Marcello Giordani stands poised to take his place at the top of the Italian tenor heap, as soon as one of the big three steps down. Probably even before. His ringing voice and impassioned yet stylish delivery—to say nothing of his good looks and imposing height—make him well-nigh indispensable to any of the world’s opera houses that would put on the big Verdi, Puccini or bel canto shows. Furthermore, his seeming ease in handling a high tessitura makes him one of the only tenors currently in operation who can effectively dispatch a role like Raoul in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenot. When he gave the following interview to Classical Singer, he was basking in the afterglow of a tumultuously received Opera Orchestra of New York concert performance of this opera the previous night. The excited audience had let Giordani know in no uncertain terms that he had fulfilled—and surpassed—every expectation.
Relaxing in his Manhattan apartment, surrounded by a sizeable and happily rambunctious group of old friends and family members, he termed the evening “the biggest success of my career.” As his pre-school-age sons Michele Francesco and Gerard André played nearby, and his beautiful wife Wilma served us foamy cappuccinos and irresistible almond pastries, I knew I was talking with one of the happiest men on the planet. Such contentment, such a sense of fulfilled purpose, tempered with abundant warmth and genuine modesty, are uplifting. I felt as privileged to share his joy and repose on this happy afternoon as I had been to witness his success at Carnegie Hall the night before. Disregarding conventional wisdom, nice guys sometimes do just fine, thank you.
Freeman Günter: I can’t think of anyone who could do what you did at Carnegie Hall last night. In my view, you are clearly the one to beat!
Marcello Giordani: Thank you. It’s important to be always in good shape, and try to do the best. The competition is very high now. Thank God we have competition. Otherwise the business would be boring. I think even Pavarotti needs to be in competition, otherwise he cannot give the most. The more you become important, the more responsibility you feel. The New York audience is very kind to me. They’re not so demanding like Italians, for instance.
FG: Do you think Italians are demanding because they know more about opera and singing?
MG: Well, we think we know more. Maybe in the past we knew more than anybody. But now I don’t think so. America is the land of everything, and now that includes the opera, too.
FG: Do you think the vocal training is better in America?
MG: Oh yes. In fact, my voice teacher is here in New York.
FG: Bill Schuman?
MG: Yes. After several years studying technique in Italy, I didn’t find the right way for me to sing. Then I moved to New York and I found this teacher who is teaching me in the Italian way, which is free emission, and singing the right vowel without manipulation. If it’s “I,” it’s “I.” It’s not “o-o-o,” or something like that, even in the passagio. But we never talk about passagio, we talk about turning the voice, lifting the palate.
FG: So, you had to come to New York to learn a true Italian way of singing!
MG: That’s true. It’s sad in a way because I’m Italian and it hurts my pride. But in a way I feel lucky.
FG: We Americans would feel that a Sicilian tenor would learn how to sing by walking by the bay, just singing to the waves in that beautiful place.
MG: (laughs) People believe you are blessed because you were born there, but the voice is not enough. Right now you need the technique, the total package. By package, I mean also stamina.
FG: And health!
MG: Health is important. And also being a good actor. And trying to be a good musician.
Today we have more respect for the public. They come into the opera because they really know it. We are in an era that everybody can listen to the CD before they go to the opera.
FG: When did you know that you had a chance to make it as an operatic singer, and what were some of your early struggles and setbacks like? How did you arrive as a professional singer?
MG: My father was my mentor, my guide in the music and opera. I have no musicians in my family, but my father really liked opera and he encouraged me. He also supported me economically. I had worked in a bank for one year and then I quit, and said I want to do opera. And he said, “OK fine. I trust you, I believe in you.” This was the big challenge for me. I was 19. I was listening to music at age 12 or 13. I still have the first recording I bought, the LP.
FG: What was it?
MG: Cavalleria Rusticana. I bought it because I am Sicilian. My father had always told me about this opera, so I bought the LP with Jussi Bjoerling and Zinka Milanov. I got goosebumps. And then he bought a Pagliacci with Corelli and Antonetta Stella. So I started to love music, to love opera. I loved the way they were singing, the very spontaneous and unusual way. I started singing soprano arias, mezzo-soprano… whatever tunes I liked.
When I became 19 or 20 the voice started to develop in a way that finally you can decide if you are tenor or baritone. I can say I was lucky to be a tenor, because to be a tenor is a very lucky thing right now!
