The Milanese soprano Barbara Frittoli has been a regular fixture at Covent Garden for a decade, during which time she has appeared in a variety of roles including Mozart’s Fiordiligi and Vitellia and Verdi’s Luisa Miller. After it closed for two years of refurbishment, she also took part in the House’s reopening production of Falstaff as Alice Ford. Successes at Salzburg with Abbado and Vienna under Muti in the 1990s secured her position as one of the world’s foremost lyric dramatic sopranos, with Verdi a specialty; she remains a favourite in Vienna and at the Met. Her discography includes roles in Il trittico for Decca and Turandot for BMG, while her albums of arias by Verdi (under Colin Davis) and Mozart (with Charles Mackerras) remain highly-esteemed examples of this repertoire on disc.

Now Frittoli is back at Covent Garden to play the Countess in the second revival of David McVicar’s production of Le nozze di Figaro under Mackerras, a regular partnership. I chatted to her on the eve of the dress rehearsal to ask her about her welcome return to London and her plans to add roles such as Aida and Thais to her repertoire.

Le nozze di Figaro is one of Mozart’s best-loved opere buffe but as Frittoli sees it, the Countess is far from being a comic character. ‘Well, I think that none of the characters is comic!’ she declares. ‘It’s very important to remember where these people have come from. The Countess is Rosina from Il barbiere di Siviglia. Of course, she is married now, and she’s growing up a bit, but she’s still the same person. She’s a bit like Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, very pathetic, and she finds herself in a strange situation with the Count and the others. Perhaps Bartolo and Marcellina can be comic characters, but none of the others is.’

Does that mean she’s a weak person? ‘No of course she’s not weak. It’s a little bit of a shame that this production is set a century after the play, because in the era Beaumarchais was writing about, women were not allowed any power: they could not have a say about anything. The Countess has to go on as she is, and the Count makes all the decisions for her. That’s why she has to have help from Susanna and Figaro, whose actions are in her favour as well as their own.’

In La mere coupable, the third of Beaumarchais’ Figaro plays, the Countess has had an affair with Cherubino. But Frittoli doesn’t think that’s part of the action of Mozart’s Figaro. ‘There’s not even a mention of it. But in the second act, there’s the brief scene where Susanna and the Countess play with Cherubino and dress him up. It’s obvious that he’s madly in love with her and wants her. But at the end of the day, they are just two young women who want to play with a boy, no more than that. In this production, there’s a brief indication that the Countess will have a baby with Cherubino, but for me it’s not so important. We know what happens in the future, but that’s enough.’

Although the Countess has two big arias and various other important numbers to sing, she doesn’t appear at all in Act I. Does that bother Frittoli? ‘It doesn’t bother me in the least. I mean, the title role is Figaro, and he and Susanna are the most important characters. Beaumarchais intended it that way: the servants were the people he wanted to write about. When the play was first performed, it was a social scandal because of the way it depicts the serving class and their interaction with their masters. So for me, it’s not a problem. Also, it needs to be clear to the audience what has happened in Act I before the Countess arrives in Act II, so I don’t care about not appearing in the first act. And I never care if I’m playing the title role or a small role – when the cast is so nice and good at what they do, as they are here, you don’t care.’

What’s the working relationship like with Sir Charles Mackerras, the conductor of this revival? ‘Oh, it’s very special. Of course, sometimes it’s not easy because he knows so much about the music and is so famous for doing it! And not everyone does Mozart like he does, but that makes it very interesting. The main thing is that he is so energetic, which is very important for Mozart. Mozart must be kept alive, and if anything, Sir Charles is even more energetic and funny in this production than he normally is. He’s also a great musician, of course, and he matches his energy to the stage action: to conduct this music well, you have to know how to follow what happens on stage.’

