the mad scene

This month’s issue of the Musical Theatre Newsletter includes an audition notice to submit your own 15 minute musical, and a side-by-side comparison between the musical Rent and La Boheme. The Mad Scene takes sole responsibility for reproducing the Business Times feature on producing local musicals that follows.

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A for AVATAR
First, did you know that Singapore also had a film entitled Avatar. It may not have made as much money as James Cameron’s Avatar but it did star Joan Chen, Lim Kay Siu. And it beat James Cameron by a good 5 years. Let me know which Avatar you prefer? Oh you never watched Avatar?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0270841/

B. YALE UNIVERSITY
Why you should apply to Yale University (courtesy of Puah Guanhua who went to Columbia U)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0270841/

C. YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES SONG
Congratulations to Bernice Vollmond, Selly Marina, Shahdon, Juz Jumari, Elinor Coulson, and Michael Koh, for their fantastic performance of the song This is the Day, which was our entry for the song contest for the Youth Olympic Games. We made it to the top 10, but were outvoted by the online votes and the audience screams on the performance day.

D. SWEET CHARITY
Do please support our friends currently graduating from LaSalle’s Musical Theatre course, when they perform Sweet Charity
http://www.gatecrash.com.sg/?page=event_detail&actionForm=detail&eventID=641

E. SHORT MUSICAL FILMS
Congratulations to Chiam Sing Wei, Marilyn Wong, Rayve Tay and others on their highly successful short film “Love Song”: http://lovesongthemusical.wordpress.com/ Also congratulations to Foo Xiu Qi and her team for their short musical film, “Store-Bought Love”: http://store-bought-love.blogspot.com/ Both films were screened at GV Grand at Great World City. Is the start of a new generation of Singapore musical filmmakers?

F. MINI MUSICALS
Today the judges were out to select the mini (15-minute) musicals for staging in July 2010. We are waiting with bated breath for their verdict. Auditions will be announced soon.

If you have anything of interest, please let me know

Ken
6 March 2010
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‘Local’ musicals aim for the big time
by Sharon Cheah Ui-Hoon
The Business Times, Friday, March 5, 2010

There hasn’t been a made-in-Singapore musical that’s toured overseas yet - at least not in a big enough way that will make musical theatre fans around the world sit up and notice.

 That hasn’t stopped local theatre groups from ramping up their song-and-dance routines. Original musicals - not to mention witty revues - feature regularly on local stages and are set to increase, thanks to a growing interest in this genre.

 Besides Mark Chan’s new musical produced for the National University of Singapore’s Arts Festival (see other story), upcoming shows in the next few weeks including a restaging of Toy Factory’s December Rains - Singapore’s first Chinese musical - and a new offering by Sing’Theatre, a company started in 2006 specifically to stage musicals.
 Action Theatre’s Makan Drama Festival will even provide some samplers - three new musical numbers (with some dialogue) based on playwright Ovidia Yu’s play titled Hokkien Mee.

 The writing interest is definitely there, says Stella Kon, playwright who’s turned her creative energies towards writing musicals in recent years. She’s the chairperson of Musical Theatre Ltd (MTL), which was set up in 2005 to “incubate” original musicals.
 “It’s wonderful, and surprising as well, that there’s quite a lot of interest in writing musicals,” she says, adding that they saw decent turnouts at their workshops and incubation programmes last year. MTL also has a few original musicals in the making this year - a mini opera called Mee Pok Man, based on Eric Khoo’s film of the same name, and possibly, a musical based on the life of disabled athlete William Tan, to be staged during the Youth Olympic Games this year.

 The main reason why theatre companies like to put on musicals is because there is a ready audience which likes them, says Nathalie Ribette, artistic director of Sing’Theatre. She has an affinity for musicals. “Because I think theatre is to promote cultural diversity and exchange, and it’s easy to use music to do this,” says the Frenchwoman.
 Sing’Theatre’s 2007 production of No Regrets: A Tribute to Edith Piaf certainly made music lovers sit up, and this year, it hopes to sell as many as 4,000 tickets for A Singaporean in Paris.

