A Fool for Love artist Michael Spyres has been performing the role of Candide in Bernstein’s opera Candide at the Opera di Roma in Italy, and he is making a lot of noise! Not only has he been raking in headlines, he’s conducted a wonderful interview for popular Italian Opera site OperaClick.com, and he’s done a couple of radio spots with Italy’s famous program “La barcaccia” on RAI3, from which we have a couple of podcasts for you!
Interview on OperaClick.com (the site’s own English Translation):
OperaClick: We learn from some biographical notes that you grew up in a family of musicians. What kind of musicians?
Michael Spyres: Well, we all play instruments and sing together. My father was my choir and band teacher and my mother was my drama and choir teacher. My brother and I have performed in Japan, Germany, Austria, and the U.S. together as he is a tenor too. My sister is a singer, actress, and violinist in Boston and we have performed folk, sacred, pop and opera as a quintett since before I could speak! My sister’s husband is a brilliant composer and cellist with whom both my brother and I have premiered his pieces in the U.S. and Russia. My wife is also a soprano and we have performed 7 different operas together. The most memorable experience was last year when we all performed La Boheme together. I sang Rodolpho, my wife Mimi, my brother Alcindoro/Benoit, along with my mother, my father, my sister in-law and my nephew and niece in the chorus!
OperaClick: You have a remarkable vocal extension. When you noticed for the first time?
Michael Spyres: Thank you! In my family vocal range is normal because when you have sung as a quintett for over 25 years you tend to get bored always singing the same vocal part. I grew up in the church where I learned every song in the hymnal and when you sing all the time you start getting bored with your own part, so I would sing bass then alto then soprano lines. The other reason is because I am an imitator of sound and I love the human voice. I have been fascinated by the human voice since I can remember. My hero was Mel Blanc, the voice of the all the Looney Tunes cartoons I grew up with. I always wanted to figure out how sound works and how I could manipulate my voice to make a particular sound. I do have to say that I am proud of the aspect that I have already performed some of the Highest and the Lowest roles in all of the tenor repertoire, (Arnold-Guillaume Tell, Raoul-Les Huguenots, Lindoro-L’Italiana in Algieri, as well as Otello-Rossini, Rodrigo-Donna del Lago, Candide-Bernstein), and as far as I know I managed to do the largest ranged role ever performed live in a modern revival of a baroque opera named Antigono by Antonio Mazzoni in Lisbon last year. I had to sing an F5 and a D2 in the same performance which tested the limits of my mental and physical capabilities.
OperaClick: You recently published an interesting CD of arias for tenor songs in which more than anywhere else: distance to “Cease to resist any longer” to “Frosty hand”, from “Oh! Mes amis “to” Lucy in a moment you will. ” It ‘a demonstration of what you can and want to sing on stage or in the studio, especially in fun did you think?
Michael Spyres: The main reason I did this album was to tell a story. I knew that some people would not understand my goal and would criticize my repertoire choices before even trying to understand my intentions. To me this album was to create a narrative out of arias that could show what my voice is capable of and the direction it may be going in while at the same time telling a story of operatic proportion. I chose every aria to go along with a story that I invented to show the different aspects of a man in love and tried to show how love in all of its varied forms is the most precious of all human emotions. Love or loss of that love is the most common theme in all of opera and I want people to think about why this is. Now that I have sung all over the world I realize that every country and every person has their own musical taste and my other intention with this album was to reach as many people as I could with this varied repertoire.
Read the intriguing full interview on OperaClick.com in both English and Italian!
Listen to his podcasts on RAI3:
MICHAEL SPYRES
A FOOL FOR LOVE, Tenor Arias
DE 3414
“Michael Spyres has a lovely, liquid tenor, all honey for love duets and some metal for cries of outraged honor.” – John Yohalem, from Opera Today
Track Listing: Donizetti: La fille du Regiment: “Ah! mes amis…Pour mon ame” Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress: “Here I stand” Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia: “Cessa di più resistere” Donizetti: L’elisir d’Amore: “Una furtiva lagrima” Mozart: Don Giovanni: “Il mio tesoro” Bizet: Les Pecheurs de Perles: “Je crois entendre encore” Massenet: Werther: “Pourquoi me réveiller” Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier: “Di rigori armato il seno” Puccini: La Boheme: “Che gelida manina” Verdi: Rigoletto: “La donna è mobile” Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor: “Fra poco me ricovero” Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin: “Kuda, kuda…” Cilea: L’Arlesiana: “E la solita storia…”
Encore: Lehar: Das Land des Lächelns: “Dein ist mein ganzes herz”
Listen to the full track of Donizetti: L’elisir d’Amore: “Una furtiva lagrima” on Delos Radio:
A Fool For Love: Track 4: L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) – Una furtiva lagrima by Delos Radio
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