David McVicar’s production updates the action to around 1830. What does Frittoli make of that? ‘Beaumarchais was alive in the eighteenth century, not the nineteenth century, and for me, I normally like Mozart to be performed in period. However, the way they have done this production is fantastic – the costumes and scenery are beautiful. I did a modern production once, and I hated it: although I like the modern way of acting, I don’t like to update the setting. How can you talk about the droit de seigneur in a modern period, for instance? They’ve done it all well here, but in other productions I’ve worked on, they’ve changed the words because, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work. It’s like Shakespeare: it doesn’t really make sense to do Romeo and Juliet in anything other than the original time period.’

Read more here!

My Last Duchess and The Clever Mistress making NYC premieres on April 23rd and 30th!

by Melissa Wimbish

Today is the day!!! Cutting Edge Concerts will present a double-bill of modern opera from composers Robert Sirota and Theodore Wiprud this evening and a week from today on April 30th. This program got me thinking…premieres like this must be somewhat equivalent to an audition for composers, right? Sitting in the audience hoping people don’t say anything like, “This really sucks”or, “Wake me up when it’s over”… I think I would just die. But, this is the composer’s courageous way of life and without it, there would be just be a bunch of weirdos improvising on stage all the time and that would get kind of annoying after awhile. Join Operagasm in wishing Mr. Sirota and Mr. Wiprud along with Cutting Edge Concerts, a wonderful NYC premiere!

Today we hear from Theodore Wiprud, creator of the opera My Last Duchess, which sounds like it’s going to be cray interesting:

This month at Operagasm, we’re discussing efficiency and realism in our approach to auditioning..as well as the need to be able to laugh at the process sometimes. How would you describe your audition process as a member of the audience during a premiere of your work, for example? Essentially, what are your audition moments like? Feel free to share stories.

Hearing the premiere of a piece of mine along with an audience can dramatically change my perception of the music.  Somehow being with other listeners enables me to hear it from the outside, for the first time.  I think this effect is lessening as I become more experienced as a composer – my risks are better calculated, I guess, and outcomes more sure!  But I suspect I share something with the panicked auditioner when I have felt that a passage did not achieve its desired impact on listeners.

Please talk about reaching into the past to find inspiration for a new opera and how it speaks to our modern culture? Can you talk more about the significance of the Renaissance era and its influence during your composition process? What about Browning’s connection with that era, if any?

I love the music of the Italian Renaissance, particularly the secular madrigal tradition, so reaching back to that musical source material was a sensuous and personal choice.  I spent a very happy summer studying a number of those composers and writing short studies in their various styles.  The most extended study, a setting of a poem by Robert Browning (not My Last Duchess itself) turned out so well that it became the overture of the opera, and the source of most of the opera’s tunes.  The overture is an a cappella madrigal, rather than orchestral – placing us immediately in the Renaissance vocal tradition.

I think the story of My Last Duchess – about the various objects of love, the ruthlessness of materialism, the helplessness of the powerless – are timeless.  Browning – who lived in Rome and was deeply involved with Italian culture – wrote voluminously about that period, often identifying a decadence in its artistic splendor – most notably so in the dramatic monologue, My Last Duchess.  His themes and tone are consistent enough that my librettist, the playwright and director Tom Dulack, was able to piece together passages of five Browning poems in all, to provide dialogue for the four characters in the piece.  The Duke Alfonso II (an historical figure) has the entire poem My Last Duchess; the other characters – the young man to whom the Duke is making his monstrous confession; the late Duchess herself, who sings to us from beyond the grave; and the young woman to whom the Duke has just become engaged – his next Duchess, and possibly his next victim.

What were some of your initial thoughts about the poem My Last Duchess and its musical qualities? 

The drama of the poem is what first appealed to me; and then the thought that it takes place in a specific time and place – Ferrara, 1550 – that has a specific sound.  The downside of setting exquisite poetry like Browning’s is that it can be hard to parse – as a reader, you can go back over a line to figure out the syntax and get the sense and then marvel at the artistry of the expression.  Hearing it sung, you don’t have time to do all that.  So I was very careful in setting the language to clarify it as much as possible.  And of course providing a libretto to the audience is very important!

