This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radios.
Vers Oohio gebers a lot of sly.
This is, of course nessun dorma from Puccini's Torndo, featuring the breathtaking voice of my guest today, Jonathan Tedeleman. Born a naturally gifted singer, Tedleman was recording with the Trans Siberian Orchestra by the eighth grade. He started as a baritone before transitioning to his true calling as a tenor. After training at the Manhattan School of Music and Manis College,
Jonathan Teedleman walked away from opera briefly. Following a stint working as a DJ in Manhattan nightclubs, Teedleman attended an open call audition that would ultimately be the springboard for his opera career. He won first prize in the twenty seventeen New York Lyric Opera Competition and was the recipient of the Classic Award for twenty twenty three Breakout Artist of the Year. Teedleman travels the world performing works like La Boem, Madam, Butterfly, and La Traviata in world class
opera halls across Europe and the Americas. I wanted to know what his routine is like backstage before a performance.
So it actually kind of depends on the day. Regularly, I eat everything, but leading up to a performance, I really kind of have a stricter diet. I try to find things that are not going to give me reflux or you know, any sort of like spicy foods and things like that.
Avoid religiously dairy region exactly that kind of stuff.
And also alcohol. I don't drink two days before performance nothing zero Wow, and you feel the difference. I could feel the difference, but or I might, you know, I think it's just not worth the risk. I've had incidences where, you know, I have felt it and I was like, you know what, if I can just take out that variable, then that's way better.
Someone recognized that you had a singing was you're growing up in Princeton and someone were you either your parents taught at the university Nope, So you someone recognized when you were eight that you had a voice. It was unique. What does the eight year old sound like? You know? I don't know.
It was in a summer program. It was called Camp College at the Mercer County Community College and there was somebody there. You could take different courses and all these different things, and I took the choral course and the director there was like, oh, you know, you have a nice you have a nice voice. And he told my parents and they were like, well, exactly what does that mean? What does he have a nice voice? He was like, oh, no, he he could actually maybe do something with that. And
they're like, well, you're on key, and yeah, exactly. It was very natural talent to be able to like the fundamentals exactly. All those things came very naturally without any training. So he said, you know, you should check out this school, the American Boy Choir School, which is in Princeton. And I went over there and I was like, oh, this is this is right up my alley. I could do choral singing every day of my life. That's awesome. And as a kid, you know, it's kind of my parents
are like, that's a little weird. Why does our kid, why does our eight year old want to be in a choir? But you know, they they saw the value in the school, and they saw the value in investing in me and the things that I loved, and so it took off from there.
Now, when you're young, when you get pulled into this world and invited into this world to sing on a serious level, and eventually you record this Christmas thing, what does the Trans Siberian Orchestra find you?
It's so strange. I actually was just listening to that album the other day and I was like, this is probably the strangest album to ever go gold, I think in classical Ish music, you know, I think that they just wanted to have a variety because they're kind of this more variety type of group. And they have this one track with the boys. I think there was only five or six of us, and we came into a little recording studio like this and we sang this, remember
whatever track it was, and then we went home. I mean it was really really clean and easy, and I was probably fourteen years old, so it was, you know, very exciting to come to a New York city and you know, singing a recording studio.
You didn't spend much time in the city when you were growing.
Up, not so much, you know, being in school in Princeton all the time. I think we had we had school basically Monday to Saturday.
So Princeton's just for people who don't know the area. Princeton. I've always said it is just far enough away from New York for to be a pain in the ass to come in. That's true, the specially in New Jersey. Transit right from that margin, just a little too far. Now you go because you want to meet girls, and you want to meet girls who you join a band? Right, do you sing in the band or you completely give up singing? You just play the guitar?
Well, you sing rock and roll? Yeah, yeah, I mean I taught myself the guitar. You know, actually all of us in high school were kind of like teaching ourselves the guitar. I went to kind of like a hippie kind of schooling as well. Exactly, you're self taught in many ways, self taught, self taught, but you know, I got a lot of good guidance. So that's really the only way you can develop skills. I mean, talent only goes so far. So I think that, yeah, I want.