 “It’s the biggest show for Sing’Theatre so far,” says Ribette, adding that as previous musicals have sold well, they’re quite confident about this one (being staged next month). The musical was written based on interviews done with Singaporeans living in Paris, while the songs featured are by well-known French musicians.

 While musicals might cost more to produce, they’re also easier to sell, she notes. Although there will be cases like the locally produced Victor/Victoria by Zebra Crossing Productions, which didn’t do well at the box office last year, despite its international star and cast.

 For Goh Boon Teck, artistic director of Toy Factory, musicals are about emotions - and the company is going big on musicals this year, with two Chinese ones slated for the stage. One is for Vesak Day, called Maha Moggallana, while the “blockbuster” will be the restaging of December Rains, which will raise the curtains of the bilingual theatre company’s 20th anniversary’s festival this year.

 “It was a big phenomenon in its time,” says Goh, of the Liang Wern Fook musical which was first written in 1996. Starring Kit Chan, the restaging will also have 13 shows, and even though it’s being performed only in August, about 1,000 tickets have been pre-sold.
 “Liang is known for his xinyao music, but we’re trying to make it more trendy in our restaging - so that it also appeals to a wider audience and not just the Chinese-speaking ones who are fans of Liang’s music,” says Goh.

 “Musical theatre has always been very popular in Singapore,” says Kenneth Lyen, Musical Theatre Ltd’s co-founder and creative director. He thinks the current increase in musicals may be a result of last year’s economic recession, and then this year’s improving economy - “causing an apparent ‘rebound’ in the number of new Singapore musicals staged”.

 “The arrival of two integrated resorts and the Youth Olympic Games has also given theatre companies renewed optimism, which emboldens them to stage more shows, including musicals. I foresee this trend to continue,” he notes.

 The major limitation is funding for local productions, he says, adding that if local writers and musicians are given the opportunity and funding support, they will be capable of producing musicals that can be international hits. Foreign imports (like Chicago, which comes here in April) tends to get funding more easily.

 So who should champion the musical? Proponents like Dr Lyen think that the National Arts Council should take the lead in supporting and also encouraging locally written musicals. “For example, there hasn’t been a Singapore musical in the annual Singapore Festival of Arts for the past 10 years.”

 Even with foreign competition like Chicago, directors like Goh think that there’s a big enough Singapore audience which appreciates “local” musicals, “because they feature local themes and topics, and our own culture”, he says. Nothing like a homegrown musical to make the local audience hum along, it sounds like.
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Bohemianism and Counter-Culture

 The 1996 Broadway rock musical Rent by Jonathan Larson is a modern expression of the Bohemian ideal. The musical is based extensively on Puccini’s La Boheme, incorporating musical themes, plot twists, and even lyrics of the opera. However, Rent also examines modern issues, such as homosexual relationships, AIDS, and drug addiction.

(click on the link to read more including a detailed analysis of similarities between Rent and La Boheme:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/bohem/trent.html

Norma: Daniela Dessi
Pollione: Fabio Armiliato
Adalgisa: Kate Aldrich
Oroveso: Rafal Siwek
Clotilde: Marie Luce Erard
Flavio: Antonello Ceron

Director: Federico Tiezzi
Sets: Pier Paolo Bisleri
Costumes: Giovanna Buzzi

Conductor: Evelino Pido

What better way to celebrate your 30th birthday than by checking out a newly released DVD of Norma? You know you are hitting some sort of age benchmark when you start reminiscing about the singers of your youth: in the late 90s, sopranos making the headlines include Renee Fleming, Angela Gheorghiu, Barbara Fritoli, Deborah Voigt and Daniela Dessi, to name a few. They were all signed to major labels, making important debuts in major houses, subjects of splashy CD advertising campaigns and worked with legendary maestros and equally famous colleagues.

Fast forward to the late 2000’s, and it seems that many of these rising stars had more or less dropped from the limelight. Of those mentioned, only Renee had risen to the level of superstardom that was so promising back then. Angela makes news for all the wrong reasons and people can’t help but use the words “Voigt” and “weightloss” in the same sentence. Dessi as I have heard chose to stay put in Italy, away from the international spotlight, in order to raise a family on homeground.

