American tenor Michael Fabiano is back in town and everyone in the opera world has noticed. His performance in Massenet’s Werther is one for the ages.
French composer Jules Massenet took two years (1885-87) to complete the opera and so did Michael Fabiano preparing for it.
“Werther is a real love story. Everyone in life has had a heartbreak so when I perform it I relate it to my story”, says Michael in this extended interview with SBS Italian. The Italian-American opera star talks about Werther, his career as a singer, his life as a businessman, philanthropist, flying, his Italian ancestry and more.
Fabiano delivers a brilliant introspection of Werther’s poetic character. His emotion, sensitivity and brooding are deeply felt by the audience and many are moved to tears by the end. If you are one of these, don’t be embarrassed, he has probably exposed your heartbreak story. Italian conductor Carlo Montanaro and the OA orchestra do a fantastic job of delivering Massenet’s music with such emotional intensity that a DVD of this current production should be a must. Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova is great as Charlotte.
“I went to Michigan University to study Business and Economics” says Michael Fabiano adding that ,“for my joy”, he studied music as an elective subject. It was then that his life changed when he met history making American tenor George Shirley. “He told me ‘do you realise you have a unique voice? You have the moral responsibility to share it with the world’. After thinking on it I accepted the challenge”, says Michael (no regrets). After all, he has also become a successful businessman. “Not many people know about it. I do many, many things” he reveals.
He was a baseball referee for fourteen years. He admits that at school some made his life difficult and that being a referee gave him an opportunity to “throw them out” during baseball games. “Being a referee was very useful as it taught me many things such as respect for rules” he says. During those school years he established himself as a champion debater, this still proves useful in life. He is also a qualified light aircraft pilot.
Michael Fabiano’s Italian side of the family comes from Apulia and Calabria where his closest relatives still live. He visited them last year in the small town of Scilla, the closest Calabrian point to Sicily. He loves his link with Italy and mentioned that his aunt Laurie Fabiano wrote the popular biographical novel Elizabeth Street, a history of their migrant family in America at the turn of last century.
Michael Fabiano speaks passionately of his activity as a philanthropist. He says that his teacher and mentor George Shirley brought to his attention the fact that many thousands of American children do not study music because they can’t afford lessons. ArtSmart , the Foundation Michael has co-founded with John Viscardi, does just that. “Next year we aim to give one-to-one lessons to forty thousand young students” he says. ArtSmart is linked to his future.“I might sing for another eight, nine years may be and then I will dedicate myself to the Foundation. You can’t do both things at the same time”. We will have to wait and see.
In the interview he talks about is recent marriage to Bryan McCalister celebrated at the Metropolitan in New York and how the two met in dramatic circumstances after a performance at the Met.
Michal Fabiano has been nominated in this year’s International Opera Awards in the Popular Artist category. Online voting closes at 5pm, Friday 8thMarch 2019.
Among his many previous awards are the 2014 Richard Tucker Award and the Beverly Sills Artist Award, the first artist to win them both in the same year.
Opera Australia’s Werther performances at the Opera House Sydney continue until 11 March.
