Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2014
Wearing a casual flannel shirt and beaming from ear to ear, Celso Albelo is not what one would expect of a world-renowned tenor. With an easy laugh and a welcoming manner, he tosses out questions with insuppressible curiosity, displaying as much enthusiasm for Japanese culture and cuisine as for the music that’s drawn him here from the island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa.
“Everything is very elaborate,” he says of food in Japan, indicating the clubhouse sandwich on the table before him. “For example, the sandwich. It’s not a normal sandwich. It’s a sandwich with a little bit more. It’s fantastic.”
This is Albelo’s fourth trip to Japan in the last eight years, and he’s racked up quite a repertory of favorite foods: “Shabu-shabu, teppanyaki, tempura, soup—ramen,” he corrects himself, sometimes struggling for words as he bounces between English and his native Spanish. “Sushi. Kobe meat—beef. Kobe beef. It’s really, really good.” A description of okonomiyaki leads to a vow that he’ll try it “tomorrow.”
He tells Metropolis that he particularly enjoys being in Japan, where audiences come to the theater expecting to enjoy themselves—a refreshing change from the constant sense of evaluation in Europe, where new art is always compared to the old, and seldom favorably. In Europe, he laments, “Always past is better than now. I don’t know why.”
Albelo himself follows a tough act: the Canary Islands are best known in the opera world for producing Alfredo Kraus, considered one of the best tenors of the late 20th century. In fact, there are perhaps a dozen major operatic names to have emerged from the tiny islands, a feat Albelo attributes to the ubiquity of music in island culture and an outgoing attitude encouraged by nothing more than the bright weather. This lightness, he says, is what allows him to connect with audiences around the world even as he belts out stirring arias about death and despair. A tropical twinkle in his eye, he even claims to joke with his audience as he sings: “For me, it’s important to joke,” he says.
A highlight for Albelo is when an audience crushes in on the theater doors after a successful performance—though he seems bemused by the orderliness of Japanese concertgoers, who will simply line up politely to get his autograph. Asked which he prefers, he folds his arms across his broad chest and says with a still broader smile, “For me, it’s [all] good. It’s the el cariño—the love of people.”
He’s certainly enjoyed much of that. Albelo has sung before audiences of thousands at the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan, among others, and next year he’ll sing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. He arrives in Japan straight from the 77th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Fesitval in Florence, and on June 7, he’ll sing selections from the Donizetti opera Lucia di Lammermoor to an audience of 2,000 at Olympus Hall Hachioji alongside soprano Tomoko Ishibashi. Accompanied by fellow Canary Islander Juan Francisco Parra, he’ll also present chamber pieces at the Yokosuka Arts Theatre (May 25) and Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall (May 28).
The venues alone excite him: “The acoustic—it’s wonderful. It’s fantastic. It’s amazing. It’s like, ‘haaa…’” he exclaims, his hands gesticulating a small sound spreading into a vast space. With his infectious enthusiasm and easy grace, he arrives in Tokyo just in time to shed some island sun on the rainy season.
May 25 Yokosuka Arts Theatre, May 28 Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Jun 7 Olympus Hall Hachioji. See concert listings, classical for details.