But seems like one of the ways a mature soprano can get back into the spotlight is to announce that she is about to attempt Norma, and so this DVD came into being. Of Dessi’s performance, making her role debut in this most difficult role, I’d say that she has the voice for it (give and take the odd flat note), but its not quite lived in and ready for the stage and cameras. While her sturdy and rich lyrico spinto is up to the role’s exacting demands, here and there we note a hint of hesitation, a sense that the soprano is thinking about just how to overcome the next difficult phrase, while emoting whenever its convenient. There’s a certain whiteness in the voice as well; a certain nasal effect that probably helps to focus the voice but making it rather bland at the same time, with none of the subtle shading of vocal colours that a certain Callas woman was famous for.

Dessi will probably get more settled in the role after a few runs, on this DVD the role is like a new pair of shoes that’s slightly painful to wear and requires a few more miles of walking to season it. That’s not to say that Dessi’s performance was a disaster; if viewed live in the theatre it would most likely be a great success given the heightened sense of excitement, but as an addition to the recording catalogue that already boasts of many fine ones, and in a role that immediately conjures up very high and even unrealistic expectations, I’m afraid her performance was not quite up to mark.

Of Fabio Armiliato (aka Mr Dessi) however, one wonders how he ever got to play leading roles in top houses at all: unattractive in voice and appearance, his time onstage is a major turn-off for me. One wonders how his Pollione managed to seduce not one but two physically attractive women (and is actually married to one of them). I guess looks are relative, and you may find him hot if long and greasy head and facial hair is your thing, but the pronounced nasality in a role that calls for much heroic singing is a turnoff for any vocal fan. While Dessi sings with overt nasality too (they probably trade singing tips before bedtime), its much more annoying in a male chest voice than a female’s head voice.

Which is why Kate Aldrich’s Adalgisa easily stole the show from her top-billing colleagues. Her’s is a very feminine, warmly sympathetic portrayal that is fully lived-in: putting her rich, fruity lyric mezzo to good use in an emotionally charged performance, she is every bit young priestess torn between her secular love and sacred duties.

Dramatically, the three leads share good theatrical chemistry, natural in their interactions despite the personal flaws mentioned above, more credit to their innate talents as performers than direct directorial intervention. The scenes shared by Norma and Adalgisa are for me the highlights of this DVD.

Theatrically, this production is largely traditional with modern aesthetics: while the women are clad in traditional robes and the men in faux-armour, a single spotlight in an otherwise dimly lit stage highlights an otherwise bare stage save for the odd piece of furniture: the sacrificial alter, the children’s bed, etc. Chorus stand in neat rows least they clutter up the stage, and rock-concert features like neon lights (shaped like a mistletoe tree) and a trolley staircase for Norma to make her dramatic entrance, its all rather chic and slick in a non-offensive way (it also helps that the female leads are quite good looking, but the primo uomo needs some working on).

Musically, the orchestra under bel canto specialist Evelino Pido gave a fine, Italianate reading (its a testament of Bellini’s melodic genius that even his orchestral passages are full of catchy tunes). However for a self-proclaimed bel canto specialist, the maestro commits one of the worst crimes in the field: retaining most of the traditional cuts including repeats of arias with ornamentation, as well as parts of the Act 1 finale. Critical editions of popular works are one reason for buyers to purchase modern sets in addition to classic recordings of the past generations, so one wonders why such a move was made at all.

So I’d advise readers to give this DVD a miss. For me the preferred video recording of Norma is still Caballe’s open air Orange performance, plus Callas’s 1958 concert performance of Norma’s opening scene at the Paris Opera for good measure. Perhaps another DVD of Dessi’s Norma 5 years down the road will show her in better form. Highlights of this production can be seen in this making-of video so you can judge for yourself, but Armiliato’s nasality is more apparent and thus annoying on DVD than on this video:

Its not everyday that a Singapore-based opera singer makes the top headlines of so many major newspapers. Media reports I’ve seen have painted a picture of a person that is quite unlike the one I’ve known. (If you are unaware of the firestorm Jeong Ae Ree is going through, here is a comparably straightforward report, but you can imagine what the more tabloidy papers will make of it.)

