The American bass-baritone talks about
the Covent Garden production of Orlando and about his career…
When Kyle Ketelsen was in his mid-teens his mother put on a
cassette tape that was called Opera Goes to the Movies.
As that title suggests, it was a collection of famous arias that
had found their way into films but when Kyle first heard them he
didn’t even recognise the pieces as being operatic. Even so, he
had long been familiar with music: “According to my parents, I
was singing from the time that I could stand – but that’s not
untypical for kids. All of us at home – my mum, my dad, my two
older sisters and myself – would sing and play an instrument
too. In my case it was the viola and the trumpet and I was a
member of some choir or other right from the age of eight or
nine up until I had finished graduate school.”
Once having discovered opera, Kyle took voice lessons but his
future was far from being set when he left high school. “I
didn’t know what I wanted to do really. I did think about going
into the army and flying helicopters, which is why on
transferring to the University of Iowa I joined the Reserved
Officer Training Candidate School. But it was at about the same
time that, having decided to keep my voice in shape, I began to
receive positive, serious encouragement. It was in my third or
fourth year at the University that I started to think that I
could actually make a living out of it.”
Following his studies with Albert Gammon in Iowa, he was advised
to approach Indiana University where he could audition for the
singer Giorgio Tozzi. “Albert Gammon had been very, very
technically-minded in my four years with him – really nit-picky,
and I’m glad he was. It meant that when I arrived on Mr Tozzi’s
doorstep and he heard me he responded by saying: ‘Well, your
technique is set’. Consequently we were immediately able to
concentrate on the sound itself and then on interpretation.
There was a wealth of information that Mr Tozzi was able to
impart, but above all I was struck by his approach to life: it
was so positive. Someone once asked him why on walking into the
rehearsal room at the Met (Metropolitan Opera House) he would
always be smiling, and he replied: ‘It makes my friends happy
and my enemies nervous’. That was absolutely his way, and he’s
such a diverse man. For me he became a great father figure.”
After that Kyle’s way ahead lay through competitions: “I’m a
competitive person and always have been, as an athlete, for
example, even though you recognise soon enough why you’re
playing in a gym and not in the professional league. But when it
came to music I would get so nervous that I thought I might be
the type of singer who would never do well in competitions or
auditions.” Such fears proved groundless, however, as his many
prizes attest. Indeed, Kyle has now reached a point when he can
look back and pick out three key moments in his career to date.
One was Plácido Domingo’s ‘Operalia’ competition in Los Angeles
in 2000. He was not a winner but he was a finalist, and Domingo,
who was there in person to conduct, offered him a chance to sing
Escamillo in Carmen. That particular engagement offered
marvellous experience and led directly to other things so it too
counts as a special moment. But it’s also true that he will
never forget an earlier occasion, a day in New York when he was
still a student. “My performance in a competition there went
well and on leaving I was hired by someone who had heard me both
for The Creation and for Messiah at Carnegie Hall.
Then I went up town for an audition which led to my meeting the
man who would soon become my agent at ICM and also to my being
hired for a performance. Returning to my apartment I heard the
news that in the competition I had got the first prize. So it
was just one of those truly magical days when everything kind of
comes together.”
One of the judges at ‘Operalia’ was Peter Katona and that led to
a series of engagements in London at Covent Garden. We have
already heard Kyle in The Magic Flute, Maskarade
and The Marriage of Figaro and it has just been announced
that he will be appearing as Leporello in June replacing a
singer who is indisposed. But at present this regular visitor to
London is here to break new ground. He may know Messiah
but he has never before taken part in a Handel opera, earlier
plans for Semele having fallen through. Now, however, he
is preparing the role of the magician Zoroastro in Handel’s
Orlando. Eventually new repertoire of a quite different kind
may come up for him (“I would love to try Nick Shadow in The
Rake’s Progress and one day I hope to sing Scarpia”) but the
present enterprise is one that undoubtedly pleases him,
including the fact that it is being done with The Orchestra of
the Age of Enlightenment.
I ask him about this aspect. “I did sing with period instruments
for the first time quite recently, with John Eliot Gardiner and
the Monteverdi Orchestra. That was about a quarter of a pitch
down while this time it’s half a tone down. I welcome these new
sounds and find it all very interesting. I thought that I might
have to tone back a little, but in fact the volume of the
orchestra is such that they could easily cover us if they wanted
to. Consequently it doesn’t really change what the singer has to
do unless it’s a case of a slightly rounder tone here or being
more pointed there. As for those repeats in the da capo
arias, it’s no big problem because our director for Orlando,
Francisco Negrin, has found variety in the way that he stages
it.”
Regarding the acting style, Kyle has this to say. “It probably
depends on the character you’re playing. My role here, that of
Zoroastro, is of someone who was described to me as being a very
excited teacher. I have a couple such in mind from school,
teachers we really liked because they were fun and got really
excited about their work. That’s the kind of quality that
Francisco wants from me, and I’m working on it – but I have to
remember also not to move too quickly on stage because Zoroastro
is an older gentleman. What Francisco made clear to me and what
I hope to be able to convey to the audience is that this man is
someone who is trying to help people in complex situations,
whether it’s assisting Dorinda to grow mature as she discovers
more about love and life or discouraging Angelica from being a
bitch when she teases people. But something else underlies all
this, even when it involves encouraging Orlando to be more of a
warrior: it’s the fact that Zoroastro is promoting the idea that
you should never pretend to be someone you are not. Just be true
to yourself and all should end well: that was valid in Handel’s
time and it remains so today when considering human
relationships.”
If Handel is largely new to Kyle, working with the conductor Sir
Charles Mackerras is not. Some view Mackerras as a formidable
figure, their comments suggesting a hint of unease as well as
great respect. Kyle’s attitude is rather different: “Of course
for somebody like me it could be considered somewhat daunting to
be coming here to debut in this role under such an important
conductor, and Mackerras certainly is a perfectionist. But I am
too when it comes to it: wanting to get a role right is the
whole point of doing it. But as for Mackerras – well, what a
mind and what an ear! Just yesterday he queried something that
I’d done in an aria – just one note. I thought: ‘Did I do
that? Yes, I did’. And when he asks me my opinion of something,
I’m almost taken aback. After all he’s the one who knows. But
he’s very open to things. Three days ago I asked him about
adding a high note to one of my cadenzas and his response was
‘certainly, and I suggest that you take it down like this’.
That’s all I ask for in a conductor, and the fact that he’s a
regular person, pleasant to be around, makes for a comfortable
environment.”
Naturally Kyle will be hoping for success on the opening night
both for himself and for the production but how, I wonder, does
he decide whether or not a particular performance of his has
truly come off? “I’ve talked to other singers about this and
they agree that you can often get a feeling just before the
applause when you say to yourself ‘really that was one of my
best shows’ and then the response comes and it’s lukewarm. At
other times you are thinking ‘I messed up here and I goofed
there’, but when you walk out the applause is thunderous. You
just never know how they’re going to react, but should they
applaud just when you were feeling that you had messed up then
it’s balm to the wound. However, whatever you yourself may feel
about what you did, you do take it to heart if the reaction is
tepid – or maybe that’s just me. Even so, the most important
thing is if you’re happy with it yourself, if you know you did
as well as you could and helped your colleagues to shine as
well. As for the critics, you always hope to receive good
reviews, but as Giorgio Tozzi would say ‘if you believe the good
ones, you have to believe the bad ones too’.”
The opening night of Orlando is 26 February 2007 at 7.00
and runs until 13 March
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