When you write for voices, what do you consider? Are you typically writing with a specific voice in mind, or does it vary? Who are some of your favorite singers?

Prosody above everything – how the words are naturally spoken with the emphasis and expression I want to give them.  Occasionally I’ve had the chance to write for specific voices, but that’s not the case with this opera.  I’m not so much a voice connoisseur as a music connoisseur – I’d say whatever voice is thrilling me at the moment is my favorite.  And I’m experiencing a lot of that in rehearsals for My Last Duchess, without exaggeration.  I am so impressed by every member of my cast.

Would you share some details about your collaboration with librettist, Tom Dulack? I was particularly interested to read that he had written a play about Ezra Pound. Do you think that some subjects in our culture are highly neglected by the “opera community” because of a desire to uphold tradition? 

Tom and I have been collaborating on Young People’s Concerts at the New York Philharmonic for seven years, so we know each others’ abilities and foibles quite well.  He’s an incredibly lively intellect, with such a flair for theatrical gesture, and it was he who initially suggested the subject of My Last Duchess.  The collaboration mostly proceeded by his providing words (from various Browning poems) and my setting them, but with lots of back-and-forth about the order of text, the intentions of the characters, etc.  Our first draft was long on poetry but very short on story-telling – I think all our subsequent versions (we are performing the fifth version) have made the story clearer and the emotions more pointed, better highlighted.

As a composer, can you offer some thoughts about the state of music in our culture and the hopes that you have for its future in our society? That’s not meant to be a terribly epic question, but you are welcome to answer epically if you have time.

Without waxing epic, I’m thrilled about the state of music in our time.  Of course I’m lucky – I hear the New York Philharmonic every week because of my day job directing education there.  And I hear a fantastic mix of standards and new works.  But more broadly, while there is surely low-value mass market music out there, I don’t discount the artistry of hip-hop, country, pop, or anything else.  The United States generates a staggering amount of highly polished music in every style.  And looking just at “classical” music, alt-classical, post-classical, or what-have-you, I love the ways many composers in their 20s are finding their own takes on the classical tradition.  Yes, one hears flavors of the month, briefly dominant esthetics, but each of these leaves a trace of something valuable in the culture.  Music is such an innate, necessary human activity, I have absolutely no concern about its thriving in diverse forms.  And I even believe opera and concert music are thriving traditions with bright futures.

Are there any jokes about composers that are favorites of yours that you would like to share? You’re also welcome to share jokes about other subjects, but it would be nice to hear a joke about composers.

I hesitate to repeat jokes half-remembered because I’m sure to get something crucial wrong.  I may come up with one but this is not my forte I’m afraid!  I do know a bunch of viola jokes…

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My Last Duchess is one of the great dramatic monologues, written by Robert Browning in 1842. It conjures up the splendor of the Italian Renaissance in the person of a sophisticated and monstrously proud Duke. In Ferrara, around 1550, the Duchess Lucrezia died young, and poisoning was suspected. Her actual portrait was the basis of Browning’s poem, and now of the opera My Last Duchess, composed by Theodore Wiprud to a libretto by Tom Dulack, derived completely from poems by Browning.

The Decameron of Boccaccio is the greatest trove of Renaissance-era stories, many of them bawdy. One of the most charming seductions in the whole collection is found in The Clever Mistress. Composer Robert Sirota has composed a comic opera to his own libretto based on this story of feminine initiative.

Now these two Renaissance-inspired operas are premiering as a double bill presented by Cutting Edge Concerts, at Symphony Space in New York City. There will be two performances, on April 23 and April 30, Mondays at 7:30 PM.

The tragedy of My Last Duchess – composed as a modern take on the great Italian madrigalists; the farce of The Clever Mistress – composed as a cheeky take on both medieval and Renaissance music: the two make a perfect pair. And when some cast members take roles in both, the connections become priceless.

