Ashburton-born Simon O'Neill, at the age of 35 has become a star in a new generation of international opera singers. He talks to CHRISTOPHER MOORE.
For an art described as life affirming, opera appears to suffer an immense death toll on and off stage. If the plot doesn't get the singers, the critics and the audiences will. Consider also the hysteria, ambition, jealousy and raging hormones that frequently appear to be the prevailing mood backstage. A perception of rampant temperament never dies.
New Zealand singers, however, seem to be composed of different stuff. Grounded. Pragmatic. Calm. That's the word according to Simon O'Neill, 35, Ashburton-born, New Zealand Irish, former tuba player, acclaimed Wagnerian tenor on the international stage and, today, one of the star turns in a new generation of opera singers.
Currently the world appears to be Simon O'Neill's stage. Based in London, a significant part of his life is spent winging between the world's opera houses and companies. In a fortnight's time one of New Zealand's most significant cultural exports will be on stage at the Christchurch Town Hall, singing alongside his old mate, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and sopranos Suzanne Prain and Dorothee Jansen in a Southern Opera gala concert. Before that engagement, O'Neill will be in Auckland singing the central role of Floristan in a concert production of Fidelia Beethoven's epic opera of life, oppression and liberty.
This seems a frenetic life – especially when you've been invited to understudy Placido Domingo at the New York Metropolitan Opera later this year, have been approached to sing a leading role in Othello at the 2008 Salzburg Festival and you popped over to Germany yesterday to audition at Bayreuth's Festspielhaus.
Today, however, O'Neill is sitting at Heathrow Airport's departure lounge waiting for a flight to Hong Kong. It's been something of an operatic production getting this far. Britain's security measures have soared following an aborted terrorist attack in London and an attempted attack at Glasgow Airport. But, safe and sound in the calm of the club lounge, he considers what has, within two brief decades, been a meteoric career. O'Neill's professional life can be compared to his tenor voice – expansive, heroic and hard to ignore. The man himself, though, finds it all hard to believe.
Our story begins in Mid-Canterbury's expansive pasturelands and tightly knit rural communities. It's the place where O'Neill was born, spent his childhood, attended St Joseph's Primary School and Ashburton College and played prop for Celtic. His mother was a primary school teacher, while his father worked at the Fairton Freezing Works before retiring to the farm. His background is small-town Irish-Catholic New Zealand, a place of fierce loyalties and affections.
Music accompanied Simon O'Neill's boyhood. He played the piano, tooted the tuba and blew the euphonium in the local silver band and played the organ during Mass ("it allowed me to get out of being an altar boy," he says).
At high school, he sang with the college rock band before undergoing a major musical sea-change after being selected for the New Zealand Secondary Schools Choir and later the New Zealand National Youth Choir. Singing with the choirs dramatically expanded the young Cantabrian's musical horizons.
"Both choirs brought me into contact with so much. I got a better understanding of the voice and the repertoire," he remembers.
O'Neill moved on to studying music at the University of Otago and Victoria University, Wellington, where he completed his honours degree in music before receiving scholarships to the Manhattan School of Music and New York's Juilliard Opera Centre. O'Neill has been based in London since 2002, rapidly widening a professional opera career, working closely with his mentor, New Zealander Sir Donald McIntyre and receiving wise counsel from Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.
The critics and audiences seem to love the style and the voice of a young New Zealander with the uncanny ability to chart a golden career in opera.
It's also a wandering lifestyle. O'Neill has given up trying to work out exactly how many kilometres he travels annually and how many hotel rooms and airport departure lounges he sees.
He does, however, remember his last visit to Christchurch to sing. "It was nine years ago and I had a complete vocal collapse. A complete mess. Now I'm coming home, but psychologically, singing back there will be good for me. I can put all that other stuff behind me."
The Southern Opera gala will be a "class" act, he promises. "Teddy and I are something of a team. He's a good dude."
These days O'Neill admits to pinching himself every morning to see whether the events that have overtaken him during the past year are real.
"Yesterday I was standing singing on the stage at Bayreuth. The invitation came out of the blue – they were considering me for the title role in the 2010 production of Lohengrin and could I come over to sing for them?"
So it was that O'Neill came to stand alone on the legendary Festspielhaus's stage, gazing out into the darkened auditorium. A Kiwi alone in Wagner's shrine.
"It was absolutely huge. Bloody huge. But once you start singing, you realise how marvellous this place's acoustics and resonance are. You can hear your voice coming back to you. It's not about loud or soft. It's all about resonance. Someone like Pavarotti gives the greatest lesson on resonance. It's not a massive voice, but on stage it's huge. Singing is rather like cricket – it's not how hard you can hit the ball but how you hit it which matters.
"I couldn't believe that I was standing in the House of Wagner. Personally, I'd be surprised if they gave a 35-year-old New Zealander the title role. I'm already booked to sing it in London and Houston. Last year at The Met I covered for Ben Heppner. But Bayreuth? This is hallowed ground."
For the record, O'Neill reviews his singing in the Wagnerian Valhalla as "an average job".
MacIntyre would probably have something to say about it to his young protegee.
"He treats me like a son with all the good and bad bits. At this stage in my career, I'm after people who are straight-up with me. I've got no time at this level for bulls... Either it's good or it's not. Together with Malvina Major, Donald has been the greatest singing support I've had. At the start, Malvina was incredible. I've always been indebted to her. For many younger New Zealand singers, these people are saints."
The new generation of New Zealand singers appear to be riding a wave of success, he says. It's a tightly knit group of colleagues and friends who are there for each other. Opera's brat pack. Kiwis together.
"Remaining friends with a bunch of fellow singers from New Zealand is a great thing. It's important to be surrounded by colleagues and friends who are there to support you in good times and bad.
"Opera houses like employing New Zealanders to sing. I see it as the Taranaki Gate attitude – and it's extremely important. You don't need any detrimental airs and graces. This is the real world. You turn up, fit and knowing your stuff, and you do the job."
Today opera stars greet him as an old friend. Divas kiss him on stage and whisper in his ear. Critics scrabble for superlatives: "clarion voiced ... monumental ... a bold, lyrical voice that made each of his arias showstoppers."
In this heady world, how does a boy from Ashburton remain firmly grounded in reality?
"With anything you do, if you become over-heady then you are on the downward slope. I can't believe what I'm doing now. When I sign colour photos of me singing, I love it. Narcissism is my second name, after all."
Laughter booms down the line.
"But you want to know the best thing about it all – it's not screwing the singing up!"
O'Neill the pragmatist is also aware of the hazards of being tightly categorised.
"I'm supposed to be among the best half dozen in that group. At least that's what they tell me, but I'm embarrassed to say that. I'd also love to be singing Rudolfo in la Boheme, Carmen, Madama Butterfly.
"But I seem to have my foot in the door for roles like Siegmund, Parsifal and perhaps, later, the bigger Wagnerian roles. I met Daniel Barenboim recently – and I can't believe that I said that – who wanted to discuss singing Tristan at La Scala this year.
"I'm 35 years old, I told him. That role needs years of study. `All right', he replied, `I'll give you five years. Gotterdammerung at La Scala in 2012.' People dream about this stuff. I'm still dreaming. While I'm in Christchurch, I'll talk things over with Chris Doig. Get myself firmly grounded. Get back home."
* Simon O'Neill joins Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Suzanne Prain, Dorothee Jansen, Christchurch Symphony and conductor Tecwyn Evans for Opera with the Stars, 8pm, Thursday, August 16, Christchurch Town Hall Auditorium. Book at Ticketek.