I have a great facility with the high notes, but what I would like to manage to do is to push the voice forward, never to produce sounds which come from the back of the throat. This can be corrected by exercise and study. Don’t think that even aged thirty five a singer no longer needs a teacher. "
- JOSEPH CALLEJA
PRESS ARTICLES
Joseph Calleja, A Prudent Tenor
opera data base, january 2006
Opera Data Base met the Maltese born tenor just after one of the three New Year concerts given at the Fenice theatre on 31st December 2005 under the direction of Kurt Masur in which Calleja sang Verdi and Bellini arias and duets.
ODB: You are well known for your precocity: you began your career aged 19 in the role of Macduff. How did a Maltese develop a taste for the opera?
JC: Everyone develops in their own way both physically and mentally. At sixteen I was taken for a twenty year old. It’s also a question of maturity. At fifteen years old, even if my voice was young, small, fresh and a little white, it was already interesting. I was singing second tenor in the chorus of Rigoletto, and the prelude made a really great impression on me. I’m not saying this just for the interview, really it impressed me deeply. At that moment something changed in my relationship with the lyrical repertoire. I had heard it on CD, but that’s not the same. I discovered music through recordings, particularly those of Mario Lanzo and through watching his film “The Great Caruso” when I was thirteen. Then I discovered Andrea Bocelli. I don’t come from a musical family, and these were the first things I came across. Then there were the Three Tenors. But when I heard this prelude, when I heard the orchestra, I said to myself, “How beautiful that is!” Then I wanted at all costs to sing the role of Borsa, I was so eager to sing a solo line that I actually sung some of Borsa's entrance. The soloist singing that role wasn't very happy. That’s how it began. I began to study the piano a little, and musical theory, and I sang for my own enjoyment “Nessun dorma” and “Di quella pira”, for I didn’t know that this repertoire was dangerous for a young singer. I took along these songs to a singing teacher, a former singer from the 1950s, who used to sing with all the greats of the period: Gigli, Siepi, Cappuccilli, Callas and Sutherland. He and Corelli had won the competition at Spoleto in 1952. Corelli began with the role of Don Jose because he didn’t want to sing “Aida” (he was not quite sure of the high notes which were later to make him famous.) So my teacher was given the role of Radames! So I arrive at my singing teacher’s with these impossible songs and he tells me to leave them alone and to sing a Neapolitan song for him. I sang “Be my love” for him as I knew it from Mario Lanza, and the first thing he did was to take off his glasses, looking at me in surprise (and I kind of hoped he was pleasantly surprised). After six months he told me, “I think you have a world class voice”. I didn’t believe him. At the time I was still a student. I was studying law at university. Then I stopped because of the singing. But while listening to records I read and did exercises which have given me the facility to sing high notes with “diminuendo”, which few singers are able to do. Then aged nineteen I entered the Belvedere competition in Vienna. It was a real test. I was the youngest candidate to win a prize in 1997. I don’t know if the record has been beaten since. There were three thousand candidates for only seven awards, so I realised that it was not just my teacher’s idea, that there was a good reason for his confidence in me.
ODB: How did your admiration for Pavarotti come about?
JC: I really like different tenors, for example Caruso, Pertile, Gigli, and Bjoerling who with Pavarotti are my favourite. Why Bjoerling?. Because his voice encompassed the full range, to high C. He was one of the rare tenors who had a baritone register in the deep notes, a lyrical tenor in the middle range, and high notes that he produced with a real resounding “spirito“ sound. And Pavarotti, because (it’s personal) if I had to choose a compilation of tenor arias, and I wanted to hear a beautiful voice while driving along, I’d choose Pavarotti!
ODB: Have you ever heard him on stage?
JC: No, never, and now I wouldn’t want to hear him because if I were a tenor like Pavarotti, I would like people to hear my voice at its best. But I dream about meeting him. I’ve so many questions to ask him.
ODB: How did you land this exclusive contract with Decca, Pavarotti’s label by the way?