I was interested in some girls. I felt like the guitar is an easy way to their hearts, and I already had the voice, so you know, it was it was an easy pairing. And yeah, I started a rock band. I would sing, I'd play guitar, and I wrote a lot of the songs. I probably wrote maybe twenty songs while we were together.
It was what was the name of the band, Big Talk, Big Talk, Big to love It? Now? When you you go all through high school? Yes, singing publicly? Yeah? Any of the professional Were you singing professionally at all? When you were in high school?
I was with the Westminster Youth Corral and we did sing a couple of professional things, But mostly I was kind of deciding do I want to be a rock and roll singer? Do I want to be a classical music singer?
And I made you choose the way you choose.
You know, I felt like having some sort of degree in music and having real training in New York City would benefit me in the long run if I wanted to make that choice. So I think you could always pivot exactly. You know. I think that having taking the chance and actually, you know, getting the formal training and getting and making the connections is a lot more valuable than kind of just going off my own and really rolling the dice.
Now, I must say that you on YouTube books ten years older than you do now, because in person. You're much more boyish looking, and on YouTube you look powerful. What do you do emotionally, if anything, to get out there and sing like that?
Well, luckily I have a soundtrack, you know, I have the music to really pump me up. And that's all been within me, you know, that kind of that feeling of connecting myself to music has always been there. So it's a very natural thing for me to kind of feel the strength when I'm on the stage. But if I don't feel the strength necessarily that day, you know, I I'll do a couple of push ups, a couple you know, calisthenics backstage, get myself ready, pump myself up.
Red Bull never hurts. Also, like Jin Saying and B twelve, you know, I'll do whatever whatever's there. You know, if I need it, I gotta get it now. When you but you then when you finish high school, you went to study where first Manhattan School music and you were there for how long? Four years underground?
Four years, four years hard time time? Did you enjoy it?
I did?
I did it. It's a great school.
It was I wish I actually waited to go and went for masters. I think it was would be a little bit more valuable, but I still really enjoyed the school. I took everything I could.
But you took the Masters of manas took the mesters of Manis where's manising on the Upper west Side?
Upper west Side? Well it used to be. I think it's all down in the new school. The affiliate with the new school they are, I don't know, it's the same school.
I didn't know. Yeah, So when you finish that, you go on to have a private mentor correct a private teacher for a while.
Well, I kind of took a little a little segue before my private study, I started DJing in the city. I started club promoting. You know, I was a young twenty three, twenty four, decently with personality. It was it was, it was, it was.
It was an easy career. Was your doing? That's right, that's right. It was officially a New Yorker, So I had they can't do it anymore out there and go clubbing? Is you a DJ for how long?
So? I finished school twenty thirteen, so around then twenty thirteen to twenty fifteen.
To just hang out, have some fun, make some money.
I was going through a transition. I was actually a baritone at MSM, and I was starting to move into tenor repertoire, and I just felt like I wasn't ready for it physically, emotionally, everything, and I just didn't have the focus.
I didn't.
I kind of kind of burned out, and I didn't want to burn out completely. So I was like, you know what, let me try something else for a little while, and I'll come back to opera lea at some point.
So for people who don't understand, to move from singing in baritone to tenor is a tremendous amount of work.
It is, it is.
I mean I was always kind of a tenor, but just a lazy tenor. I didn't really have the facility to do it. So it just took it took me some time, you know, and I had to I had to recalibrate my brain to accept that I was a tenor.
I couldn't.
I couldn't go back to being a baritone that I wasn't.
And when you and when you go from one to the other, is that the typical goal of many people who are a male singers tenor is where you ultimately want to be. There's more opportunities and more great roles there.
