The Enchanted Island ,a baroque pastiche specially created by William Christie and Jeremy Sams. “I have five great arias in it”, says Pisaroni, “It will be fun to be the monster in this fantasy”. In 2012 in Santa Fe, he’s singing Maometto in Rossini’s Maometto Secondo. “It’ll be the world premiere of the new critical edition by Philip Gossett. There aren’t many operas where the bass is the title role, so I can’t wait to sing it”.

Mozart is one of the cornerstones of Pisaroni’s career. In 2010, he sang Leporello in the acclaimed new production at Glyndebourne of Don Giovanni. “ Portraying Leporello there was incredibly rewarding for me. I love to play Don Giovanni’s servant and I believe the audience can identify with him because he is an ordinary guy who witnesses something truly extraordinary”. He’s also created Leporello at Teatro Real Madrid, Opéra Bastille, and Tanglewood. He’s singing it at Baden-Baden under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. That performance will be recorded by Deutsche Grammophon.

“I adore Mozart”, says Pisaroni. “From a musical and dramatic point of view, he is simply fantastic. For a singer Mozart’s music is the best way to grow as a musician and as an actor without damaging your instrument. I especially love the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas. I love the characters they created and the different emotions they explore. The real challenge in these pieces is to sing them as naturally as possible. I believe Da Ponte and Mozart operas are all about humanity and truth”. Figaro is one of Pisaroni’s signature roles, which performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Paris, in San Francisco, with Franz Welser-Möst at the Wiener Staatsoper, and memorably at the Salzburg Festival.

“My ‘real’ initiation in Mozart was when I sang Masetto at the Salzburg Festival in 2002. I thought I knew the role well and, being Italian, I felt pretty confident about the way I sang the recitatives. And then, I worked with Nikolaus Harnoncourt who made me realize very quickly how little I knew about this composer and making music in general. His incredible sense of drama and his musical choices stunned me. What he did was beyond anything I had heard before or could even imagine. I vividly remember my surprise and excitement when we worked on the finale of Act I. I had never heard anything like it. Harnoncourt definitely changed my perception of the opera forever”.

Pisaroni was born in Ciudad Bolivar (Venezuela) on June 8th 1975. “I am Italian. My parents are both Italian. I was born in Venezuela because my parents lived there for almost 10 years. We moved back to Italy when I was 4 years old and I spent my childhood and adolescence in Busseto (Parma), Giuseppe Verdi’s hometown”.

“The first experiences with opera I can recall are tied to memories I have of my grandfather. He always listened to opera and the earliest musical memory I have is listening to Boris Christoff singing ‘Ella giammai m’amò’ from Verdi’s Don Carlo. It was love at first sight. I started listening to a collection of tapes of Verdi arias that my grandfather owned. I played them so many times that I ultimately wore them out. Later on my father bought me my first Luciano Pavarotti record and took me to a live performance (Aida at the Arena di Verona), which ignited my passion for opera”.

“Two tenors influenced my path, but in very different ways: Luciano Pavarotti and Carlo Bergonzi. It is because of Pavarotti that I decided to become an opera singer. When I was 11, I watched a commercial of the 1986 World Soccer Championship featuring Luciano Pavarotti singing ‘Nessun Dorma’. I recall watching the commercial in complete ecstasy and telling my mother that I could only imagine myself doing exactly the same thing.… At the beginning my mother was unsure whether I referred to a career as a football player or a singer. Later on it was evident to everybody that I had decided to become an opera singer since I was not very good at football”.

“When I was 13 or 14 years old I preferred spending my afternoons listening to master classes given by Carlo Bergonzi for the ‘Accademia Verdiana’ in my hometown Busseto. Even though I wasn’t singing but only listening to other singers I learned a lot about phrasing, clear diction and how to use words to convey musical ideas. Watching other singers work with him made me realize that the only thing I wanted to do in my life was to be a singer”.

Living in Busseto, with so much Verdi around him, Pisaroni could easily have slipped into a niche. “I love Verdi!, he says. “I could probably sing most of his tenor roles by heart. I love his music and the dramatic journey of the characters he created. I just believe you should sing his operas only when you feel ready — especially for my voice type. Verdi bass-baritone roles like Attila, Filippo II, Procida and Fiesco require, in my opinion, not only a technical maturity but also a ‘personal’ maturity that only age can give you”. Since Pisaroni is still well under 40, there’s much to look forward to.

Pisaroni’s range is wide, nonetheless, ranging from Bach to Handel and Haydn, Mozart and Rossini and includes Schumann and Stravinsky. He’s also a good recitalist, singing at the Wigmore Hall, London and in Amsterdam earlier this year. “I love all classical music - opera, baroque, symphonic, sacred or Lieder. I believe that knowing the tradition and past interpretations helps you to go forward and to push yourself to the limit. It’s not about copying or stealing someone else’s ideas: for me it’s about ultimately finding your inner voice”. He adds “I think every song is like a painting that you need to bring to life through your voice — like Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an exhibition’. Hence the care with which he assembles programmes, “to create a wide spectrum of emotions”.

Perhaps it is Pisaroni’s very genuine enthusiasm for music that drives his performances. “I am always excited by roles and repertoire that I can explore dramatically. First and foremost these roles need to be suited for my voice. Then I need to be sure that I can give my very personal interpretation. There is nothing more interesting to me than being able to show the journey that a character makes throughout the opera to the audience”.

For more information, please see the Glyndebourne Festival site, and Mr. Pisaroni’s website at www.lucapisaroni.com.

Anne Ozorio

Send to a friend

Send a link to this article to a friend with an optional message.

Friend's Email Address: (required)

Your Email Address: (required)

Message (optional):