Latest news with #opera
CBS News
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Chicago tenor Rodell Rosel says opera connects people through music, emotion
Rodell Rosel is an accomplished tenor who has been singing opera in Chicago and around the country for more than two decades. He sat down with CBS News Chicago to talk about his life and work. "We always say opera is the Olympics of singing," he said. "Our instruments are inside our bodies." Rosel has been in love with opera for most of his life. "I've been singing professionally for 20 years. I'm 21," he joked. His talent has taken Rosel across the U.S. and beyond, and he says opera is for everyone even if the language being sung is unfamiliar. "Even though you don't understand the words, the music envelops it. It's up to the artist to interpret," Rosel explained. "When someone is saying 'My heart is broken,' it will sound like this, it's my heart is broken, it stretches it so it doesn't leave you quickly. It stays with you enough to feel the drama." Rosel said success in opera and in life is all about being comfortable with who you are. He comfortably identifies as a gay man, but said there's more to it. "I want to be a full, rounded person. To be able to full, rounded, you have to be able to embrace everything about you, both masculine and feminine," he said. Rosel has been married to Steven Hunter for 11 years, and when talking about their marriage he keeps it simple. "I will talk about it as normal and as regular as everyone else," he said. "If I'm talking to someone, 'Oh great, my husband and I are talking about going on that trip,' instead of saying, 'oh just want to let you know, I have a husband.'" He also has many friends, some of whom he met through a group called "Asians and Friends." "It started in 1984 as an organization to give a safe space to LGBTQ+ Asians and their allies," said president John McInteer. "In recent years we're trying to get more active in the community as well." McINeer is Irish and one of the friends. He was introduced to the group through his partner at the time. AFC activities include fundraisers, pride parade floats and regular dim sum brunches. "It's about our common interest and being able to open up and compare how we experience our lives in Chicago," said Rosel. And for Rosel, life is good and opera is a never-ending education. "I would consider it continuous learning. Just like law or medicine, we have to keep working on our voice," he said. "We have to keep working on our artistry." Do you know someone a person or place that brings you joy? We want to share your story. Send us your "Eye on Chicago" ideas using the form below (or clicking here):
Japan Times
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
Diva of dualities: Maria Seiren sings opera and noh in both a female and male voice
When opera singer Maria Seiren opens her mouth, you're never sure which voice you will hear. One moment she is singing an aria in a high, warbling soprano. The next, she switches to a booming tenor, effortlessly leaping back and forth in a duet with herself. The first-ever winner of talent show competition 'Japan's Got Talent' dazzles both with her ambivoce (Seiren's term for dual male and female singing voice) and her elaborate costumes and headdresses, designed by Mieko Ueda. Even offstage she rocks a flamboyant floral blazer and elegant long dark hair when we meet on the ground floor of the offices of MondoParallelo, her own opera production company. Seiren rejects rigid definitions and embraces experimentation. She masterfully mixes styles such as classical opera and traditional noh theater, high art and entertainment, as she blends the masculine with the feminine — in spite of, or maybe precisely because, she has had difficulties with gender roles from a young age. 'I never really cared about gender,' Seiren says. 'I never fully grasped the concept that men and women had to be one way or the other. 'My first consciousness of being transgender was the color of the randoseru (school backpack). Black randoseru is for boys, red randoseru for girls, but I wouldn't follow those rules. My father was always strict about gender roles ... he gave me a hard time. But my spirit wasn't broken. I was a fighter.' Thanks in part to her mother, who sang traditional songs to her as a child, Seiren developed a deep love for music and trained herself to maintain her higher vocal range through puberty. She had not, however, seriously considered entering music as a career until designer Junko Koshino invited her to sing at one of her fashion shows in 2013. Inspired by one of her icons, pop-opera queen Sarah Brightman, Seiren covered 'Time to Say Goodbye' for the event using her soprano and tenor voice switch. To her surprise, a YouTube video of the performance hit 15 million views. 'That was the first time I experienced singing as a professional in front of a lot of people,' Seiren says. 