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Get free articles and features available only to subscribers. At twenty-eight, young Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja has been thrust into the spotlight, expected to take the world by storm when all he has at his disposal are his charm, which is considerable, and his talent, which is also substantial. His warm, honey-toned voice is an impressive instrument, but is he really the next Pavarotti?
In Internet chat rooms and blogs, fans and detractors dissect his abilities, throwing around terms such as "squillo," "ping" and "spinto." Some have quibbled about the "bleating" quality of his quick vibrato. Others wax rhapsodic over its "old-fashioned appeal," calling it an affecting "flutter.
" Riccardo Chailly, who collaborated with Calleja on his first album, Tenor Arias (2004), has stated, "For some time I have not heard such a talent at this young age, with a sound harking back to a quality I thought we had long lost." His second solo aria album, The Golden Voice, led by Carlo Rizzi, was released by Decca last spring. Calleja takes all the hype in stride, racking up solid notices and gaining increasing exposure.
In 1998, he won the Caruso Competition in Milan, and the following year was awarded a special prize at Domingo's 1999 Operalia in Puerto Rico. In October, he made his highly anticipated debut at the Met, singing the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto, a role that served for his debut with the Royal Opera at Covent Garden in 2002. Speaking with Calleja this past summer by telephone in Malta, where he was born and raised and still lives, I encounter a man who appears to have his priorities absolutely straight, but who evidently needs a break from the hectic pace of his burgeoning career.
"I've been taking my first vacation in thirteen years," Calleja tells me, in fluent English. "It was time for it. I finally had the space in my calendar.
" Actually, Calleja had just given one of the biggest concerts in his life, an evening recital in Malta's capital in a popular outdoor theater. It was completely sold out, and the audience demanded several encores. But that is quite natural, as the Maltese, according to Calleja, have a special affinity for music.
"We have one of the most beautiful Baroque theaters in the world, the Manoel in Valletta. And throughout its history Malta has been influenced musically by Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. We have a strong European tradition of opera here.
The Royal Opera House, built in the 1860s, was world-renowned, but it was destroyed during the Second World War." Asked if his voice has a Maltese flavor, Calleja replies, "Malta is too small to have a flavor of its own." Calleja grew up listening more to Iron Maiden than to Madama Butterfly.
"My teen years are not far behind me," he laughs. "I like rock, heavy metal. But at the age of thirteen or fourteen, I also discovered classical music.
I was visiting my uncle's house, and he gave me a videocassette of The Great Caruso, starring Mario Lanza. From the moment I heard Lanza sing those first three notes in the restaurant, I was hooked. His voice and the way he used it were pretty phenomenal.
" Calleja, like many a green tenor, immediately began attempting the big operatic arias himself. "I sang 'Nessun dorma' but had no guidance," he recalls. "Thank God I met my voice teacher soon after.
" That teacher was noted Maltese tenor Paul Asciak, whom Calleja met at age sixteen through a piano instructor. "He had a surprised look when I started to sing," Calleja remembers. "He was either disappointed or quite pleased.
He said, 'You have a good voice.' He told me not to sing for eight months, that if I really wanted to make it in this profession, that I needed to be serious. He started me with arias from the sixteenth century.
He taught me music theory, vocal production." Asciak, himself a spinto with a passion for bel canto, guided Calleja to listen to recordings of Tito Schipa and encouraged the young man to focus more on vocal style. "Thanks to him I can do diminuendos in high notes.
He taught me to sing piano. He gave me the flexibility, the technique, and taught me not to push the voice. The technique is to make it sound seamless, effortless.
There is a difference between strain and effort. I am in this for the long term. I see so many careers go up like a flame and go out like a flame.
I want to take it steady.
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