Now I have known Ae Ree for a long time although not on a close basis, and she has always been nothing but kind and supportive to young singers even if they are not her own students. So in times like I am glad that my website can help her reach out to those of you who know her most as a performer and teacher and not just a figure of sensational news. While media reports I’ve seen paint a rather juicy story, Ms. Jeong’s explanation is much simpler:

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I was invited to Kazakhstan’s independence day celebration at Shangri-La hotel ballroom and later to a birthday party. But for such a simple matter, I’m amazed at how the media can create a new distorted story. I am tired of talking about this, whatever I say people will think in their own way. I just helped the police to investigate on this matter clearly, for that why do I get such distorted press reports? I guess people are very hungry for some juicy stories. let them be. What can I do now?

I don’t want to explain over and over.

I just found how strong is the power of press, how their twisted words can kill people emotionally. Sure journalists must find a way of putting things which catches people’s eye, but is working like this how they survive and how they get promoted?

Well, I am strong. and I know people who know me and love me will be always on my side. These few months have been too long….

Ciao!

Ae Ree

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Stay strong Ae Ree, we who attend your concerts are behind you all the way!

Verdi’s Requiem (SSO) - 17 Apr

Conductor - Lim Yau
Soprano - Zhang Liping
Mezzo-sopreano - Simone Schröde
Tenor - Dominic Natoli
Bass - Alexander Vinogradov

Singapore Symphony Chorus
Singapore Bible College Chorale
Hallelujah Chorus
The Philharmonic Chamber Choir

Alexander Vinogradov was the gorgeous Oreste with the deep-set eyes to Janice Baird’s Elektra in Jan 2009. You can find reviews of his performance here:

http://themadscene.athenarts.com/?s=Vinogradov

Meanwhile, here’s soprano Zhang Liping singing another famous Verdi showpiece:

More information on the SSO’s Verdi Requiem on the Events Page.

Aaaaarrggghhhh!!!! How did this happen? How did 30 years just fly by?

As Renee says in her new DVD of Der Rosenkavalier, “die Zeit, die is ein Sonderbar ding” (time, it is a strange thing). I’ve actually spent the whole damn night awake philosophising, the thoughts I will share in greater detail in a following post. Meanwhile, my sentiments are shared with the title of this video by the ever youthful Cher:

Joyce DiDonato – Colbran, The Muse (Rossini Arias)

1. Armida: D’amor Al Dolce Impero
2. La Donna del Lago: Oh Mattutini Albori
3. La Donna del Lago: Tanti Affetti In Tal Momento
4. La Donna del Lago: Fra Il Padre, e Fra L’amante
5. Maometto II: Giusto Ciel, In Tal Periglio
6. Elisabetta, Regina D’Inghilterra: Qant’è Grato All’alma Mia
7. Semiramide: Serena I Vaghi Rai…. Bel Raggio Lusinghier
8. Semiramide: Bel Raggio Lusinghier Di Speme
9. Otello: Ah! Dagli Affanni Oppressa
10. Otello: Nessun Maggior Dolore
11. Otello: O Come Infino Al Core
12. Otello: Assisa Appiè D’un Salice
13. Otello: Deh Calma, O Ciel, Nel Sonno
14. Armida: Se Al Mio Crudel Tormento
15. Armida: Dove Son Io!
16. Armida: È Ver….gode Quest’anima
17. Il Barbiere Di Siviglia: Una Voce Poco Fa

Joyce DiDonato
Lawrence Brownlee (track 10)

Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia,
Coro Dell’Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia
Edoardo Muller

Following her hit debut CD of Handel arias, Joyce DiDonato returns in her second recital CD for the Virgin label, of arias Rossini composed for his first wife, the prima donna Isabella Colbran. There seems to be a trend these days for singers to specialize in Handel and Rossini works collectively: although their musical styles are vastly different, the technical demands are rather similar: lightning quick coloratura, intense declamatory commitment and imagination for ornamentation. Whereas lyric sopranos like Elizabeth Swarzkopf, Kiri te Kanawa and Renee Fleming are often termed Mozart-Strauss sopranos, DiDonato is now the rising star of the Handel-Rossini mezzo repertoire, following the illustrious company of Marilyn Horne, Ewa Podles, Frederica von Stade, Vassalina Kasarova, Jennifer Lamore and Cecilia Bartoli.

