As operas worldwide struggle to manage tight budgets and find ways to attract new audiences, the decision by San Francisco Opera to stage a new work by composer Jake Heggie, Dead Man Walking, seemed like a perfect solution to both problems. What better way to attract people who would not normally go to the opera, than through a contemporary piece based on a successful novel and Academy Award-winning Hollywood film?
The world premiere in October 2000 played to packed houses and critical acclaim in San Francisco and was subsequently co-commissioned by a further seven American opera houses. But it was also a turning point for one of the starring cast members. The opportunity to play Joe de Rocher, the inmate facing execution on death row, launched the international career of New Zealand-born baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes. Although he performed in three of the nine San Francisco Opera performances, says Rhodes, it was enough to provide an insight into what it was like performing for major American opera houses.
‘I think it was just that I was taking myself out of my comfort zone,’ Rhodes recalls, adding that he’d been calling Sydney home since relocating from New Zealand several years earlier. His foray into a major American opera house soon hit home that he was now an international artist. ‘I suppose I put a little bit more pressure on myself just to be able to meet the pressures of going into a big [opera] house and performing well.’
His efforts did not go unnoticed – and the offers have been rolling in ever since. Rhodes went on to play a role in another contemporary opera, that of Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire for Austin Opera, Texas. Recently, he performed in the world premiere of Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince, for Houston Grand Opera, and will return to the States later this year to perform with both the Dallas and Washington Operas. Meanwhile, Rhodes has also been cast in Jake Heggie’s second opera, The End of the Affair, set to premiere in 2004.
But next month, the 36-year old will revisit the leading role in Dead Man Walking when the opera is performed for the first time outside of the USA, in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. It’s an opportunity Rhodes has longed for, but one that, three years later, he feels more competent in approaching.
‘It’s interesting, I feel as though I’ve changed quite a bit in the last three years,’ he reflects. ‘I’d only been singing for a few years when I first did the role. It’s great to be able to come back to it and feel as though I’m approaching it a little bit differently, in that, I know the music so well this time around. Which’ he adds, ‘makes it so much easier, because it’s quite a challenge.’
The opera, like the film, is drawn from the novel and real-life experience of its author, Sister Helen Prejean, who agreed to be de Rocher’s spiritual adviser during his last days on death row and accompanied him right up to his execution.
‘This is highly powerful, emotive theatre,’ Rhodes emphasises. ‘I’ve seen it, how many times,’ he wonders, ‘and I’ve never failed to be brought to tears.’
But it’s not only the content that is challenging in this piece. Rhodes admits to being a fan of contemporary opera – he points to Andre Previn’s Streetcar as another example of an opera which translates well from a contemporary text – but he finds the challenge, in comparison to more traditional operas, is to draw on more than just his voice.
‘The more contemporary [operas] I have done tend to be more speech oriented,’ he observes. ‘I don’t think I can always rely on my voice to be the thing [that] reaches the audience. I think you need to give more of yourself than just your voice. I think I need to, because I’m not to sure my voice is, you know, capable of showing all I want to show.’
‘I was never trained as an actor, and I don’t profess to be a great actor, but I think it’s something I should work on and get better at,’ Rhodes concedes.
Actor or not, it is Rhodes voice combined with his stage presence that has impressed audiences and critics alike. But also, his peers. In 2001, he won the £25,000 Dom Perignon Opera Australia Award – a prize voted for by Opera Australia singers, orchestra and chorus members and music staff.
He won the prestigious award after just a few years singing professionally. In 1998, Rhodes was plucked from relative obscurity in New Zealand, after being discovered by an Opera Australia member who was singing alongside the Kiwi in La Bohème. In a matter of weeks, Rhodes found himself replacing the baritone in La Cenerentola on the Sydney stage.
It was a hasty exit from the world of accounting Rhodes had inhabited as his day job. Previously, he had taken several years of singing lessons, beginning at the age of 19. Rhodes then spent a year at London’s Guildhall of Music and Drama, from 1991 to 1992, where he trained with Rudolf Piernay. After that, Rhodes says, he gave it all away for about seven years. It didn’t fit in with his personal life at the time, he recalls. But things change, and now, he adds softly, ‘I’m just doing my singing.’
So does he harbour any aspirations to perform with any particular opera houses? ‘I feel lucky to be doing what I’m doing,’ says Rhodes, but adds, if Convent Garden came knocking, of course he’d be flattered.
‘Dead Man Walking’ opens in Adelaide, Australia on August 7, while further performances are planned for Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Calgary (Canada), and in Germany.
