MILAN (AP) — American tenor Brian Jagde was simply wrapping up Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” in Barcelona final month when he bought a last-minute supply to sing the identical function in La Scala’s gala season premiere this Saturday, arguably the opera world’s most prestigious gig.
Jagde’s look as Don Alvaro reverse soprano Anna Netrebko will mark his third efficiency at Milan’s storied Teatro alla Scala. He appeared twice instead tenor reverse Netrebko, changing Roberto Alagna in “Turandot” this summer time, and now he’ll substitute Jonas Kaufmann within the coveted season opener.
“I’m glad to be their man,’’ Jagde informed The Related Press in a cellphone interview.
Whereas it isn’t unprecedented for Individuals to sing on La Scala’s opening evening, a spotlight of the European cultural calendar, it stays a rarity in an opera home the place Europeans are likely to dominate.
Beside Maria Callas final century, American Brian Hymel opened the 2016 season in “Madame Butterfly” and Lisette Oropesa was forged in “Lucia di Lammermoor” however sang in a gala live performance to an empty theater when the 2020 season premiere was shuttered by the pandemic.
In 2008, American tenor Stuart Neill was promoted from understudy to the “Don Carlo” opening evening forged after the headlining tenor made too many gown rehearsal errors. Neill acquired beneficiant applause from the powerful La Scala crowd.
“It’s definitely one of the things that every artist dreams about,’’ Jagde said. “I think it is about the artist and meeting the moment at the right time. I think that is more of what it’s about than necessarily where they are from.”
Jagde mentioned singers are drawn to La Scala’s “rich tradition.”
“Every artist wants to not just perform there, but have great success there,” Jagde mentioned. “The public is known to be a very devoted fanship — and they can love you or they can hate you. You really want to be embraced by that audience specifically.”
To this point, the evaluations from La Scala’s higher balconies of exacting opera followers have been constructive on his earlier two outings, Jagde mentioned, including that artists ought to settle for all suggestions.
“It’s our job as artists to embrace the truth that we’re making individuals really feel one thing. No matter they really feel is acceptable to them,” he mentioned.
Jagde, 45, grew up outdoors of New York Metropolis, and began singing in musicals in excessive faculties and choirs in school, however by no means gave a thought to the opera. He began finding out laptop science and enterprise upstate however then a classical music program at Buy Faculty nearer to house grabbed his consideration, considering it’d lead him to Broadway.
“I didn’t know on the time that classical voice meant opera,” he mentioned laughing. He bought accepted off the ready checklist, and shortly fell in love with opera because the purest expression of the unadulterated voice.
“I remember being on stage and experiencing something I had never experienced on stage before, which was a completely acoustic, magical sound,” Jagde said. “This was completely natural, hearing an orchestra underneath me, and my voice carrying over that. I remember committing full-heartedly (to opera) on stage at the moment.”
His school lecturers pegged him as a baritone, and he spent eight years doing auditions and artists applications in that vary till he realized that “I was still warming up to high Cs and still had no low notes.”
As soon as he began auditioning as a tenor, the affords began rolling in. He made his principal function debut on the Metropolitan opera in 2021 within the function of Cavaradossi in “Tosca,” and has sung on such famend phases because the Paris Opera, the Vienna Staatsoper and Naples’ Teatro di San Carlo.
In the course of the 2023/24 season, he warmed up his Don Alvaro on the Metropolitan Opera Home and London’s Royal Opera Home. His La Scala debut final spring was as Turiddu in “Cavalleria rusticana.”
La Scala common supervisor Dominique Meyer mentioned his solely consideration in casting an opera is whether or not a singer “is up to the role.” Jagde, he mentioned, is amongst 5 or 6 tenors who may sing the Don Alvaro function, “and he was available.”
Jagde completed his Barcelona performances on Nov. 18, and confirmed up for rehearsals at La Scala the following day. Don Alvaro, he mentioned, is a task, “that has type of grown with me, as I’ve grown as an artist.”
Jagde mentioned singing alongside a world opera star like Netrebko for the second time this yr will assist take among the jitters out of the gala premiere.
“She is an excellent colleague. She is an efficient individual to work with, all the time accessible to you. She is nothing however smiles and enjoyable,” he mentioned.