Victoria Bond, the leader of Cutting Edge Concerts, will conduct. Award-winning playwright and director Tom Dulack is directing a full production featuring dance. Tyler Learned has designed the production and lighting. Matthew Galek is creating a video to promote future performances. The cast is out of this world. These two evenings promise to be unforgettable.

To purchase tickets for the operas, please visit Cutting Edge Concerts.

“This career is not for the faint of heart, okay?”

This interview with Michael Fabiano was really quite delightful to see. I remembered his face from clips of the movie, The Audition, but never really followed his career. Oops.

What a voice and what a charming young man. This must be what it feels like to be one of those old ladies who votes for politicians based on their good looks. It’s your typical opera interview with questions like, “What’s your routine?”, “Do you get nervous on stage?”, “When do you drink the red wine?”, but worth a watch..because Fanny Kiefer is just a hoot and because it’s interesting to hear more about how Fabiano stays so fab.

If you only have time for a quick laugh, start at 11:28 for Ms. Kiefer’s comments on the supertitles. Love. her.

“Many of our members know Jennifer Peterson as the incredibly gifted, professional, well-versed audition pianist who frequents the New York City audition halls, but Jennifer is also an accomplished conductor as well as the founder and director of a well-respected newer opera company around town, operamission… She’ll share her thoughts on both the importance of the pianist and conductor in the careers of young singers as well as best practices for preparing for auditions.”

As someone who hears many auditions, what advice would you give singers and vocal accompanists who wish to stand out from among their peers when auditioning for young artist programs?

Always remember that the opera company needs to hear and see what you are capable of doing. This sounds obvious. But there are so many distractions from this that it is rarely achieved. Your job, if you succeed at a given audition, will be to portray a character in an opera, and do so by singing your way gloriously through the score. Your job is NOT to design the costumes or to print the programs or to market the season or rent the set or to negotiate with the unions. The person listening to you behind the table has to manage all these other jobs and more, so keep the casting part of their job as simple as you can. Give them a true sense of what your portrayal of each character (as represented by your audition selections) would sound like and feel like, were they to plunk you in their theater with their orchestra and their set & costumes. Even if your aria is not something from their season, give them a true taste of how you would flesh out each character whose text you are singing. Be direct. Know the character, know the opera, and know why that character MUST sing these words to the air at this given moment, as prescribed by the librettist and the composer. This is enough of a challenge; there is no need to worry about any other departments of the opera company for which you are auditioning. The result: if you show them clearly that you can do your job well with no distractions, then they will know their job will be made easier by casting you. 

Years ago, I conducted a little experiment with regard to the audition process. I jotted quick notes in a notebook of my first impressions of all of the singers in a YAP as they sang their two audition arias the first day of the program. It was the first time I had heard any of them sing. I referred back to my notes throughout the duration of the program as I worked with the singers individually and grew to know them better. For the most part, my initial impressions were incorrect. For most I was correct in assessing their voices, but I often thought their musicianship was weak when they proved to me later that it was quite strong. The same went for other aspects of their performances. This taught me that an audition is RARELY a good assessment of a singer’s level. It is your job to tell us who you are as clearly as possible, so potential opportunities are not lost due to this confusing phenomenon.

This applies to pianists as well. Make it clear to the opera company what your skills are. If your skills match the job, it will be a good fit. If you are not the right person for the job, everyone will be better off if you don’t pretend that you are.

What are the most consistent areas where young singers could work to improve their audition “game”?

I find that singers spend quite a bit of wasted energy trying to second-guess the audition panel. My best advice is to always prioritize good healthy singing. A well-sung aria is a beautiful thing. If you feel you need to manipulate the opera company’s decision, please just do it through the music. It is the most powerful way. If you are spending more time at the computer asking advice and tweaking your CV & your website than you are studying your music and working on your singing, then you are probably not actively becoming a more castable singer. Yes, you need a ‘package’ — but think about it… It’s an extremely competitive business in every way. Ultimately the most important element of a good audition is good singing.