JC: At the time I was with an agency in London, small but first rate, and they called me to replace the excellent Ramon Vargas who could not guarantee two performances of Rigoletto. I went and I sang while representatives of Decca were in the theatre. They returned to hear me several times, then sent me for an audition with Riccardo Chailly and a few months later the contract arrived. So I signed with Decca before I was well known.
ODB: They were taking a chance….
JC: It was a risk, not only for Decca but for me too, for you don’t know at that age whether you are making a mistake. My colleagues, even the youngest, were at least six or seven years older than me. At this time in the life of a singer six or seven years is a lot. To think where I was seven years ago! I was twenty years old.
ODB: And weren’t you afraid?
JC: It is frightening, but the world today is like that. You can’t do anything about it. I tried to do the best I could, to sing my repertoire without extending it much. I made a lot of sacrifices in my personal life and in my leisure. For someone who sings twelve months of the year in twenty different towns, it is difficult to keep one’s voice in good condition. Not going out too much, eating well,…..For your readers, I’m drinking a tomato juice at the moment, on New Year’s Eve, 31st December 2005! At the moment I have a slight throat infection. Something and nothing, but disastrous for a singer. In the summer I stop for two months to rest. Always.
ODB: But it’s a shame to have to give up the summer festivals: wouldn’t it be better to have this break in the winter during the bad weather?
JC: No, I want to enjoy time with my family. I made an exception for Salzburg as happened with “I Capuletti e I Montecchi” in 2004, because it’s rare to be there for more than three or four weeks, but the summer is three months from mid-June to mid-September, according to the theatre dates. I try to rest for seven weeks at least, almost two months. It’s important to stand back, to study. I’m twenty seven years old and I still have things to put in place.
ODB: For example…
JC: I have a great facility with the high notes, but what I would like to manage to do is to push the voice forward, never to produce sounds which come from the back of the throat. This can be corrected by exercise and study. Don’t think that even aged thirty five a singer no longer needs a teacher. Singers never hear themselves. They cannot hear themselves as others hear them, they need a critical ear during their work.
ODB: Don’t you think that tenor roles often lack dramatic interest compared with baritone roles?
JC: The music written for tenors is so beautiful! And then it’s almost always he who gets the woman while the baritone is cuckolded! You’ll cut that won’t you!
ODB: But of course! Are you interested in the theatrical aspects of opera?
JC: It’s obviously very important and I must keep working to become more fluid, to be more dynamic on stage, because I sometimes concentrate too much on the voice. I must learn to relax. But if the producer is good, and helps me to adapt myself to the character and to his idea of the drama the results are excellent! Let’s not forget to mention, especially as we are in Venice where he lives too, one of the producers I appreciate most, Pier Luigi Pizzi.
ODB: You must surely have had offers to sing roles which might be dangerous for your voice
JC: Yes: Manrico, Don Carlos, “Ballo in Maschera” and “Simone Boccanegra”.
ODB: Is it difficult to refuse?
JC: No, because I have the luxury of being able to choose what I sing. I don’t want to change my repertoire yet, for my voice is nothing like Radames, for example, which requires a voice like Johan Botha’s, a full voice, “spinta”. But when I’m thirty nine or forty, I can begin with “Un Ballo in Maschera” for example. No Don Carlos for another ten years: it has been suggested for 2009 and I might do it well, but afterwards what could I sing? Once you get used to a heavy repertoire it’s difficult to return to “Bel Canto”. The heaviest role I’ve played is “La Boheme”, but I’ve not sung it in big theatres, only in theatres small enough for me not to have to force my voice.
ODB: Every singer has a particular relationship with his own voice. One gets the impression that you think of it as something quite external, scarcely belonging to you.
