Ismael Jordi, tenor: “An opera singer has to be an elite athlete”

“While here in Spain you are opening gifts, I will be in New York screaming like crazy,” he jokes Ishmael Jordi (Jerez de la Frontera, 49 years old) with what will be his debut in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York the night of Kings of 2023. The tenor faces this colossus of almost 4,000 seats in the role of Alfredo Germont, the refined lover of the courtesan Violetta in the mischiefthe most performed opera in the world, which Jordi has sung to date on 104 occasions and with which his frustrated expectation is fulfilled three years ago, when the pandemic forced the entire New York opera season to be suspended in which it was going to be its presentation in a North American lyrical space, with Romeo and Juliet, by Charles Gounod. “I would almost have preferred to sing Romeo, Alfredo is a somewhat ungrateful character”, acknowledges Jordi in the same humorous tone: “In the mischief you face a monster, which is the leading female role, one of the most difficult there is for a soprano. And then there is my father, who sings a very famous aria… Alfredo, however, has been singing all the time, but he is not at all lucid. Even the public can take a bit of dislike to you. Well, over the years you learn, looking for nuances and, finally, Alfredo becomes a wonderful character”.

disciple of Alfredo Kraus Y Theresa Berganza, the ever-rising career of Ismael Jordi had at its beginnings certain doses of chance that, seasoned with a strong voluntarism, have made him one of the most sought-after lyrical-light tenors on the international opera scene. Fan of the genre through the recordings that he listened to in the family environment, at 23 years old he had not yet attended a live performance and was torn between the unknown of the bel canto and one more than possible sports career as a footballer, until he auditioned to be part of the choir of the Villamarta Theater in his native Jerez. Five years later, he made his Real Madrid debut in 2001 in the second cast of a Così fan tutte musically directed by Jesus Lopez Cobos and on stage for Josep Maria Flotats. From then on, the Bastille in Paris, San Carlo in Naples —”The theater that has most impressed me”—, La Fenice in Venice, Covent Garden in London, Rome, Vienna, Amsterdam, Tokyo… However, for the Andalusian tenor “the greatest satisfaction” is not making his debut in these venues, “but to be called back”, as has happened with London’s Covent Garden, another of his talismanic stages, which he has already climbed three times: “It shows that things are being done right.”

Nancy Fabiola Herrera and Ismael Jordi, in ‘Roberto Devereux’, by Donizetti, at the Maestranza in Seville.Guillermo Mendo (Maestranza Theater)

He is so worried, in fact, about not taking a false step, that Ismael Jordi’s career, which has now spanned two decades, has been characterized by having accepted as many vocal challenges as those he has rejected. “I have said no a lot. I remember the Scala in Milan, a Lucia di Lammermoor, which has now become the second opera that I have sung the most. I turned it down and went a week without sleep, but I don’t think it was the wrong decision. Debuting with that role in that theater would not have been smart. In this race you have to know how to be patient”.

The careful selection of his repertoire has led him, precisely, to triumph with the most popular titles of Gaetano Donizetti —”Don Pasquale, L’elisir d’amore, Lucia… He is the composer I have sung the most”—. Precisely these days it represents in the Maestranza of Seville another title of this composer, Robert DevereuxDonizetti’s mature opera and the third in his trilogy of Tudor queens—along with Anna Boleyn Y Mary Stuart—, with which the Sevillian Coliseum closes the cycle on the 225th anniversary of the birth of the composer from Bergamo.

“These are operas that are difficult to program, vocally very complicated,” acknowledges the Andalusian tenor, who has the opportunity to make the complete trilogy ahead of him. just represented Anna Boleyn in Amsterdam and the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, is now with Robert Devereux in Seville and in 2024 it will Mary Stuart. “In the next few years, it may become the most sung opera,” he says, referring to Robert Devereux, an equally “ungrateful” role, recognizes Ismael Jordi, but to which Donizetti “gives a final aria that is a real treat for the tenors” and that in the production that is performed in Seville, with Alessandro Talevi as stage director, “it has enormous physical demands”: “There are scenes where I have to sing while I’m running, but opera as a genre has evolved like that. Nowadays, an opera singer has to be almost an elite athlete”, he assures. “Every time we need to be more demanding in interpretive matters and we have to be attentive to everything, the rehearsals are concentrated in a few days and there you have to show that you have a sports mentality or that of a cloistered monk”, he jokes.

So honest that he recognizes that the roles that interest him most are those that he will never be able to sing — “I would love to do Aida either Manon Lescautbut no”, he says while pointing to his throat: “It’s not my voice recording”—, Ismael Jordi will leave Seville after his last performance of Robert Devereux next Saturday with a challenge on the horizon that he pursues without getting lost on secondary roads: his debut in the leading role of werther by Massenet, of which he does not want to reveal the date, but whom he intends to face “at a more mature moment. I think I have ten very nice years left as an opera singer, if everything responds and the voice goes well. I want to be very attentive to everything I sing and continue studying, improving. But above all, enjoy”, he adds.

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Ismael Jordi, tenor: “An opera singer has to be an elite athlete”