'Up until then I was just singing for fun. That experience opened my eyes to a lot of other possibilities — what if singing was my calling?' Maria Seiren has struggled with the rigidity of gender norms since childhood, but also didn't want to be stereotyped as the queer character on TV. She founded her own production company to ensure creative experimentation and freedom. | Yutaka Mori © 2025 Mondo Parallelo Inc. Looking back, Seiren says 2013 was a great year as it also kickstarted her close business partnership with Fumiaki Uemura, now general director of MondoParallelo. An advertising agency director, Uemura had no professional background in music when they met, but he knew many people in the world of entertainment and he had ideas on how Seiren could boost her budding career and stand out in the industry. He became her mentor, friend and, ultimately, her adoptive father. 'Back then, I was getting a lot of offers from TV to play the onee talent role, the comedic queer character. Those roles made me uncomfortable, so I turned the offers down,' Seiren says. '(Uemura) saw he needed to protect me from people who would want to exploit my talent and queerness. So he decided to legally adopt me.' While Seiren never attended music school, she began intensely training her operatic vocals under the guidance of Takehiro Shida , as well as her Italian pronunciation and mouth shape under vocal coach Francesca Miscio. When asked which of her two voices feels more authentically her own, Seiren says, 'They both feel true to me.' She differentiates the energy that she puts into vocal techniques. 'For soprano, I focus on the contraction in the upper area of my head and think of echo, vibration and softness,' she explains. 'When it comes to the tenor, I think of power, strength, intense energy and vibrations that reach the ground. Both ranges exist very naturally to me; switching comes naturally. Sometimes I don't even notice I've shifted from one to the other.' While Seiren's aim has always been limitless creativity, fusing opera and noh theater in particular was Uemura's idea, as part of his master plan to enhance Seiren's uniqueness in the highly competitive music industry. Initially, Seiren was unimpressed by the notoriously slow and rigid noh theater. 'It was actually emotionally painful when I first had to sit through it,' she confides, recalling her first exposure to noh in 2013. 'At the same time, I remember going to see another play called 'Toru'. After the play ended, I heard many people saying, 'Wow, the moon was so beautiful!' and I was like, 'What moon? There was no moon!'' Noh is a practice in minimalism: minimal movement, expression and set design. The true art of an experienced noh performer is igniting the audience's imagination with just a few gestures and pantomimes, such as gazing at an imaginary moon reflected in an imaginary bucket of water. Seiren knew the magic of noh had finally captured her after seeing a play called 'Kanawa.' During one scene when a namanari (half-demon) woman suddenly droops her head and curses, Seiren thought she saw a huge storm whirling behind her. 'I could see the storm that no one else could see!,' she says. Soon after, Seiren began training in noh dancing and acting with actor and teacher Akio Awaya and eventually entered the Kita-ryu School , one of the five branches of noh, which specializes in dynamic movement. Noh, she found, was more about silence and standing still than moving and singing. Profound sadness could be shown by wiping a single tear; there is a depth of art and emotion Seiren says she now always strives to bring out in her opera and noh collaborations. At the same time, she says the vocal techniques of opera and noh are not dissimilar. MondoParallelo's latest show, 'Keisei Aoshigure Torimono Emaki' (The Mystery of the Summer Rain Courtesan), combined classical opera, rock, disco, old-timey kayōkyoku pop ballads and enka folk songs. | Tetsuo Isowaki © 2025 Mondo Parallelo Inc. 'The biggest difference with singing is in opera you lift your face to project your voice and resonate with the stone ceiling. In noh, you lower your face to resonate your voice with the wooden floor of the stage,' she says. Seiren's goal in learning the history and traditional practices of noh is to more effectively mix the art form with other types of performance and to create something new instead of simply showcasing two things together on the same stage. 'In my show, the singing aspect is mostly opera and the movement and expression of my body is noh,' Seiren says. 'It's like taking two eggs, cracking them and mixing them together!' MondoParallelo's latest show, 'Keisei Aoshigure Torimono Emaki' (The Mystery of the Summer Rain Courtesan), was a particularly wild omelet, whipping together classical opera, rock, disco, old-timey kayōkyoku pop ballads and enka folk songs. A particularly illustrative scene: The cast of courtesans, in elaborate noh kimono and front-facing obi knots signifying their occupation, assume position in slow noh-step, then break out into disco hit 'She Works Hard for the Money' by Donna Summer. The show was the eighth production of noh and opera by MondoParallelo, the first being 'Otohana no Inori' (Prayer of the Song Flower) in 2020. The next opera-noh play, 'Yumekikyo' (The Bellflower of Dreams), where Seiren plays the historical figure Gracia Hosogawa, daughter of samurai general Mitsuhide Akechi, will premier in October at the Umewaka Noh Theater Hall . Seiren says the production will lean more heavily toward noh and there will be more professional noh actors joining the cast. 