Singing for a living

RNZ News

2 days ago

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Oliver Sewell at St. Andrew's on The Terrace
Photo:
Screengrab by SOUNZ
Singing. It's nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you're talented and determined enough.
Oliver Sewell is a principal artist at Theater Bremen in Germany.
That means he has to sing a lot of opera. It's full time work, it's demanding work, but he loves it.
Sewell is back in New Zealand during one of the breaks in his work in Bremen to sing Alfredo, the lead tenor role in the Auckland Philharmonia's
semi-staged production of Verdi's opera La Traviata
.
The Christchurch-raised tenor spoke with RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump ahead of the performance early next month.
They talked about his musical life in Bremen (a city a little smaller in size but with slightly more people than his home town), where he's been based since 2021.
The classical music life is pretty good too.
Photo:
Stefan Sch89
He really appreciates the variety of opera he gets to sing, and the fact he doesn't have to travel all around Europe to sing it.
Sewell's interest in singing developed as a child.
"I think I was always humming a tune... I never really thought about it until I got to University and started thinking about what I would do."
It was while he was at Canterbury University that he got into the Christchurch Cathedral Choir as a tenor.
There he met the conductor Brian Law, who encouraged his talent and gave Sewell opportunities to perform that "maybe we shouldn't have had", singing with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.
Paid gigs as well, which wasn't lost on the young man - "doing something I'd always done for fun, and then getting some money for it."
Translated to English, La Traviata means "The Fallen Woman".
Is Violetta (the female lead, sung by Romanian soprano Luiza Fatyol) a fallen woman, or a free spirit?
That's up to the singer playing the role to decide.
And what sort of a man is Alfredo, when played by Oliver Sewell?
Sewell says he needs to wait to meet his opposite number before deciding how to respond to her, but his Alfredo is certainly passionate, and possibly a little naive.
One thing we can say for sure: when Oliver Sewell plays Alfredo, he'll sound fantastic.