Striking a balance. Albert Storace interviews Alessandro Liberatore.

The Sunday Times of Malta, today 24 October 2010, carries a full page interview in the Culture and Entertainment section with tenor Alessandro Liberatore who will sing Alfredo Germont in Teatru Astra's forthcoming La Traviata.  The interview led by Albert Storace is being reproduced below.

With his frank, open and relaxed face and looking younger that his 33 years I could easily see the inexperienced novice in the ways of a Parisian salon of the 1850s.

For later this week, tenor Alessandro Libertatore will be singing the leading male role in Verdi’s La Traviata opposite Miriam Cauchi at the Astra Opera House.  He will be the first rather naïve Provencal beau in "that populous desert called Paris", who loves then hurts and humiliates Violetta and makes amends only when it is too late.

“The story of Alfredo and Violetta is timeless’’ he says, “and it is amazing that some of the hypocritical prejudice which thwarted their love story could still exist in our own time.  Which is why the setting closer to the fin de siècle chosen by artistic director Marco Gandini is working so well’’

Liberatore is enjoying working with Gandini and the whole cast and team at the Astra.  Asking what his perception of Malta was before he set foot there, the young singer says it was just “the Knights of Malta’’ and little else.

“Of course it is very typically Mediterranea, and to one brought up in Rome and L’Aquila familiarly wary and welcoming’’ he enthuses.

“I found it to be the absolute case when I arrived here’’.  He agreed with me that what goes in Gozo as regards the arts, especially music, is little short of a miracle.

Apart from having a father who is quite mad on opera, Liberatore says he does not come from a particularly musical family.

“I do owe it to my father that I started to do something about my voice.  He used to put on records of great singers like Pertle, Callas and others from a galaxy of opera stars.  I did study piano for a while but after more than occasional eaves-dropping on my father’s part, who heard me singing to myself in what I believed was the privacy of my room, he said I should study voice and bring out what he thought was hidden beneath the surface”

At 15, he went to Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera and was enchanted to hear Guispee di Stefano evn if the latter was past his prime and that was a further stimulus.  He is not ashamed to say that he once san the small part of Gastone (yes in La Traviata) and eventually made his debut in a leading role as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

Later he landed leading roles such as Ismaele in Verdi’s Nabucco, Tebaldo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Boheme, the latter in a new production by Pavarotti in Agrigento.

He was extremely lucky in spending two years studying with Pavarotti (2004-6).  He also took part with him in a birthday concert in the great singer’s honour in the princely place of Monaco.

Liberatore has already sung in some leading opera houses in Italy, Germany, Austria, Japan, Honking and the US.  He does have some favourite opera houses.

“One very close to my heart is Turin’s Regio.  In 2008 I made my house debut there as Nicias in Massenet’s Thais and eventually also sang there is Mozart’s Idomeneo’’

The young tenor has worked well with different conductors and artistic directors.  Of course, it is not always plain sailing because nowadays at times the cult of the artistic director can be tyrannically suffocating. 

A small number come up with certain capricious ideas which make a mockery of the composer’s concept behind the latter’s creation.

Liberatore recalls the odd experience of when a particular director expected him and the rest of the cast to continue acting while taking curtain calls.

“I refused outright and fond it absurd when the director retorted that the opera house was his.  Once upon a time it was divas and divos who ruled the roost with their egomania.  There is no room for any sort of egomania from anybody,  Opera is made up of many elements and a balance has to be found.”

He adds “Gone are the days when singers just belted the notes and remained static.  Opera is also theatre and remained static.  Opera is also theatre and going back to Marco Gandini, it is his combined feeling for sentiment and the theatrical effect combined with a singer’s vocal preparedness which stimulates and aims at providing as close and ideal interpretation as one could get.”

Any other part he would like to tackle?  The answer to that listed a few roles: Faust in that Gounod masterpiece, Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and the Verdi’s Requiem.

He will also sing the title role in Mozart’s Lucio Silla at Barcellona’s Liceu, to which he looks forward in a particular way since he deems the Liceu as a very fine opera house.

Singing is Spain may have a special significance to Libertatore who, by the way, has been married for two years to a Spanish lyric coloratura soprano, Sandra Pastrano. 

Asking him too if he ever came across any mishaps, he said he has never been involved in one.  However, one of the latest he could recount was a tenor being chase by a baritone as part of the action; the stage was too dark and the poor tenor ended up in the orchestra pit, smashed a cello in the process and with cuts and bruises to his face.

From the various ways our chat turned, the man behind the singing persona is a very sensitive and humane one.

“I still feel I have to go through more experiences in life, both happy and sad and which make the complete man.”

He has his pastimes which help him relax, such as cooking, which he reveals is a passion and that he never cooks the same thing twice.

“I do have themes but with many variations. Would it strike you as odd if I were to admit I enjoy looking for and finding some mushrooms?  There’s nothing more satisfying than finding a nice fat porcino.  I also like retrievers and hounds but because a singer’s errant life it is impossible to keep one”

He also like reading; lately it has been quite a bit of Wilbur Simth and just these days he started on Suetonius’s Lives of the (first twelve) Caesars.

When it comes to voices which strike me straight to the heart I mentioned Jussi Bjorling and Alfredo Kraus, with which he agreed. I also added, without any hint of chauvinism, our own Joseph Calleja, saying that Kraus’s and Calleja’s Ah! Levetoi soleil! From Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette are sheer magic.

He obliged with singing a good half of that number but as he had a rehearsal waiting for him and I had a boat to catch back to Malta it stopped there.

More information on La Traviata or any of Festival Mediterranea events may be obtained from mediterranea.com.mt. Booking is available on 21550985 or 99883007 or . [email protected]

La Traviata and Festival Mediterranea are organised by Teatru Astra in collaboration with Bank of Valletta, Malta Tourism Authority, Vodafone Malta Foundation, the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts, the Ministry for Gozo and the Ministry for Finance, the Economy and Investment. The opera and the festival would not be possible without the support of various other corporate sponsorships.