'Japan is usually not enthusiastic about art like opera and noh because they're considered boring. I was glad my voice could reach so many people,' says Seiren. Seiren has released four albums, including the diva's long-awaited 10th anniversary collection 'One More Time' on June 18. Though her career has spanned over a decade, the past two years have been the start of an exciting era for the opera diva: Seiren's participation in Japan's first ever 'Japan's Got Talent' in 2023, her victory and, a year later, her preliminary performance on 'America's Got Talent: Fantasy League' brought her fame not only throughout Japan, but worldwide. Moving forward, she hopes to continue to grow with her company. Most of all, however, Seiren intends to keep living and performing true to who she is. 'Especially for transgender kids,' she says. 'I want to encourage them to pursue their own dreams. I want them to see that anything is possible.' For more information, visit
RNZ News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Tim Finn: from the Enz to the Opera
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Photo: Tim Finn The story idea came first, the opera came about by chance. Tim Finn had long been fascinated by Tupaia, the Tahitian star navigator who guided Captain James Cook to Aotearoa and then helped the Englishman and his crew communicate with the locals. Tupaia was pivotal in Cook's exploration of New Zealand, but the voyage also cost him his life. He fell ill and died in what is now Jakarta, Indonesia, in December 1770. Finn has been to Tupaia's birthplace, and he'd visited a replica of Cook's ship the Endeavour. One day, the New Zealand pop star found himself talking about Tupaia with the Executive Director of West Australian Opera, Carolyn Chard. She was so taken by the tragic tale, she persuaded him to make it into an opera - which he did help from a few others. From the December 2022 NZ production of "Ihitai Avei'a - Star Navigator" in Porirua. Photo: Stephen A'Court NZ Opera premiered "Ihitai Avei'a - Star Navigator" in 2021. It was co-composed by Tim Finn and Tom McLeod with Tahitian "Orero" or monologue by Célestine Hitiura Vaite. However, we had to wait another four years to hear it on RNZ Concert. Tomorrow's Opera on Saturday broadcast from 7pm features the West Australian Opera Company (fitting perhaps as it was that company's executive director that first suggested it had operatic potential) with tenor Emmanual Fonoti-Fuimoano singing the role of Tupaia, while Teddy Tahu Rhodes plays Cook. Composer and lyricist Tim Finn at the piano during rehearsals for Ihitai 'Avei'a - Star Navigator. Photo: screen grab The opera focusses on the often difficult relationship between the pair, one a European used to thinking his technology and culture were the most advanced on the planet, the other a proud Tahitian who saw no reason to subjugate himself to his fair-skinned hosts. Tim Finn spoke with RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump ahead of the broadcast about the process of creating an opera, and his collaborators Célestine Hitiura Vaite and Tom McLeod. Finn would send song lines to McLeod who would then send back a more fleshed-out operatic score. Hitiura Vaite brought a Tahitian perspective and "Orero" to the opera in the form of a spoken monologue. The Split Enz co-founder (the band's first album Mental Notes turns 50 this July) also did a bit of research down at the opera house - Puccini's music became a favourite. Tupaia would spend the last months of his life on this leaky boat. Photo: RNZ / Tracy Neal While Tupaia and Cook changed the course of history, their relationship was not a happy one. Cook did not warm to the Tahitian, while Tupaia struggled with the British food Cook insisted that he eat. Crump asked Finn if he considered reprising one of Split Enz's hit songs, "Six Months in a Leaky Boat", for the opera. No, but he is considering writing another operatic piece. Having just turned 73, Finn isn't sure he has another full opera in him, but he's definitely interested in creating a chamber opera, if NZ Opera were interested. "Collaboration's the way to go," he says.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
On Smaller Opera Stages, Daring Art Has More Room to Breathe