You know I would say, yes, there are, but you don't really have a choice. You know, the voice is the voice, and you have to develop the voice as far as you can go. And if you're a tenor, you need to develop your voice to be a tenor. If you're a baritone, you need to develop it that way. It's I call it the Harry Potter sorting hat. You know, you just don't You don't get to choose. The voice chooses you.
Now, this piece Remini Francesca, Yes, and and the piece you you took a year to prepare for that piece, over a year, right, and over a year. So this is this during that phase when you were doing all your nightclub work and stuff and like that. The I had already committed.
I've already committed. I've already been a tenor. I'd done a couple of tenor roles, but this one was really starting to reach into the tenor.
Depths of technique and ability.
I got the role kind of early on when I was when I was getting my new work as a tenor, and I was a little hesitant to take it because it's a really it's a really dramatic piece and for a young guy, it's it's tough, but it's strange because it's it's written for a young singer but with a veteran technique, so it's very difficult to cast. But I was ambitious and I was like, you know what, I
could do it, no problem. I was preparing the role, and then I had started to have my doubts, and right at that moment, COVID hit and I had six months, seven months to just sit in my place and prepare the role. And thank goodness, I actually had that time. So I took advantage of it, and I really really prepared that role. I've never prepared any other role before.
What do you do for a year or more to study your rolling? What are you doing?
I mean, first of all, you know reading the story. I read the Dante, I read the libretto many times. I really got to understand the other characters in the story, not just mine. I usually only have time to learn my character, and then in rehearsals I learn everybody else's characters. So, you know, putting that all together on top of the technical difficulties of the role, which is which can take I mean, it could take a year, it could take five years, could take ten years. I mean, you just
don't know the voice is. You only know what you can accomplish with the voice when you do it. And luckily I had a lot of time to do that.
You have to find out if you can do it. I had to find out, yeah right now. When you are young, I mean a lot of people they start to track roles or if they don't necessarily want to play it. I just really love and enjoy that role. When do you start to track the roles you wanted to play? How old are you?
I think I'm in that right now. I mean that's that's kind of I'm getting it in itself now exactly. I'm kind of getting to the level where I can decide these are the things that I really want to take on, and then these other things maybe not so much. And then there's a really like do not fly list. It just takes a lot of experience because opera you kind of just get shoved into it. You get pushed onto the stage and you just got to do it.
And even with this last role at the Met, you know, I didn't think that necessarily I would love the role, but I ended up really not enjoying it at all because I felt like the character itself just doesn't have enough character. Puccini didn't right enough for the character to have gravitas and intensity. And I learned that, you know, I learned that this is just I will do it here and then goodbye.
Some of these roles, I'm assuming every one of these roles, but some more so than others, are very physically demanding on you. Physically. Yes, I know you look an athlete in terms of training for that as well.
Or I'm in the gym maybe twice a week, not too much, but I have a two year old daughter, so you know, I'm constantly doing dead lists, ready for.
The Olympics, ready for you're going to Paris, that's right, But you're tracking those roles. I'm wondering how much acting is involved in what you do.
It depends on each person. Some singers take it very seriously, and you know, you will see some actual professional actors on stage. But the majority, I would say, of opera singers are not so attuned with the acting component of the opera because it's on such a big scale. You know, most most of the operas are not on TV. You know, most of them are not even in a small vaudeville theater. You know, they're in a huge four thousand seat arena size building and you can't really see the acting. You
don't really you don't notice it. For me, I mean, I try to really balance it out. I really try to focus mostly on my voice, of course, because that's the thing that you know, tells the story in the room. But the acting part is something actually that I think helps the colleagues. You know, when I give things and i'm and I'm working with somebody and I'm feeling emotions, it not only heightens the intensity between the characters, but also my own character. And I think that there's a
huge value to that. That's kind of an It's unfortunate, but it's not such an unnecessary component in the in the opera preparation process anymore. So.
I'm assuming all these roles are challenging, but of the ones you've done thus far, and then in a separate category ones you hope to do, what's one of the most challenging ones you've done so far?
