Tenor Matthew Swensen shares his experiences of singing opera in Europe and throughout the U.S., as well as the adjustments he made as an early career artist to the changing landscape of opera.
To an outside observer, it may seem that Matthew Swensen took no time at all to establish his professional singing career. On the ground, however, it doesn’t seem that way to the young tenor. “A lot of people point out to me—people who I trust and admire—that this is really happening very quickly,” he says. “Well, it certainly doesn’t feel like that.”
Examining the evidence may show otherwise. Swensen made his European operatic debut in 2017, at age 24, in Theatre Basel’s production of Mozart’s Lucio Silla—the same year he completed his master’s degree from The Juilliard School. From there, he joined the ensemble of Oper Frankfurt, performing roles including Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Camille in Die lustige Witwe, and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. He then launched a freelance career that has led to regular, steady engagements across Europe and North America.
Steps to Success
Swensen attributes his early success to a couple of factors—some outside of his control and some within it. “I think really what it comes down to is being at the right place at the right time and being absolutely prepared,” he says. He credits his education at the Eastman School of Music and Juilliard for teaching him how to learn music both quickly and thoroughly. This allows him to work ahead and stay on top of performances that come in rapid succession. For instance, he performs different roles in back-to-back months this fall in Der fliegende Holländer at Concertgebouw Amsterdam in September followed by The Barber of Seville with Lyric Opera Kansas City in November. He has a similar schedule in the spring with April performances of The Elixir of Love at New Orleans Opera and May performances of Così fan tutte with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
A second element of Swensen’s success is seeking to perform a variety of music, by a variety of composers, in a variety of settings. “I’ve done music from Wagner to Mozart to Rossini. But no matter what I do, whether it be art song or concert or opera, I always sing the way that I do. I sing with my voice and, stylistically, I adapt,” he says. “There was always a question when I was growing up, like, ‘Oh, if you sing Rossini, then you can’t sing the lighter tenor parts in Wagner. It doesn’t carry over.’ And I say, ‘No, I actually can.’ If you really work on the text and understanding and communicating, and you sing well, and your technique is reliable, you can do all sorts of things.”
Advertisement
Still, he has his preferences. “These days, opera is very much my favorite thing to do,” he says. “For the longest time, my preferred medium was concert work. But when I’m in a scene and I’m with other people and I’m in the storytelling mode really intensely, I don’t worry about myself at all. I’m not thinking, ‘What am I going to do to get this phrase? Am I going to get this?’ I really find myself and I lose myself at the same time.”
Home and Away
After more than five years singing exclusively in Europe, Swensen made his American operatic debut in 2023 with the New Orleans Opera. “It was absolutely terrific,” he says. “There was such a tremendous spirit in the audience with those shows, and the community just loved it. I realized how much I miss being away from singing in the States.”
As he books additional engagements on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, he recognizes and appreciates certain differences. “In Europe—whether you’re in Germany, Austria, Italy—there is a strong cultural appreciation for [opera],” he says. He also notes the expectation among many singers in the U.S. that a required professional step is to move to Europe, where opera is well supported.
Enthusiasm for the art form, however, is not exclusive to Europeans. “I think opera companies in the States do a much better job of engaging with the communities that they’re in,” he says. “It’s a very strong element to the American opera scene—the outreach to bring in new audience members and groups of people who never would think to go to the opera…there is a tremendous amount of joy that I’ve been feeling every time that I come back to work here.”
Adjusting to the Times
In many ways, Swensen was set up for success from the beginning. His parents, Robert Swensen and Kathryn Cowdrick, are both opera singers and voice professors at the Eastman School of Music, providing him in-house instruction and guidance that not every aspiring professional can so easily access. Even so, recognizing how the industry has changed, Swensen understands that his path will not mirror theirs.
Throughout his young career—which included an inevitable pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic—he has always been prepared to adjust both his actions and his philosophies, as needed. “My parents said, ‘If you want to do this, you have to look at it as if there is nothing else that you want to do in life. If you love singing, and this is your thing, then you can do it. If there’s any doubt in your head, then this is probably not the right thing,’” he recalls. “I think they’ll admit that mentality has changed. Now I think every young singer needs an auxiliary job or income to make ends meet, because it’s getting more and more competitive for the positions, for casting. You can sing as well as you can, you can have the most glorious voice, you can have a great agent. But we’ve now seen with the pandemic how easily it can all just stop.”
Advertisement
From the time he has spent in both Europe and the United States, Swensen has witnessed how institutions respond to insecurity by reallocating funds. “Culture is not safe,” he says. “It is beloved, we love it, we cherish it. But, at the end of the day, it’s one of the first things on the chopping block when there are problems.
I fully believe in the power of music and what it can do to transform people and inspire people to be kind and loving and better to the people around them. But I think we also have to be realistic. Investing in culture and investing in people who want to do good through music is fabulous. But I [also] think, for a singer who’s in college now, you’ve got to be absolutely aware of this. You have to have entrepreneurial skills.”
Swensen highlights the stigma that can exist for singers who have interests or endeavors outside of music. “It used to be a taboo discussion, like having a side job or working at Starbucks while you’re doing auditions means you’re not really taking this seriously or you’re not good enough,” he says. “There is absolutely nothing to snub your nose about that now, because it’s reality. I think almost every singer who’s not in that upper echelon—singing at the A houses 24/7—they’ve got some side hustle going on. They may not want to admit it, but I know this for sure.”
For Swensen, the downtime of the pandemic allowed him to turn a hobby into an online business. “When I was in school in New York, I loved to go thrift shopping for really nice, luxury clothes. When the pandemic happened and I was thinking about what I was going to do, I adapted my hobby of looking for these really good deals and I turned it into a profit-making business. I would buy low and sell high.” By partnering with his wife, and by reading books on business and marketing, he was able to create a revenue stream when performing opportunities were scarce. “That’s how I really kept things going when there was nothing to do,” he says.
There are two advantages Swensen believes side jobs can provide. First, obviously, there is greater financial security when the entirety of someone’s income is not dependent on singing. Second, the inconsistencies of life as an artist (getting a cold, always looking for the next gig, etc.) do not have to lead to undue stress. “I’m the kind of person who just cannot put all of my eggs in one basket. I have to spread them out.” He adds, “It also helps because it takes my hyper-focus off of my larynx. I’m not always so crazy-worried about ‘Oh, my God, how was my voice today?’ ‘What’s my next contract?’ I give myself a break. I find that balance. I think that’s absolutely crucial.”
Thriving Together
Meanwhile, Swensen continues to fill his calendar with performances, where he revels in the community he builds with colleagues. “This art form is based on collaboration and working with other people and collectively telling a story set to music,” he says. “I get to work with other people who have just been superb. I learn so much from them. My craft and my understanding of my singing and my stage presence and my storytelling abilities come from absorbing the things that the people around me are doing. I think the best way to learn—not just as a young singer, but as a singer in general—is just by doing and by experiencing and working with people.”
To learn more about tenor Matthew Swensen and his upcoming engagements, visit www.matthew-swensen.com.