FG: So these recordings inspired you and set you on your path. How did you find your first teacher?
MG: We had a huge house in the country where we went every weekend. As Southern Italians we particularly like a big family, with everybody cooking, staying together on Sunday. Sons, cousins, nieces, everybody—my father felt that he was the king. So he brought his cousins and his relatives from Catania, which was 20 miles away. I was there with my grandmother and my grandfather, who loved all of the arts. I remember the first thing that I sang. My grandmother—she was about 70—was sitting in a chair and I was lying down and singing “Che gelida manina” all the way through, with no technique of course, nothing. I was already not shy at all. My oldest cousin, a policeman in Catania, said, “Oh, you have a good voice—come to Catania and I know somebody who can listen to you and judge.” So that’s where I found my first Italian teacher, Maria Gentile, a soprano legiero, who sang with Gigli and Schipa in the twenties.
She trained me for the first three years. That’s when I won the contract for Spoleto in ‘86. God bless her; she’s dead now. She didn’t teach me the real technique. She saw that I had the high notes, so we were always working on high notes.
She didn’t understand about supporting the breath, but it was a good experience for me. Then I moved to Milan for nine years. I studied first with a baritone, then I studied with Carlo Bergonzi, who gave me the total picture of bel canto and legato and tessitura. He taught me to be a complete artist.
And then in 1994, I found my teacher here in New York.
FG: You were not satisfied with the way you were singing?
MG: No, I was not satisfied. That year, ’94, was a bad year. My father died, and I had a little vocal crisis. It was a year that I lost many things, including recording contracts. So I decided to take a chance and move to New York to study with Bill Schuman. I had nothing to lose. I decided to try for six months, studying while I stopped singing. And if it didn’t work, I was going to quit.
FG: How does a singer know whether a teacher is the right one?
MG: I think it’s the body language.
FG: What made you feel that Mr. Schuman was right?
MG: Because he was the only person that I was able to ask questions. He was very pragmatic and pedagogical. He explained not the technique, but the mechanism of the voice, and the diaphragm and vocal chords. We didn’t fight at all, but we had arguments, because it was a different technique that he taught me. I was used to covering everything and modifying the vowels, especially around the passagio at F and F sharp. So I was losing my top.
Bill went in a different way. He said, “You must open this, you must open that.” I was not used to hearing this. I said, “Oh wow, it’s not the right thing.” But I kept trying. I thought, maybe he’s doing this on purpose because he wants to open my voice. And he did. It helped.
FG: How long did it take before you began to know that it felt right?
MG: I think in the first two months I already improved a lot. I was studying every single day, with humility actually. I forgot everything I knew. I don’t want to be immodest. Singers who passed a vocal crisis need to have the humility to accept other suggestions. Be open. Open your mind. The feelings tell you if it’s right or not.
Last night I sang for three hours. I was exhausted, but this morning I woke up refreshed. I have been talking all day long. I had a meeting with my manager, with another guy, and now with you. And tomorrow I am starting rehearsal again. So I think I am at a good point. Feelings tell you what’s right for you. You may listen to others, you may take their advice, but at the end you have to decide.
Your goal is ending the opera in perfect form.
FG: If a singer does not feel that he’s making the right progress, what do you think he should do? How does one find the right teacher?
MG: I think we singers need to have a buddy relationship with the teacher. It is much more than going in, having a lesson, paying the check, and then going out with your doubts. The teacher must be able and willing to explain things to you. That’s what my teacher does. He is able to answer every question I ask him.
My mistake in the beginning was listening too much to other singers. Then I would say, “Oh! That’s a beautiful sound. I can do that too!” But my throat, and my vocal chords, are different.
FG: If you’re singing, say, roles like Pirata or Huguenot, is it difficult to alternate with a lower role—a role that requires a beefier middle? Can you go back and forth?
MG: I cannot go from singing Ballo a month before singing Pirata. So I try with my manager and my teacher to be very accurate in the parts that we choose.
FG: How do you know that a particular repertoire or role is right for you, or when is the time to take on a heavier part?
MG: I just put Tosca into my repertoire two years ago. Everybody told me that I could sing it already ten years ago, but I felt I wasn’t ready. But now also I feel my voice is growing. I am turning 40 years old soon, so my voice is already mature. I know that I have to do this role now, because maybe in the future I cannot do it anymore.