JC: I am the bearer of the voice. Each singer is the bearer of a voice, whatever its texture. We are there to serve the voice we bear. It isn’t easy because I’m a keen sportsman. I remember whole days spent fishing, exploring the countryside, sailing the seas. But now the voice can’t put up with this. You cannot spend five hours fishing at sea and sing the same evening, because the open air is good for the physique but not the voice. It’s very frustrating but there it is. That’s why in summer I take the time to study but also to rest and refresh my ideas. It’s very important for me. There are colleagues, whom I admire none the less, and they don’t stop. As for me, I want to live a little and so prolong my career.
ODB: Do you still live in Malta?
JC: Yes, it’s my main residence, but I’m there only two months a year. Alfredo Kraus also came from an island and he often used to go back there to relax..
ODB: Is there a Maltese repertoire?
JC: For the lyric voice not really. Malta has always had links with many other countries. My name is Spanish, my father’s forbears came from Spain, and my mother is from Sicily. In Malta 80% of the population is Latin. Everyone has brought to Malta the culture of his country of origin. Maltese culture is very close to Italian culture. There has been an opera house in Malta since 1728. During the English rule the Theatre Royal of Malta was built by the same architect who built Covent Garden. Cappuccilli, Cerquetti, Schipa, Caniglia, Siepi and Pertile, all the greats, they all sang here. Before the Second World War Malta was an international centre for lyrical art. Malta was the Zurich of the period.
ODB: Is there still a public for opera theses days?
JC: There is a “renaissance” of the opera public, yes.
ODB: It’s thanks to you, isn’t it? People are proud of their native son.
JC: Yes, there is a certain pride, and I’m glad of that. The Maltese are a reserved people, enthusiastic but restrained. They are Latin but respect privacy, and I like that. I love my country. This tiny island has seven thousand years of history behind it! The history of Malta is nine centuries older than the Egyptian pyramids of the First Dynasty! Eight centuries older than Stonehenge! Because of its central position in the Mediterranean, so many people have passed that way, Spaniards, Romans, Arabs and French.
ODB: You’ve hardly sung in France up to now. Have you any plans to sing there?
JC: By chance I’ve had more offers from Germany and England. In Italy too: I’ve sung at Pesaro, Bologna and Turin. La Scala invited me five times and each time I was already booked. I had just accepted a “Traviata” in Chicago for 2008/2009 with Fleming and Hampson when the next day my agent called me to suggest a “Lucia di Lamermoor” at the Bastille with Nathalie Dessay. In the same period! I would have preferred to sing Edgardo rather than Traviata! But I will be giving a recital of operatic arias at the Garnier in January 2007. I hope that the theatrical productions will come, because I really like the French repertoire.
ODB: Your voice would be very suited to Des Grieux or Werther.
JC: I also really like Faust! I enjoy becoming younger in an opera and making clear the difference in the voices.
ODB: Would you be willing to make “cross-over” recordings?
JC: “Cross-over” has always existed. It can be done in good or poor taste. All the greats have done it: Caruso, Schipa, Gigli, Bjoerling. What is “cross-over”? It is singing to a popular public outside the traditional theatre. Neapolitan songs, the Musical, there’s nothing ugly about them. The problem is when you take “La donna e mobile” and you simplify the score or transpose “Non ti scordar di me” into a vocal trio. That’s another thing entirely, but if you can sing in good acoustic conditions in a stadium holding ten thousand people, what’s wrong with that? There are people who are afraid of going to the theatre. I gave a concert at Mannheim in front of twelve thousand people who had never been to the theatre.
ODB: But often the price of these concerts is very high, much more than the cheaper seats at the opera….
JC: It’s not a question of money. It’s a question of atmosphere. These concerts are a good thing if they are done in good taste. That’s what’s important to me.
ODB: You’ve just had your first performance at the Fenice which is one of the most traditional theatres. What did you think?
JC: It’s superb, it’s a magnificent theatre, very impressive. I’m also happy that people can follow this New Year televised transmission in Malta. I hope to come back again soon to sing in opera.
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- Translated from Italian by Jérémie Leroy Ringuet, with the assistance of Aurélia Rippe. Venice 31st December 2005
- Translated from French by Elizabeth Nasralla May 2006 (English edit by Suzan Connolly)