And why?
You know, they're all very challenging in different ways and sometimes unexpected ways. I'll give you an example. The last stoper I did at the MET, I didn't think it was going to be challenging, you know. I learned the role, I learned the character everything, I was like, wow, this is this is going to be a walk in the park. But really, the way that Puccini designed the role is it's kind of boring and it's a challenge to play
a boring character with a lot of boring music. And it's a lot of a lot of dialogue and not a lot of melody. It's it was a ch in its own way, lad And it's more, it's not really an opera. It's more of an opera atta kind of mixed with a play. It it doesn't really have this operatic moment that you're that you expect from Puccini until the very end. There's a beautiful duet at the end, which thank god it's there. But the rest of the opera,
especially for my character, is is very dialogue based. It's not it's not so, it's not so Puccinies.
What do they tell you to try to motivate you? What does the director say?
I found my own motivation really, yeah, came to work with the director sometimes interesting.
That's interesting now when you're there. Obviously, the met is considered one of the Great Lascala in all these legendary places, and the Meta is considered one of the great houses to sing an opera. But is the met still the temple of opera that people view it as?
It certainly is the United States, if not the world. I mean it's it's the it's top three, top.
Five opera house. You know, the thing you enjoy performing there? I do, I do.
I mean, it's a wonderful acoustic it's a it's a it's a barn. I mean, it's the Colosseum. I mean really, I feel like, you know, Russell Crowe, you know, Gladiator in there, but uh, you know, and that that's its own challenge. But I think it's it's very well designed and it's very well run, so it works. It's a machine that I would not want to operate myself, but I'm glad that I could be, you know, a fly on the wall and see what's going on.
Is that world constricting a little bit like classical music in terms of the audience.
And I think in the United States, yeah, a lot, because you know, it's all privately funded, you know, and the money it's it's hard to get now, I think, you know, it only gets harder with the with the arts and the way that in politics we portray the arts unfortunately. I think in Europe. That's why we're mostly over in Europe. You know, I have a lot more states. I mean, every little city, every little town in Germany has an opera house and they're all at a reasonable level.
And then you have places like Berlin and Munich and Hamburg and Frankfurt, and you know, they you can make an easy living over there, and then you could just fly one hour to Vienna or two hours to Milan and sing internationally.
How would you describe the difference between audiences in the United States and Europe.
You know, there is a difference. I would say the typical United States audience, I would say, you know, you probably have twenty twenty five percent of the people are regular opera goers that really know the.
Peace in Europe.
In the United States, I would say about twenty percent they know the piece, you know, they go all the time. And then the rest is kind of people that are going there because they like opera and or first timers and stuff like that. So I think the enthusiasm for the opera in the United States is always pretty good, you know, unless it's a real train wreck. You know,
you never, You're never. I basically say the met you know, you always see a standing ovation at the end of the night because they're always very happy place New York exactly, you know. And but I would say in Europe you got to really work for that, especially places like London. You know, I think that the personality of the people is a little different. So to get people on their feet in Covent Garden or at the Colisseum, it's it's much more difficult. And then in Italy, well then we'll
keep going. Well, actually we'll go to Germany next. Germany, you know, I think even getting an applause after an Aria is extremely difficult. You know, they're much more reserved. But if they really like the show, they'll applaud for twenty thirty forty minutes after just for bows. I mean, it's a completely different thing. Then, and then we head to Italy. There's nothing, there's nothing good in it, especially
if you're American. Should they A lot of them think, oh, he's an American, he should be paying to sing on this stage. God and you I mean they you know, the mafia kind of still exists there in terms of the opera. You got to pay off certain people to give you applause or not give you boot in the equipment exactly. So it's it's the wild, wild South down there, I think. Still, but that's really the I think that's the authentic opera culture. And I think that they're right.