For our young singers who are just entering the YAP circuit, how should they prioritize their focus and pursuits? For example, is a master’s degree required before you begin auditioning for the major companies? Do they need to hone their craft in smaller YAPs before pursuing the upper tier?

There is no one ‘path’ and don’t let anyone tell you there is. The YAP circuit has changed quite a bit from the early 1990s when I left graduate school and started out as an apprentice. We generally did one or two YAPs, but now singers do as many as six. I have good friends with successful international careers who did NONE, but paid their dues and worked incredibly hard in establishing themselves with the help of voice teachers, coaches, managers, etc., but avoided the formal training programs entirely. I think the key elements in the wording of your excellent question, Julie, are “focus” and “hone their craft.” Young singers must keep in mind that ideally, they will continue to improve the longer they are in the business. Find the best opportunities you can, for what you can handle at any given level of experience and training, and know that you will only improve with more experience and perspective. Focus, yes, and actively hone your craft every opportunity you possibly can. If the standard YAPs don’t offer you positions, find opportunities elsewhere. Opera is constantly being reinvented; there are no limits to what  constitutes a production. The more you are on stage with an orchestra in the pit, the more comfortable you will be when thrown into your La Scala debut with no rehearsal, but in the meantime, soak up those skills in any way you can possibly think up.

As a conductor/director, what attributes do you value most in the singers you choose to hire?

That’s easy: honesty, both in singing and in communication. I value artists who are interested in performing at the absolutely highest level, while being willing to play & grow with me through the process.Are there any reasons a singer would be considered a “do not hire” based on an audition or a “do not hire back” based on a performance experience? I can be very forgiving and often give people several chances, but will not hire a singer from an audition if they do not sing well. 

If a singer is unreliable in terms of their artistic commitment, I cannot afford to re-hire them.

Definitely check out the full interview here!!!

This interview includes Patricia Racette, Brandon Jovanovich, and Patrick Summers talking about their experience with Il Trittico at San Francisco Opera. Wonderful insight from the pros on a monumental work. Check the instant replay!

Little did these divas know they would be going head-to-head in March Madness on Operagasm when they spoke so politely before Ms. Voigt’s Brunhilde debut. Maybe this interview wouldn’t have been so cordial if they were on the basketball court!!!

Have you heard about Jeremy Lin? He’s like the Renée Fleming of basketball. Except he’s tall and Asian-American.

The first time I heard this story, my eyes filled with tears of joy! Maybe it’s because I’m not used to looking at a television and the dramatic light changes triggered my tear ducts…or maybe it’s because I’m an “emo” singer who’s a sucker for a success story. Whatever the reason, it got me excited about basketball again.

I grew up watching and playing (on the blacktops at Westwood Elementary, son!) during the reign of Michael Jordan. When he left the Bulls, the whole game died for me because of all of the cocky jerks that followed his footsteps. (COugh couGH Cough Kobe Bryant and other people similar to him.) Perhaps this beacon of “Lin-spiration” will once more bless the world of basketball with real grace and skill.

Let this story lift your spirits today, but ESPECIALLY those of all the singers who woke up on someone else’s couch in order to make an audition today. Keep ballin’.

Bubbles sits in the interviewer chair to chat with director, Harold Prince during an intermission of Bernstein’s Candide at the New York City Opera. What a fabulous little photograph of history — and what a fascinating history of the “opera version” of this piece! Ms. Sills insisted upon the opera being produced at NYCO back in ’86…and she got it!

Check out this short and sweet interview with prominent members of the “biz” making a case for opera. What do you think? Anything you want to add? Or hate on? Leave your comments below!

Operagasm is on a winning Valentine streak! For the second year in a row, we have been fortunate to spend the holiday of love with some of the brightest hearts in the opera business. This interview seemed more like a much-needed therapy session for me rather than a conversation with one of the most popular bass-baritones in the universe. Even as the phone rang, I was thinking about the stack of music on my piano instead of realizing that Luca Pisaroni had already made three attempts at “Hello”. Ah! Focus!