Near the end of Judith Weir's opera 'Miss Fortune,' there is an uncanny duet between the main character, Tina, and her fate. Tina is sung by a soprano, and Fate by a countertenor. Although their music is similar, the difference in their vocal timbres creates an unsettling clash. At a recent production of 'Miss Fortune' that I attended at the Theater für Niedersachsen in Hildesheim, a small city in northern Germany, that scene had a memorable charge. Its strange lyricism was undercut by the humor of Tina telling her destiny to butt out as one might set boundaries with a problematic ex. It was a great operatic moment, and it played to a sparse audience in a city of just over 100,000 people. During the past season, Germany's leading opera houses — in Berlin and Munich, in Stuttgart and Hamburg — offered largely familiar though well-rendered pleasures, along with a handful of new works by marquee artists in contemporary music. But, unlike almost any other country in the world, Germany also has a large network of smaller professional opera houses that step up, offering modernist masterpieces, overlooked rarities and work from this century. (According to the German Music Information Center, the country has 83 institutions presenting opera and music theater.) In addition to the Theater für Niedersachsen, I traveled to opera houses in Darmstadt, Dessau-Rosslau, Lübeck, Magdeburg, Bielefeld and Kassel throughout the season. Although the performances were often at a lower technical level than in the country's opera capitals — the orchestral playing less polished, the singing rougher, the stagings and acting more beholden to clichés — they also showed a scene whose vitality remains unmatched, thanks to generous but increasingly precarious government funding. Germany's smaller opera houses allow up-and-coming artists to hone their craft, giving onstage experience to generations of performers. Sonja Isabel Reuter, who gave an assured interpretation of Tina in 'Miss Fortune,' is Theater für Niedersachsen's only ensemble soprano. Last season, she sang four completely different vocal roles in the space of a week: Mimi from 'La Bohème,' two different operetta characters and the solo soprano part in Dvorak's cantata 'The Specter's Bride.' Her three seasons at the house, she said in a phone interview, 'were like a crash course in how to be an opera singer.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Karaoke star who stunned stag do revellers with stunning version of Nessun Dorma says he's 'ecstatic and flabbergasted' after video went viral
A Karaoke star who stunned stag do revellers with his astonishing version of Nessun Dorma has said he is 'flabbergasted' after a video of the rendition went viral. Welshman Timothy Richards was recorded belting his heart out in Tallinn, Estonia where he gave the 'once in a lifetime' performance to a room full of Brits. Footage filmed in the Satumaa Karaoke Bar shows dozens of men brought to their feet by the powerful performance as they sing along to the iconic piece of Italian opera. But the most soul-stirring moment of all comes at the aria's climax where the partygoers raise their arms high in the air with whoops and cheers as Mr Richards perfectly hits the famous concluding note. Following the spectacular showing of May 11 this year, a video was finally uploaded last night - though it was only a matter of hours before it surpassed one million views and amassed thousands of likes. Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Richards, who currently lives in Germany but had been performing in Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin the night before in Estonia, said he had arrived at the karaoke bar in a group of six - having never previously been to one in his life. The singer said: 'I was in town at the same time as these guys - I didn't even know who they were. 'We had a few drinks and soon I was up. I enjoyed it. They [the revellers] all knew it that's why sang together. 'I just went with it. I left the building straight away and then sort of forgot about it - until today. 'I only heard about the video from children who use TikTok. I was ecstatic and flabbergasted to see the response and I am still pinching myself.' Mr Richards, who studied at the Royal Northern College of Music Manchester, made his professional operatic debut in 1998 as Alfredo in La Traviata for Welsh National Opera. The Tallinn stag do groom, Sam Stride, who Mr Richards is now in contact with, also recounted the memorable event which he described as the last night of his stag do. Mr Stride also told MailOnline he was now looking into the process of 're-uniting for the big day' with Mr Richards. He described the experience as a 'just a complete right time, right place'. 'It's not something you expect to see. I've seen Fulham get promoted and a lot of other big things. But this was better than all of that together. Mr Stride recalled the bar was 'pretty packed with British people'. He said people from the smoking area came 'flooding in' as the song was performed and the moment was 'pretty magical'. Following circulation of the video on X, a number of people commented to sing the praises of Mr Richards. Someone said: 'Cancel the wedding, it does not get better than this.' Another person added: 'Absolutely unreal.'