FG: You’re speaking of Raoul?
MG: Raoul, Pirata, William Tell—you know, the roles with a very high tessitura. I know that in five years I can sing Trovatore. But I know also that in five years I cannot sing Chenier, or Manon Lescaut, because it’s not really for me right now. The voice is not growing enough for Puccini.
FG: Do you sing through the music to determine this? Do you open the score and just see how it feels?
MG: No, I looked at the score and I listened to the instrumentation, the volume of the orchestra
FG: It’s a very thick orchestration. Do you feel a greater affinity for certain styles than others? Which composers feel best to you at this stage of your career?
MG: In the past I thought that Donizetti was the best composer for me, which he was at one point, because he really helped me to learn the technique of singing. I was singing a lot of Donizetti, bel canto, and Bellini. So they were good at that time—five years, six years ago. Now I think Verdi is really good for me.
FG: But you can still sing Donizetti. You certainly could last season!
MG: Of course nobody would hire me for Elixir of Love, because the voice is maybe too big. I don’t think I can sing Favorita anymore in two years, but I could sing Lucia di Lamermoor forever.
FG: Really? Why is that?
MG: Ah, because first of all, it’s an opera that I love. The tenor closes the opera. (laughs) And also you really need a great technique. Sometimes it’s good for me to go back into bel canto. I learned a lot from Luciano. He told me once that he was singing heavy repertoire, but once in a while he went back to the bel canto.
FG: Are there some roles that you haven’t yet sung that you would like to sing?
MG: Well, I think Manon Lescaut and Andrea Chenier I want desperately. But I want to wait. Right now I think we are scheduling everything that’s fitting well for me.
FG: You travel all over the world. How do you manage to feel at home in all these different places enough so that you can relax and concentrate on your work?
MG: I’m lucky, because I have my family with me all the time. My wife was following me from the beginning of my career. The kids are not in school yet, but we’ll try to put them in home school or an international school. Also I’m trying to go to opera houses in cities I have visited before, so I have a lot of friends. In New York, San Francisco, Chicago, we feel at home. We have more friends in New York than in Italy.
FG: Well, you are fortunate because you have your home with you, your family.
MG: It’s a lot of money for travelling, but it’s beautiful. I come back home, and I have my family. I would feel miserable to come back to the hotel room and be alone. In Europe, they don’t travel with me. The night of a performance, I’m by myself, but I know that tomorrow morning I can go home. I feel miserable if I don’t have my wife to tell my frustrations to, share my evening with and have a glass of wine. Otherwise, I would be miserable in my room, eating junk and watching TV.
FG: Do you have a regimen on the day you sing? Do you not talk, or do you eat certain things? What do you do?
MG: Like yesterday, I shut up for two days before.
FG: How can you do that, though, with the family around and everything?
MG: I have a good helper! My wife goes out with the kids. I’m able to concentrate and not talk with them.
FG: Because they wouldn’t understand why daddy’s not talking to them.
MG: But sometimes I have to do it. I also eat a little later on the day of a performance, at two or 2:30. Fish, meat. I used to have pasta before for the carbohydrates. But I figured out with the carbohydrates after 2 hours the energy is already gone. So I need the protein for strength throughout the evening.
FG: Do you vocalize very much on the day of the performance?
MG: I do 20 minutes warm-up in the shower in the morning when I’m in New York. When I’m with my teacher I’ll warm up in his studio. And 20 minutes in the dressing room in the evening. For such a role as Raoul, I don’t warm up too much, because otherwise I will be tired. I stretch the voice in certain points, but no more than ten or 15 minutes.
FG: How do you learn to pace yourself through a role like Raoul?
MG: I’ve never learned that. Never. I don’t think we tenors can learn to save the energy till the end, because we are generous.
FG: In America, we have all these college programs and apprentice programs, but in Italy I don’t think this the case.
MG: We have a conservatory, but unfortunately I didn’t go. I studied with private teachers.
FG: Do you think that was not as good?
MG: I wish I could be more of a musician. I wish I could play an instrument. In the beginning it was really hard to understand the gestures of the maestros. Americans, for instance, are amazing. When students finish at the music school, they are ready to go on stage. They have the stamina, they know how to dance, they know the music, they know the harmony in the music and they know the history. I admire those kids.
FG: You have had to learn it all yourself as you go along.
MG: Everything. On the plateau.