Don’t worry, I recovered and managed to chirp some sort of greeting. And yes, exactly how you imagine the cutest Italian accent to sound over the phone at 9ish in the morning — that was my reality. Sigh…I forgot all about that stack of music…

MW: You seem to have had a very global education. Growing up in Italy, but also studying in Venezuela and New York, would you talk more about what this has done for your artistic journey?

LP: Certainly. Studying in different countries opens your mind a lot. There are a lot of stereotypes when you talk about Italians and…uh…you know.. 90% of them are true. (He laughs.) When you move to America, especially, it’s really different. It happened by chance, I have to say, I didn’t look for it. I thought it would be enough for me to study at the conservatory in Milano…but, you know, I had a terrible teacher and I was never able to sing the way that I wanted to sing. The way I imagined I could sing. I had to look for something and for somebody who could actually help me with that. So, first of all, I found this tenor in South America and then, because my wife was studying in New York, I began to study there.

I live in Vienna now because I like it and I think it’s a great city. Opera is part of everybody’s life. I like it also because it fits with my personality. There, I discovered Lieder and songs and this rich tradition of song-writing. When I was young, I decided that if I ever became an opera singer, I would always sing Lieder –we don’t have this tradition of song-writing in Italy, but it certainly makes my career much more interesting. The exposure to different cultures is so important. If I hadn’t lived for awhile in Austria or America, I wouldn’t have gotten in touch with this sort of repertoire. I always say, when you study, you should just go away for awhile because it’s always nice to find another home and try to discover another culture.

MW: I’m curious about what you do to set boundaries for yourself so that you’re not exhausted all the time. What do you do to stay in good vocal shape?

For me, the main thing is sleeping. I know I sound like an old man…but sleeping is probably the most important thing for me. Especially the day of a performance I need to sleep as long as I can. I always sleep in the afternoon..that’s why everybody makes fun of me for a show at 7:30, by 1 or 1:30 I’m already back in bed for, like, an hour and a half.  If I’m rested I know that my voice is fine.

And the other thing that I didn’t do at the beginning of my career is to work out before the show. Not much, I don’t need to make myself tired, but I do run for 20 minutes and stretch. Over the years I’ve discovered that if my body is ready, the warming up of the voice takes much less time.

In terms of keeping sane, I try to do as much as I can with my wife when I don’t have to work. I try to go to the movies,  galleries, the theatre…and I like to go to opera so if there is something in town that I want to see, you know…I would definitely sit through an Aida for three and a half hours. Definitely. Because I really like to go to the opera, I think it’s great. I’m not one of those singers that says, “Never opera, just Madonna.” No, the contrary! Only opera..and sometimes Frank Sinatra.

MW: You mentioned that when you were a younger singer, you knew you were capable of a certain sound but you weren’t singing that way. Can you talk more about that? It sounds so much like..

He begins to talk because the delay on the phone is a little bit weird and I think he thought I was done asking my question. Then, he stops short.

LP: What did you say? Sounds so much…?

MW: Huh? No, go ahead..

LP: No, what did you say? You said, “Sound so much like..”

MW: Oh, I was just going to say, it sounds so much like…probably what goes on in my head. You know, you go into these phases where you think you’ve figured out so much about your voice and you’re singing so well, and then you have these weeks when the inner-dialogue is more like, “What happened? Why can’t I sing anymore?”

Pause.

One of the best parts of these interviews is going back to the recording, listening to all of the different laughs, and then identifying them. With Luca, there were three distinct kinds:

The pity laugh: This one happened a lot. It typically occurred when I said most things.

The soft chuckle: Used a lot while talking about his wife. It was sweet.

The explosive-major-triad-guffaw: No, seriously, I’m pretty sure he laughed a major triad. It was awesome. That’s what happened right there when I hit “Pause”. Okay, we’re back.

