INTERVIEW: Martial arts and weapons professional Riccardo Massi labored with Leonardo DiCaprio however now he is a world-famous opera tenor. He additionally loves Star Wars and busts the largest fable in opera.
Riccardo Massi in Gangs of New York with Leonardo DiCaprio (Picture: PH )
Yup, that tall bloke with the thrill lower and striped shirt standing behind Stephen Graham in Leonardo DiCaprio’s posse from Gangs of New York is Italian tenor famous person Riccardo Massi. He is additionally fairly useful with a double sword, spear and dagger. Simply who you’d need in your aspect in a bar struggle (actual or Hollywood).
No surprise that when he turned up in Milan in 2007 to audition for La Scala’s Younger Artist opera programme with a shaved head, swollen eye and lined in cuts and bruises, it didn’t, initially, go properly.
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“They would not let me in,” Riccardo laughs. Not fairly the hooligan he appeared, he’d been funding his music research for years as a nightclub bouncer and as a stuntman at Rome’s legendary Cinecittà studios, the place he’d additionally been capable of observe Hollywood legends at work.
Though, he tells me that the one who impressed him essentially the most was not Leonardo DiCaprio…
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Riccardo Massi in Il Trovatore on the Royal Opera Home (Picture: PH )
We’re assembly to advertise his starring position in Il Trovatore on the Royal Opera Home. It is a very great distance from his stuntman days and his upbringing removed from the inventive worlds of Rome and London.
“I don’t come from a household of artists,” he says. “My father was an entrepreneur who cherished opera however cannot sing. My mom owns a shoe store and by no means sang, however she has good pitch. So, I’m a wierd mixture of them.”
Rising up in tiny Sarnano, a distant central Italian city of some thousand, with not a lot to do, he studied karate on the native gymnasium. After highschool, he moved to Rome and skilled in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai. “I joined a dojo that was instructing medieval preventing with the sword and defend, spear, knife, double sword,” he says. “It was very well-connected with the stuntman group.”
For nearly a decade, he labored on native and worldwide tasks, studying from all the celebrities: “We weren’t allowed to talk to the actors,” he says, “however I used to be doing what Italians name ‘steal together with your eyes.’ Particularly Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York. That man is wonderful, all the time in character, even off digital camera.”
Few may think about that his largest dream was to sing: “It was there in me,” he says. “I stated, ‘okay, let’s attempt,’ and I discovered a instructor.”
After which at some point, after filming a brutal, bruising struggle scene for the HBO sequence Rome, he recollects that the telephone rang: “I am wasted, I simply wish to go dwelling and take a bathe,” he laughs, “and La Scala desires to see me in two days! I attempted protecting all of it very badly with make-up, nevertheless it did not work!”
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Riccardo Massi was a stuntman on HBO’s Rome (Picture: PH )
Riccardo ultimately satisfied the doubtful doorman to let him go and aced the audition, making his main debut simply two years later in 2009 as Radamès in Aida on the Teatro Verdi of Salerno. The Egyptian basic torn between preventing the Ethiopian armies and loving their princess was tailored for him.
“It positively goes with my persona,” he grins. “In the event you ask me if I like extra to sing Radamès or Rodolfo in La Bohème, they’re each lovely, the music is made in heaven, however I really feel far more just like the younger man that that leads a military and makes unbelievable sacrifices than the younger poet with no extra struggles than love, which is gorgeous, however when it is simply solely that, I really feel that one thing is lacking, at the very least for me.”
He nonetheless makes use of his previous abilities in struggle scenes however a few of the muscle tissue needed to go. Looser, supple our bodies go well with the mechanics of opera, he explains: “You do not have to be a sofa potato, however you can’t be a gymnasium rat. You additionally want endurance to sing kneeling or mendacity on the bottom or on steps.
“Typically folks neglect this, however I’m my instrument. If I sleep or eat badly, it impacts my voice. The self-discipline is similar as martial arts. Eat properly, don’t yell, drink or smoke. I swim to remain match with numerous stretching.”
He additionally busts a serious fable that bigger our bodies create a richer, fuller voice: “The sound an opera singer produces goes out of your physique by way of the vibrations of your bones and your cranium. 30 or 40 additional kilos would not have an effect on the best way you sing. However it might probably have an effect on your well being!”