I think that they're totally right to have this, because that's really what you want. You want this excitement. You know, you have no idea what the hell's going to happen, and anything can just go wrong at any moments. Notice, somebody could just start screaming, booze or throwing things that you Also, the theaters are very different. All of the American theaters are very new, I mean nineteen sixties, but
you know they're not from the seventeen eighteen hundreds. You know, there's a very big difference in the acoustics and the way that they smell and they feel. And when you walk into an Italian theater, you this history kind of just like flows over you. You always feel it when you're in there, even as an audience member, you're like, wow, you know, this is this is something else.
You know.
The met is very historical, of course, but it's a relatively new opera theater compared to something like Vienna or Lascala, any of these places.
You lot, Jonathan Tedelman. If you enjoy conversations with powerful operatic voices, check out my episode with five time Grammy Award winner soprano Renee Fleming.
So when I sing Tayis, for instance, at the met some years ago and had these spectacular costumes from Christian Lacroix, you just thought the stars have aligned to make this role suit me perfectly. Right now.
I love singing in French.
I love Massona the way it lies, the character, the fact that you know, the psychological drama, and this opera where these two people completely change places with each other.
To hear more of my conversation with Renee Fleming, go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Jonathan Tedleman shares the story of meeting his wife on a dating app. Hi'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Man on Me, demnd.
Sae Mobby Lady.
Love Money Money.
See this is Jonathan Tedelman performing Donna nonvidi mai from Puccini's Mano Let's Go. Tedeleman has worked with some of the best conductors in the world. Yet he is clear to make the distinction between your average maestro and the conductors who can conduct opera.
I think there's very few great, great opera conductors. I think that there's probably a handful of them in the world. We have a lot of good conductors, but really top people that know these operas so well, that know the voice so well.
This is really rare now.
I think that it's also become difficult I think for a lot of a lot of singers, because you know, you never really know what you're going to get with a conductor nowadays, because there's there's just so many of them, and a lot of them are kind of learning this art as they go as well, like the singers are well.
Levine, who I loved and wanted him to do this show with us, and who obviously had a controversial to his career and then died recently. Yes, Levine was somebody who wherever I would see him, without becoming silly and without becoming excessive. He had this wonderful level of enthusiasm when he was conducting. He was like you could see him feeling it in a way other people are keeping time. The old maestrows, don't get too emotional. Some of them are going to fly off the podium they're wound up.
And he was somebody who just had to was just right. The level of passion right that he was imbuing with his motions and his movements and things like that. I loved Lemon. Is there someone you can mention that you dream of working with his or conductor ether you're thinking, God, you know that? Would we don't insult all the other ones you already worked with.
You know, I could say that I've I've already worked with one of my favorite conductors, Daniel Orrin, and I think that this is he's a rare breed.
Now.
You know, he grew up as a singer. Actually it was discovered by Leonard Bernstein. His talent, and he's also Jewish. He's part of my tribe, so I appreciate that. But you know, he's really old school Italian kind of conductor. You know, all of his training was in Italy, and he knows the pieces better than I think almost anyone.
I mean, he's an unbelievable and unbelievable maestro. He's a little temperamental, but I think that that actually comes in your favor when you get on stage and you have somebody to support you and and help you deliver when you need it.
Now, you were born in Chile, yes, and you left there when six months old and your parents took you or you were, well, they adopted me, but they were they didn't take me. So you never met your birth parents, never, and you know any about their history. No, your adoptive parents are Jewish. Yes, you want you know, Chilean Catholic or something. Probably was it was.
I mean, I'm sure I was from Castro and that's like the Catholic the capital of Chile.
So right, But you were raised Jewish, I was by your parents, So no connection to Chile, no feelings about Chile.
