“It’s going to be quite incredible, sitting on stage, or kneeling on stage which I’ll be doing most of the time as an imprisoned member of the aristocracy, looking up at Table Mountain, knowing it’s there. Even when it gets dark it takes over this city in every sense, in a very wonderful way,” said Trealeven, who returns to sing in the Mother City after a 25 year absence.
Over a more than 37 year long career the Cornish-born tenor has sung in some of the most famous opera houses in the world. He rates this particular stage highly for sheer dramatic effect when compared to singing at the ancient theatre in Taormina on the east coast of Sicily, which has Mount Etna as the backdrop.
“Probably the Cape is going to come in at least two, or a joint one with that. To look up at this iconic, gargantuan unbelievable sight of southern Africa… everybody in the world who has popped on to the internet and done some history or geography research knows about Table Mountain.
“The fact that we’re setting it right in the middle of the time of slavery and this was the halfway point. I think it’s going to be very interesting in that sense.”
Fidelio tells a story about Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named Fidelio, who rescues her husband Florestan from death in a political prison.
This was Beethoven’s one and only opera and Trealeven points out that the composer is well-known and renowned in the business of singing for making very high demands upon his singers: “Fidelio is no exception. It is very exacting to sing because it is technically difficult to accomplish. Leonora has a much longer eve-ning than I do. The iconic aria of the piece is in the first half.”
Over the last 20 years Trealeven has concentrated more on the German repertoire basing himself in the country, though his family home is in Scotland (born in Cornwall, but the family now live in Scotland).
“Wagner is long, arduous, wonderful. I think most voices need a fairly long gestation period before they mature and move into that repertoire. I’ve taken my time, most certainly. I’m glad I did so.
“I cut my teeth if you like, in the early days on a lot of French and Italian repertoire.. all the lyric things, starting with L’elisir d’amore and Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro… “I sang all manner of small parts and moved on to intermediary and some of the heavier Italian, lighter German, light heavy German …
“Florestan, the role I’m singing here... I think it’s classified as an heldentenor part, which is the heaviest if you like.”
“Certainly approach it like I approach all my work, from the lyric side, after all we inhabit the lyric theatre.”
While the mechanics of singing inside or outside remain the same, performing outside is of course, weather dependant so he knows the company have worked, if not a rain day, at least a wind day into the schedule.
“There are a lot of unknowns. I think it’s a very brave enterprise, a very exciting one.”
Still, experience has taught him a thing or two about singing to a starry sky.
“What is often difficult for inexperienced artists is to maintain the same level of vocal production and sound. Not to be in any way intimated by the fact that we are outside and to think then that because we’re outside we need to make more sound. That’s absolutely counterproductive.”
• Cape Town Opera presents Fidelio at The Castle on March 7, 9 and 10. Book through Computicket.