According to noted bel canto scholar Phillip Gossett’s album notes, although Isabella Colbran Rossini was classified as a soprano, her voice had darkened considerably by the time she married Rossini (8 years her junior) her voice had darkened considerably and, according to contemporary newspaper reviews, was even in its decline. Rossini never composed anything above a high B for her (although he makes contraltos sing high Cs), thus enabling high mezzos like DiDonato to tackle her music. Gossett also speculates that Colbran’s voice is slow to warm-up, hence requiring Rossini to start his heroines’ music gently and end the opera on a solo aria with elaborate cadenzas (note the finales of La Donna di Lago and Alcina. However Semiramide, one of the maestro’s last compositions for his missus, doesn’t quite fit this description.)

This CD is as much a success of imaginative programming as it is of performance. What I’m surprised at, on my first listen to this CD, is how romantic many of these pieces are. As DiDonato explains in the making-of video, one aspect of this CD is to showcase Rossini as more than just an enabler of vocal acrobatics. In the Maometto II and Otello excerpts, the tender legato lines of the vocal melody sweeping over a repeated harp motif is just meltingly beautiful.

Then there’s the declamatory aspect of this disc: the Armida finale in particular, music that is short on coloratura fireworks but heavy on rage as a furious Armida swears eternal vengeance on her feckless lover and his brood. Having just heard Renee Fleming’s 1994 complete opera recording of this piece, I’d say that the senior diva has nothing to fear, but the young upstart holds her ground equally well (first a complete recording of Alcina and now this, seems like JdD is trying to claim the lesser known corners of Renee’s repertoire).

Of course, there’s no shortage of vocal fireworks as well, including the comparably more popular excerpts from La donna di lago and Semiramide as well as the rarer aria from Elisabetta, , regina d’Inghilterra. The last one will raise a few eyebrows as the opening recitative gives way to the melody of a certain comic aria from Barbiere (composed at a later date), here sung in a completely different context, with different variations of coloratura passages but just as breathtaking.

As for DiDonato’s vocal performance, her high-mezzo voice itself is of a light nature, lacking the dark sumptuousness of a Larmore or Kassarova, though of a fuller sound than Cecilia Bartoli’s (think of these two voices as full cream, DiDonato as low-fat cream, and La Ceci as no-fat cream). The tonal colour itself is not particularly distinctive, but largely capable of the high demands placed by the music. Its not surprising that this voice had much success working on Handel with period instrument orchestras, but one wonders if the sound will carry across the bigger orchestral sonorities of Rossini’s serious works (although it should be noted that this diva has made La Cenerentola and Rosina her calling cards. Would those who have heard her live care to comment on this?). Nonetheless, she gives a fully committed performance in this studio recording: clear voice with good, sincere pronunciation, achingly tender, seamless legato lines, note-perfect coloratura and no-holds-barred declamatory attacks that sound seemingly reckless but effortlessly accurate in tempo and in pitch.

Eduardo Muller, an old-timer who’s dues are paid accompanying the likes of Leyla Gencer in recital, led the Orchestra and Coro Dell’Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia in a fully idiomatic, finely Italianate reading that closely supports the soloist while claiming its fair share of the spotlight (Rossini can be quite the orchestra slave-driver too!) All in all, this is a wonderful CD that’s enjoyable in its virtuosity and musical discovery. Definitely one for the shopping cart.

Advertisement:

The San Francisco Classical Voice brings us an exclusive interview with Joyce di Donato, who discusses her Rossini Arias CD entitled Colbran, The Muse. Look out for a Mad Scene review of the album soon!

http://www.sfcv.org/content/an-interview-with-joyce-didonato-rossini-as-her-barometer

News of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to his classic Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, can be found on the Daily Mail website. It includes the music video of first single Till I Hear You Sing by Ramin Karimloo, who has played the Phantom in the original production and will be opening the sequel that is opening next month:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1252556/A-fabulous-new-Phantom-song–hear-The-Mail-Sunday.html

The Siam Philharmonic conducted by Somtow Sucharitkul: 

poll by twiigs.com

 Singer, teacher, lecturer, producer, gamalan player and promoter of early music, Thomas Mannhart carries an impressive hat of many feathers. Soon to appear in his OperaStudio’s production of Vecchi’s  L´Amfiparnaso, he shares with us what we can look forward to come 5 and 6 March 2010:

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The Mad Scene: Hi Thomas, thank you for doing this interview with The Mad Scene. Firstly, tell us, in your own words, what is L´Amfiparnaso all about?