LP: I laugh because I gave a young bass-baritone a coaching when I was in New York. He was talking about his ups and downs and saying, “Sometimes I think I know it and then three days later nothing works!” At the beginning of my career especially, I had exactly the same feeling he had. There were some lessons I walked out of saying, “That’s it, I know it,” and two days later I was back to square one… I didn’t remember how to take a decent breath.

This is, unfortunately, what happens at the beginning of a career, you know? You’re trying to figure out your technique …and it takes awhile. You have to be patient, it’s the hardest thing when you’re trying to get better.

MW: Your career appears to have been carefully planned. You made smart, marked repertoire decisions. How did you resist the urge to overextend yourself? What recommendations do you have for students in dealing with overly-ambitious teachers or coaches?

I always had an idea about how I should sound..not in terms of color because this is not your job. I always say “Let your voice be.” This is the only way it will ever develop.  It’s not healthy to “color” your voice and to try to push it somewhere.  I always had an idea of how easy it should sound. I wanted my vowel sound easy throughout the range. When I was in Milano, I knew the person I was working with was not helping me with this. So, I was constantly looking for someone else. I remember singing a page of recitative sometimes, being out of breath and wondering, “How is this possible? How do people sing an entire opera? This is simply not right.”

I knew what I wanted and how I wanted to sound. I tell you, I believe very strongly that a singer has a sixth sense and has to listen to it AT ALL TIMES. Every time I didn’t listen to my instinct, I was really really unhappy. If my gut feeling tells me this is the right person for me or I can sing this repertoire, or I can’t, you have to trust that. Your voice will certainly suffer if you don’t. These decisions can sometimes make or break a career.

Be patient. Don’t ever do anything that is not right for your voice — do what your voice is happy with. You will never damage yourself singing Mozart.

Every other month, opera companies are closing all around the world. As an opera-goer yourself, what do you think audiences are craving that they are not currently receiving?

Yeah, I mean… It’s really sad to see this. It’s really scary. I talk as a professional who works in this business and I also talk as an audience member. It’s sad because I remember when I was an adolescent 20 years ago. The opera theaters were incredibly full. And there was actually passion, you know? People had passion and people wanted to go and people talked about it. Nowadays, I feel like opera is viewed more as entertainment rather than something that has some kind of value and some kind of relevance in people’s life, you know? That’s the thing I’m really worried about.

What can we do? (Wow, I sounded really desperate just then.)

That’s a good question. I honestly don’t know. There is no magic wand here. The amount of things that are available to people, the fact that in school people aren’t taught about music… there are so many things. Obviously for an adolescent to spend 80 dollars to go to the Met and see an opera or 12 dollars to go to a movie — I’m pretty sure they will go to the movie.

I remember when I was in school I had no money, but I had the passion, you know? I would sit and wait all day to get the standing-room tickets that were worth 5 dollars. I don’t know….I don’t know. I’m sad because art and music reaches people. It’s sad when our society doesn’t pay attention to this.

Do you think this is a world-wide deterioration in awareness, or something you have come across mostly in the United States?

Ummm…no. I read yesterday that the house in Barcelona is closing for two months now. It’s a general problem. There is a different approach about opera, in my opinion, in America and in Europe. Still 99% of the money in American institutions comes from private donations while I’m sure more than 60% in Europe comes from the government. This proves at least some kind of interest from the government to actually keep this art form alive. It is a little bit different. I have to say that as much as the Met is “The Met” and I love singing there and it’s renowned everywhere, I feel like the house is not as much in the center of New York life as I would like it be.

I love Vienna, because when you take a cab in Vienna, you know, every single cab driver knows the name of the director of Wiener Staatsoper. The election of the director of Wiener Staatsoper is a national thing. Everybody knows. Austria, yes, it’s much smaller, but it’s nice to see how relevant opera and classical musical in general are there.  I admire private donors in this country…. They’re amazing. Without them, this art form would not exist at all. A mixture of government money and private donors would be the perfect thing. I don’t envy people who have to run an opera house. It’s not easy.

