Tenor Frank Lopardo returns to Pittsburgh for role in 'La Boheme'
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Pamela Armstrong will portray Mimi and Frank Lopardo will sing Rodolfo in Pittsburgh Opera's production of "La Boheme."
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"Everything changes," says tenor Frank Lopardo, who made his Pittsburgh Opera debut in 1984 and will make his fifth appearance with the company Saturday, as Rodolfo in Puccini's "La Boheme."
"An aria I sing today is different from the same aria I sang 15 years ago," he continues. "The 'Che gelida maninia' I'll sing in Pittsburgh will not be what I sang at the Met in 2001. I never make the assumption that anything is perfect."
Lopardo has been described as "a tenor with both sense and sensibility." Even in an hour-long interview before a rehearsal at Pittsburgh Opera's new facility in the Strip District, he is constantly analyzing.
"A contract with a company really says, 'I'll be good on a certain date and time, whether it's five years from now or tomorrow,' " he says. "Keeping one's vocal health means having a monastic lifestyle. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I come to the theater at least an hour early, to do [vocal and physical] exercises. I have to wake up my body as well as my voice."
- Presented by: Pittsburgh Opera
- When: 8 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Tuesday; 8 p.m. April 3; 2 p.m. April 5.
- Where: Benedum Center, Downtown.
- Tickets: Start at $16.50; 412-456-6666.
He also admits that his two sons, now 23 and 20, might have preferred him to be less monastic and spend more time with them. But that's part of the business of being a singer. His wife, Carolyn, understood this, being herself a pianist, voice teacher and music educator.
At 51, Lopardo attributes his vocal longevity to Robert C. White Jr. (not the Irish tenor of that name, although both are on the faculty of the Juilliard School) -- his only teacher since he enrolled in Queens College in 1977.
"Dr. White taught me technique but he also taught me to be self-reliant," Lopardo states, "to be a good steward of my technique and monitor of my career."
The basis of his technique, Lopardo says, was "all Mozart, the healthiest music for the voice." He advises young tenors, while they're undergraduates at least, to "take your 'Che gelida manina' and put it on the shelf. Work on Mozart arias, learn the breathing, the concept of legato.
"At first I couldn't wrap my mind around Puccini and Verdi," he says. "Then I met John Fisher, a music administrator from the Met [now general director of Welsh Opera], and he showed me how I could sing Puccini and Verdi with a Mozart mentality and technique."
In "La Boheme," Lopardo dismisses the difficulties of the famous first act aria, says his favorite part of the opera is Act 3: "That's the meat and bones of the opera. If you can sing the third act you can sing the whole role. And it encapsulates Rodolfo's emotional dilemma, when he must tell Mimi she's dying."
More difficult for this artist is the opera's final scene, when Rodolfo stands by as Mimi dies: "The end is very hard for me. It brings up personal things in my own life: my mother being sick when I was a young person, other difficult things."
He points out, "This is a youth-oriented business. I lose jobs to younger singers. I'm often older than the other members of my casts. At least now I have knowledge of how the business works. The business element is the greatest detriment of the art form. Don't let anyone tell you that it's not all about making money."
He talks about some day making the transition to teaching, perhaps a university position: "I think more as a teacher now, [but] after 26 years of earning a living singing opera," Lopardo says, "I'm feeling more comfortable in my own skin. I don't have to worry about knowing whether stardom will come to me."
Still, he believes, "People who are honest will say 'I looked confident but behind my eyes I was petrified.' It's how you manage your fear."
Even though the jobs and good reviews are still coming in, Lopardo quotes actress Tina Fey on the Golden Globe Awards: "If you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the Internet. You can find a lot of people there who don't like you!"
First Published March 26, 2009 12:00 am