No, No, I mean I will actually be doing some sort of South American tour next year. I am planning to go to my place of birth. There's actually a beautiful theater nearby called Teatro de Lago, and it's this theater on the lake obviously, and and then I'll maybe sing in San Diego, Buenos Aires, Peru, Monte Video, just kind of re enter my South American Harris South American circuit exactly exactly. But I really wanted to do this,
and I've been waiting to do it. I was planning actually doing it this summer, but unfortunately my wife's visas issues we cannot be from. She's Romanian. That's why the Romanian connection, and that's the Romaining connection. And they won't let her leave the country until she has her green card. So here we are stuck in the US of A.
If anybody can sing their way to their wife's green card, I have faith, amen, I have faith to the White House. Probably, I'm sure I'm not the first one. Anything I can do for you there, Jonathan, you like, as a matter of fact, mister President, that's right. They were in a little favor you could do for me. Now, what's one of the strange I mean, opera is so complain I watched that documentary about the Ring and Levine conducted that and they showed those big big paddles, those seaws and
the whole crazy thing. Yeah, and they showed the rehearsals. They would they would stop and go sliding down park like they were in Washington Square Park. You'd be like, zip off the stage. What's the craziest thing that ever happened to you during a show that any like wacky things ever happening when you were doing a show.
Well, I've definitely injured myself a few times. I've done the opera Tosca, and always in that opera there's the death of Covered Dulcie where he gets killed by firing squad. And before I really actually knew how to fall, I was falling and falling and falling, and then eventually I had this enormous bruise across my entire leg and up my back. And I kept because I just kept falling on my hip every night, and by the last show, I was like hobbling the entire opera.
It was horrible.
But then I learned, you know how to actually do it correctly.
I did a play once and I'm banging my hand on a table. I'm punching him. I'm doing street car named Desiron Broadway. On the line is remember what Ui Long said? Every man is a king and I am the king around here. I bashed the team. It was a hickory table out with the hardest fucking wood. With the wood they made like Washington's coffin out back hard. I heard the wood exactly. The table hit me and I literally get I crushed my knuckle. I kill my nerve from in between my pinky finger and the next
finger of it. I crushed the nerve wrapping up in behind my through my forearm, wrapping up in like the saiattica of your upper front, and it goes wraps around my bicyle. And I couldn't do one push up. I went down. I just and my chest muscle just died. Well and it comes out of the air down anyway, like if you do push ups. Yeah, you're you know, exerting the same system. And this happened to me, and my hands are turned black, not blue black.
My goodness.
No he's your wife an opera singer.
No she's not.
We actually met on Tinder in London. She was working for the Soho House. She was a manager of a restaurant at the ned.
I can't believe you're so desperate, you're you know, I was just I just was there to make.
You know. It was It's like one of those tender stories that actually out hotel.
Am I swiping?
Am I that I don't know super swiping? Actually you met her? We met, Yeah, we met.
What's it like for you when when you're on Tinder and you meet the person either there what you hope they would be or they're not.
I mean, I think she was more the person that I expected than I was the person that she expected.
What does she expect?
Well, you know I had some nice pictures and all these things. You know, you've seen me on on on the camera and you see me in the real life. You know that there is difference. So I think that it's slight different, a slight different the guy.
I also had a.
Little bit more weight at that time, so you know, it was a little bit more powerful, a little power.
Yeah, I like that powerful play. You look like you could be playing defense event for the Cowboys. I don't know on video video. In person, you look you could be playing tennis and Yale or something.
That's good. That's good.
Yes, I get I got a lot of I got a lot of federer.
Actually, that's that's that's my that's my So we get the woman, your wife, who the woman who're gonna actually partner with and have a baby, And are you married? Married?
We just got married as we went. We got off the plane at JFK, drove down to West Virginia and got married the next morning. Why West Virginia because you can get a marriage licensed day of and we wanted to submit everything as fast as we could to get the green carts.
Ordinially raised in Princeton with my wife from Romania, get married in West Virginia.
That's right, And now we're gonna we're gonna be moving back to Berlin next year. So yeah, that's where we'll be.
Love that to be home for now. Why a lot of work, Yeah, it's the work.
