Shudders ran through opera-land last April when top tenor Rolando Villazón
announced that he was putting his schedule on hold while he underwent throat
surgery. It wasn’t clear how serious the problem might be. Many feared a
premature end to his brilliant career.
Happily, the new year finds the Mexican star bouncing back with a new CD in
February, followed by a string of opera and concert performances which kick
off in March. But, before all that, the rejuvenated Villazón is taking the
daring lateral step of appearing on prime-time television in ITV1’s new
reality-music series Popstar to Operastar, joining Katherine Jenkins in
mentoring eight pop singers as they try to sing operatic arias.
“I am not a singing teacher, but I can give advice from the perspective of an
opera singer who has 10 years of experience,” Villazón explains. “I will
work on the interpretation, and if I see a problem I will try to fix it.”
One possibly unintended irony of the show is that Villazón and Jenkins between
them pack vastly more star quality than the contestants, most of whom are
unlikely to bring traffic screeching to a halt. They include Darius Campbell
(perhaps better known as Danesh), Vanessa White from the Saturdays, Bernie
Nolan from the Nolan Sisters, Danny Jones from McFly, and “Little” Jimmy
Osmond. Maybe ITV will have a phone-in contest where viewers have to guess
how on earth Blur’s bass player, Alex James, became a contestant in an
opera-singing contest.
Serious students of opera won’t know whether to laugh or cry. Well, actually
they will, especially when they learn that the show is co-hosted by wrinkly
horticulturist Alan Titchmarsh and reality TV’s test-tube babe Myleene
Klass. But Villazón, thrumming with an infectious confidence fuelled by
seeing his career spring back to life, is immune to negative thoughts.
"It has been the way I expected it to be – fun!” he declares, with a gust of
room-filling laughter. “I’m an opera singer, but I’m a performer, too, and
the human contact is fantastic. I’m enjoying it very much. I’m learning from
the pop artists, the way they feel the music and the way they transform it.
Their enthusiasm for this music, and their amazement at discovering it, is
fantastic.”
Is this another stunt under the tattered banner of “making opera accessible to
the masses”, or is it simply an entertainment show?
“Yes, it is entertainment,” says Villazón, who quite understands that trying
to sing one aria bears no relation to being engaged in the full-scale
dramatic experience of a complete opera. “I’m sure it will bring some people
in, but that is not the objective. I’m not here because I’m the ambassador
for opera. I’m here because they invited me, it sounded like fun, and I said
yes. Besides, the opera houses are full already. It’s hard enough to get a
ticket.”
An unusually well-read singer apt to veer off into digressions about Sartre,
Heidegger or Walt Whitman, Villazón has already written his own previews of
what the opera critics will say. “When they see me on TV they will probably
say, 'Why would a serious opera singer get into this?’ But, for me, the
question is, 'Why not?’ I’m not harming the art form".
“Critics will say, 'It will make people confused about what opera is’, but
those who know opera won’t get confused. Those who are confused but are
interested in the music will not be confused if they immerse themselves in
opera. There really is no harm in this.”
Popstar to Operastar looks like a handy publicity splurge to advertise
Villazón’s performing comeback, but he insists there is no such masterplan.
“The way you ask that makes it sound as if it was prepared, but it was just
the way things happen in life,” he says. “I received a phone call about the
show, and my heart said this sounds great, let’s follow this one. The timing
happened to be perfect, because if it had been in a year’s time I wouldn’t
have had the time to do it.
“And, anyway, where am I back from? I just had to stop singing because I had
to have an operation. I didn’t retire – it wasn’t like Frank Sinatra,
retiring and then saying, 'Guess what, I haven’t retired after all.’ I
always knew my career was going to continue.”
He also points out that throat problems affect a huge proportion of opera
singers, but most of them are terrified of discussing it publicly. “If you
say you’ve had an operation, it’s as if you are cursed,” he says. “I would
say to singers of the world, 'Get out of the closet and announce it! Me too
– I had an operation!’ It’s like being a sportsman, where you use one part
of your body to the extreme."
Meanwhile, there must be a distinct possibility that the TV programme could
propel Villazón’s career off in different directions, because his fizzing
energy and attractive personality might easily make him a natural TV star.
He’s fortunate, too, in being such an established opera-house favourite that
he can consider excursions into different musical areas. His forthcoming
album, Tenor, is a mix of popular arias such as Verdi’s Brindisi and
Puccini’s O soave fanciulla with a trio of musical theatre pieces – Maria
from West Side Story, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Music of the Night, and The
Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha.
A cynic might detect an attempt by his record label, Deutsche Grammophon, to
exploit the “poperatic” commercial windfall of Popstar to Operastar, though
Villazón’s infatuation with music theatre dates back to his childhood.
“I love musicals. When I was 12 I used to sing the soundtrack of Man of La
Mancha, with Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren. I used to play Don Quixote.”
Oblivious of the fact that we’re sitting in a hotel lobby, he launches into a
full-scale re-enactment, as if he’s reaching out to the back row of the
London Palladium: “ 'You spoke of a dream and about a quest!’ 'A quest? What
did I say about it?’ 'To dream…the impossible dream!’ ”
Laughing, he comes back down to earth. “That song is like a theme for my life.
To dream the impossible dream, to be a Mexican and become an opera singer
and go to Europe. In my family, there was never any hint of me being able to
do that. Life is a journey, and you should live it to the maximum with all
your heart.”