Thomas: Historically interesting is that Amfiparnaso stands exactly at the beginning of opera as a genre. In the same decade, 1590s, people like Peri and Landi made successful efforts to compose operas, but we don´t have the score anymore. Generally, we take Monteverdi´s “Orfeo” as our starting point, but we have to consider that composers before that have worked on operas.

We can´t yet call Amfiparnaso a real opera in today´s sense; we call it a madrigal comedy. Single singers do not slip into a role and then sing their respective solo songs on stage, but it is an entire vocal ensemble that sings in madrigal style for the whole hour, and actors will re-enact the action simultaneously.

With inspiration drawn from comedy theatre of the time, commedia erudita and commedia dell’arte, Amfiparnaso is a witty social commentary of 16th century Italian culture and Italy’s position as a trading centre, with caricatures of merchants, Jewish money-lenders, frauds, lecherous old men and servants, and love triangles thrown in to spice up the brew. The ensemble will switch voice colours to identify characters, or the composer did this already for us by allocating certain groups of voices to certain characters.

Also unlike today´s opera, you don’t have one clear continuous story line. It is rather a sequence of scenes that help with the caricature of the mentiones stereotypes. In the main topics, L’Amfiparnaso does not make a difference to other operas: it is about love, jealousy, suicide, greed, and laughter.

The Mad Scene: Tell us more about the composer of this piece? When and where did he practice his art, and what inspired him to create this piece?

Thomas: Orazio Vecchi was a monk and Renaissance composer 1550-1605 from Modena (famous for Pavarotti and vinegar), and was influenced by the Venetian school. He had several positions as choral master and maestro di musica in smaller Italian cities, but for the premiere of his biggest success, Amfiparnaso, he returned to Modena.

Throughout his compositions, his madrigals and lighter pieces like Canzonettes brought him the most fame, especially combining his madrigals to a so-called Madrigal Comedy. His inspiration came from composers of the Venetian School, Merulo, Gabrieli, and Marenzio. He must have been aware of the efforts of other composers creating operas. We know that (even not before Amfiparnaso) he had heard a performance of Peri´s opera “Euridice” probably in 1600.

The Mad Scene: Would you care to introduce OperaStudio and Ab Oriente to readers who are unfamiliar with them? What inspired you to set them up?

Thomas: When I came to Singapore, I was invited to sing Bach arias at a houseconcert, and got to know Catherine Loke and Shui Jiang Tian. Both had the idea of a vocal ensemble for early music in their head, and when they heard me singing countertenor, it sparked the idea anew, and we started Ab Oriente in 2004. Since then we have performed vocal music by Bach, Buxtehude, Mozart, et.al, so we did not only sing early music, and we also did not stay purely acappella; sometimes we collaborate with orchestras, or add, if the piece requires, an organ or other instruments.

OperaStudio is younger, but created with similar motivation. With SLO, Singapore has a prominent opera company. Their repertoire includes major pieces from classic and romantic. SLO also works with professional (meaning full time) singers and international cast.

After a student performance of Mozart´s Bastien und Bastienne by Ms Jeong Ae Ree´s and my voice students, a group of enthusiastic amateur (meaning not full time) opera singers approached me with the idea to work more on chamber opera as in short operas in a smaller performance circumstance and with singers that are available here in Singapore. On such a platform it would also be easier to be brave enough to work on operas off the mainstream.

We planned a production of Händel´s Acis and Galatea, and in order to finance the performance and involve more people, we founded OperaStudio as a registered society in order to seek help from the National Arts Council. Since then we have performed Pergolesi´s La Serva Padrona, Telemann´s Schulmeister and Holst´s  Wandering Scholar. As one can see, a nice mix throughout the musical epochs.