Riccardo Massi stars in Il Trovatore on the Royal Opera (Picture: PH)
Not all voices or operas are the identical, although. I inform him I like the beautiful Italian and French items, however give me one thing German and I am in hassle. Something Russian, I am out the door.
“Yeah, me too” he laughs. “I’m a dramatic tenor. That covers Bel Canto, the interval of Donizetti, Verdi till we arrive to Puccini.”
Does that imply he’s a drama queen? “A few of them are,” he raises his eyebrows, “however not me! It means that you’ve a voice that’s able to that repertoire. Not simply the quantity, but in addition the color and the timbre. Your voice chooses your repertoire, not you. I’m very glad as a result of I like the romance and construction of the music. Wagner requires a kind of singing that’s a little bit bit extra violent. If you do not know your limits as a singer, you’ll be able to harm your vocal cords.”
You even have to return out and deal with numbers like Nessun Dorma underneath the shadow of the all-time greats like Pavarotti or Franco Corelli.
“Everyone’s ready for you,” he laughs, “and it is like (he places on a squeaky voice), ‘I will do my greatest. I am sorry.’ No person can beat them, however they’re gone.”
Opera audiences, after all, are infamous for heckling and booing. “They do!” he grins. “It occurred to me. It is a part of the sport. It isn’t essentially, ‘you suck.’ It is, ‘we wished one other singer’ or they do not just like the manufacturing. They get very indignant. You can provide your soul, every part you may have, however you’ll by no means ever be capable to please everyone.”
Usually lazily labelled as elitist and old school, opera struggles with modernising its enchantment whereas pleasing these devoted conventional supporters.
“Opera is everlasting,” he says. “Thank God. Why? Like Shakespeare, it speaks to human feelings, which have been the identical for millennia. Aida is mainly about two children loving one another and one other woman making an attempt to get between them. In Il Trovatore, it is two males vying for a similar lady. And when the alchemy is magical, pure emotion fills you and it’s so, so lovely. However it might want to evolve, adapt to the brand new occasions.
“Rattling, this can be a very delicate topic,” Riccardo pauses, conscious of the looming minefield…
“Conventional staging will all the time work as a result of the composer considered it in that method,” he says. “And I really know many younger persons are coming they usually love conventional stagings. With trendy productions, you threat doing one thing that individuals won’t consider. In the event you set Aida in a gypsy camp or a degraded suburb, you gotta have a really, superb thought to make me neglect that we’re not in Egypt with pyramids and deserts. If you don’t contain me in your imaginative and prescient, I’ll get bored.
“In the event you betray the unique spirit of the piece, every part will fall down And that is horrible since you failed. The first goal is to carry me into one other world for 3 hours. Sadly, in case you ask me, one out of 30 trendy productions work. It is painful for an opera singer while you have a look at the primary rows and persons are taking a look at their watches.”
It is a pleasure to speak to an artist who sees past his artwork to the opposite aspect of the equation, to the viewers. However I am nonetheless blown away after I ask what he enjoys away from his work, cheekily imagining afternoons reclining on a chaise in a silk kimono, and he proudly declares he is a fellow “sci-fi and fantasy nerd.”
We share our ache about folks, even mates, not understanding that, like opera, it is a method of taking a look at human interactions, what is occurring on this planet in the present day, by way of a lens. We geek out in regards to the upcoming third season of Isaac Asimov’s Basis on Apple TV and get method too sidetracked debating Disney’s patchy run of Star Wars exhibits.
“I grew up with Star Trek and Star Wars, it gave me life,” he beams, “Andor was a masterpiece however I did not very similar to Kenobi with Ewan McGregor. It was a wasted probability.”
After which he finishes me off by flashing his engagement ring (to fellow singer Elisa) and I see a gleaming band wrapped with Elvish script from Lord of the Rings.
Could opera, ahem, “dwell lengthy and prosper” with folks like Riccardo at its beating coronary heart.
Riccardo Massi stars in Il Trovatore at The Royal Opera Home from July 8 (rbo.org.uk)
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