I try to do everything I can to make this art form more accessible, I use Facebook and YouTube and make videos for kids because kids are the future generation who are actually going to watch me sing in 15 years.   Recently Joyce [DiDonato] and I did a video for this school while we were singing Enchanted Island and we said “Hi” to them at the HD broadcast… and it was so cute because I received probably 35 letters from the kids saying how awesome that was and how much they love the opera. So, it’s very important to do this. 

Young singers are constantly thinking about their technique as they make the transition into performing more and more on stage. How does that awareness evolve as you become busier with traveling and learning to adjust to life on the road?

I work 11 months out of the year, but every time I have a little bit of time I go to my teacher in Amsterdam. I try to see her at least twice a year. I like to work on the repertoire that I will eventually do because I believe in studying something ahead of time, preparing it early, leaving it alone for awhile, and then coming back to it later, you know? This helps me so much.

The sad thing about technique, and here I’m quoting my father-in-law (Thomas Hampson)..the sad thing is that you never get it right! You learn to make less mistakes. I always thought, “Oh, there is going to be a day when you know what to do and that’s it!” There is a time like that, but it’s very different than this. You learn the pillars and you build on that and you know that no matter what condition you are in, “that” sound is going to come out. It might not be your best sound of the day, but you are going to be able to get through a performance even if you don’t feel 100 percent. My debut was 11 years ago in Figaro and I can’t even imagine how that would sound to me now. I didn’t have the technical security.

It’s a process. Everybody goes through it, it takes awhile, but life would be incredibly boring without it. I happen to like it.

Now, for the fun questions!

MW: I’m pretty sure that I’m the first person that created a FB for my dog — are you copying me? I see that your dogs, Lenny 2.0 and Tristan, recently came aboard.

LP: I thought it would be nice to see the life of a singer through the eyes of a dog. They travel with us all the time unless the schedule is just too much for them. I think my dogs are special and that all other canines should be jealous that my dogs have so many Facebook friends! (He laughs — wow, he loves those dogs.)

It makes me feel like we are at home no matter where we go.

MW: What composer would you most want to portray in a film?

LP: My father-in-law stole my answer. Verdi would be awesome.

MW: Has anyone ever told you that you look like Dennis from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”?

LP: Who?

MW: What’s a favorite role not in your Fach that you would love to sing in your dreams?

LP: You know, this is going to take an hour. (He laughs.) I have to say I am a missed tenor. When I was an adolescent I had a tenor voice and so I know most of the Italian arias by heart… Otello.

MW: How did you meet your lovely wife? How did you know she was “The One”?

LP: (Really long laugh. Makes me wonder if she was in the room. So cute.) Thomas introduced us and I remember him looking at me in a very menacing way as if to say, “Don’t even think about it.” Well, she was at every staging rehearsal and we began talking about the production, you know, small talk. It was so funny because Thomas and I had a fight scene in the opera, and it became one of the most realistic fight scenes I have ever done! Very well-choreographed. (He laughs.)

At the party after the premiere, I just…you know…I kissed her. (I “awwed” appropriately.) She thought it would never work out because she was very focused on her studies, she went back to New York…but I knew she was the right one, you know? She is the good half of me. She is so damn smart, she makes everybody around her better, and for that, I was determined to make it work. At the beginning she didn’t like me that much, but Thomas defended me…

It was very romantic. I find it very cute that we met during my debut in Salzburg and that it was all opera-related. Of course, she has her own life and her own profession, but she is a very important confidant and supports me so much. I am very lucky to have her.

And please, put a Facebook link to my dogs. We are working on getting to a thousand friends.

Awwwwwwwww…..! We love him. Love. Love. Love him. Happy Valentine’s Day to all of our dear Operagasm readers and to the dashing Luca Pisaroni!

!!!!!!!!!!!!AND HERE’S THE LINK TO LENNY AND TRISTAN 2.0′s FACEBOOK PAGE!!!!!!!!!!