With Vecchi, we offer the first renaissance work, and after a recital of Czeck opera scenes in May 2010, we will venture again into the 20th century with a sightspecific performance of an opera by Wolf-Ferrari during a glass exhibition at Sculpture Square in February 2011.

The Mad Scene: Any fun backstage/rehearsal stories to share with us?

Thomas: I’ll just say this much: while we singers work hard to get one hour of madrigal singing correct in timing and intonation and do the historical research, the actors who are directed by Michael Corbidge are having their rehearsals in a king size bed …. Now you know where the fun happens! But we will share that fun with the audience, live, and uncensored!

The Mad Scene:  Will there be any mad scenes at L´Amfiparnaso?

Thomas: You will get everything as mad as you need it in opera: a mad horny man, suicide attempts, multiple high Cs in the tenor – one hour beautiful madness.

The Mad Scene: In addition to baroque/classical music, you also have a PhD in Southeast Asian music and play the Gamalan. What inspired you to take up the music of these parts?

Thomas: I studied music pedagogy in Passau, Germany, a University with a very active Southeast Asia Studies department just beside the music department. This inspired me to write my MA dissertation about West Javanese music. For my MA concert, I then sang cantatas by Caldara, a Mozart aria, a Bavarian jodler, and a Javanese folk song – my whole MA concert was probably another Mad Scene. After my degree, I continued studying gamelan in Bandung and Yogyakarta, and, after registering with NUS, I went for nearly 2 years field research into Sumatra´s remote rural areas.

It was coincidence that brought me to gamelan (unlike the connection to early music, which came because my father was doublebass player for 45 years in a church), and I fell in love with gamelan. Today, I am fond of both music genres, and it gives my teaching and live music making a good variation.

The Mad Scene: Is Singapore now your permanent home? Tell us why did you decide to move here?

Thomas: I´m PR in Singapore, was my first 5 years here on student visa, and then starting teaching and registered my music studio here. My research area being Sumatra, I was looking for a good University to register with and write my dissertation. My choice was between Penang and Singapore. In Singapore I got the offer of a scholarship… and I fell in love … so I stayed here. Love and money, a life as colourful as an opera.

The Mad Scene: Whydid you decide to sing countertenor instead of tenor or bass?

Thomas: I started singing as a bass at 15 years old. My intake audition in Vienna was as Sarastro and with the Bass Arias from St. Matthew Passion. I share a similar story with some countertenors: Throughout my bass singing, I felt certain discomfort. I knew I was made for singing, but my chords didn’t seem right in the bass range, and my personality didn’t seem right for the typical bass roles. However, when I sang falsetto, it was mostly effortless and glass clear.

My very first singing teacher told me from the beginning: sing countertenor. But at that time, 1988, and in a conservative Bavarian village, it was really a matter of image if you dare to sing like a woman. I had one attempt at singing falsetto in a concert. The women loved me, but the men didn´t even shake my hand afterwards. They made the stereotypical jokes about riding accidents or development issues or falsetto being an outcry of queer sexual orientation.

It took me until I was 24, until I left Vienna Musikhochschule, after my teacher has nearly ruined my voice making me sing Basso Buffo arias, that I returned to my village and very first teacher, and retrained as countertenor. Technique wise, there is no difference or compromise; I have to do all the stuff other singers also do … only my vocal cords move a bit different.

The Mad Scene: What are your favourite CDs/DVDs at the moment? Why?

Thomas: A recording of Amfiparnaso, for sure.

I am also preparing the programme for our Czeck opera recital in May, and fall more and more in love especially with the ensemble numbers in Smetana operas. For me as an early music person, that’s a very new love.

The Mad Scene: Who do you prefer, Callas or Tebaldi?

Thomas: Callas! (and Gruberova and Kirkby)

The Mad Scene: What is your favourite Mad Scene?

Lucia. Seen it 3 times with Gruberova. I still cry.

The Mad Scene: Lastly, tell us why we should all attend L´Amfiparnaso?

Thomas: It is just a very rare opportunity to see a madrigal comedy. And how often can you get 16 beautiful people performing for you live for less than $40 ! Best value for money, and an extraordinary opportunity … what more can I say!

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More information on L´Amfiparnaso + how to get tickets. Click through to enlarge.