It's it's just the it's simple. It's more simple there. We can go to her family very easily. It's only two hours. I can go to basically anywhere in Europe within three hours. And you know, it's just that's where the opera really is. You have three major opera houses right in that city. Then you have obviously the Berlin Philharmonic, and then also universal music is there. So for me, it's it's almost a no brainer. And the education is very good and free.
Do you see yourself doing this for the rest of your life? I mean, like in my own case, I did this for forty something years and now I'd rather stay home more than work. Well, I'm happier staying home than working. I used to go to work. I was very enthusiastic and work rather than let one off the other. You know, for a twenty year period in all I cared about really was work, right, but I cared about my family and so but I really didn't hesitate to go out and grab the jobs while they were there.
And now I'm just not as interested.
I understand, you know, I think I would like to do other things eventually, I would I would like to do a lot of things. I'm interested in actually acting itself.
Yeah, we were going to say my producers that were like, what about acting? When are you going to go into that?
I am interested, you know, and I'm kind of a big fan of Mariolnza and this kind of tradition of these great singers in film. I think that that's kind of a missing element to the world right now. I think that that's there could be a draw for an inspirational thing for a lot of young people to really connect with music that is so meaningful and.
So so you should develop an NETNA series for like a Netflix or Apple or one of these people are of Amazon Prime where it's about the world of opera and it's a narrative. You play a character. I mean, it's a cooler world.
And most people know, you know, most people think opera okay, they they're just talented. They just get on that stage, they sing, they you know, they make they do that, they do that thing. I don't want to know really about that, but yeah, it's that thing. But actually it's it's a kind of normal life mixed with this life of just like going from job to job, place to place, person to person and roll to role. You know, everything,
every new place is a new experience. It's it's actually very exciting.
Well, I mean, as you probably can guess, if we did the TV series with you and the lead as the opera singer, you'd be this incredibly handsome, gifted opera singer, but in behind the scenes you'd be completely fucked up and messed up, completely exactly on TV you gotta be messed I'd have to ask your buddy to take me to the clubs and you have to really wind down, you know, add just can't. You got to pull it together for one more.
You know, this is no longer reality show.
This is a drama. Yeah, exactly, this is a documentary.
This is actually Mario Lonza.
Chess tenor Jonathan Tedtleman if you're enjoying this episode, don't keep it to yourself. Tell a friend and be sure to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Jonathan Tedleman shares what happens behind the scenes before an opera can be staged. M I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing.
Jelly Lamony, son of.
Shame John.
With on set.
From Puccini's La Ba M. This is Jonathan Tedleman with k Jalida Manina.
Mama, you do not know.
Me.
Tittleman may be a young man, but he's been singing for two decades. I wanted to know his advice for the next generation of opera singers.
You know, to be an opera singer, you have to have the most open mind. You know, you really and you really can't think that you know you know everything. You really have to always second guess a little bit.
You have to really be ready to change things about who you are and your voice and and your perspective and everything like that, because you know, all the time your instrument is in your body, and your body is always changing and you you can't really take it for granted to be like, oh I know how to sing, I can just sing. You know, every day is a different day, so you have to have a plan for anything to happen and everything to happen, because it will happen.
When you come to work. When you're performing like a big role, yeah some you know, it's a real serious gig for you with some heavy venue. What's your day like?
It depends on the opera house I met. They like to rehearse, I'll say, you know they have a saying the same day. No, no, I mean we rehearse. We don't have to we don't have to sing.
Luckily, what's an opera rehearsal with no singing? What do they do? Well?
We just do staging, I mean staging and logistics, choreography. If if you're lucky, you have a good director and you have a good collaborative team of people that can act, then you can develop things even more. You know, it just just depends on who you get. And that's the thing about operator is you don't really know who you get until you get there.
What do you like to do with your spare time? Do you feel that you can go clubbing and enjoy life? To the fullest story. You have to really really, are you like Jake Lamada asking him for a piece of ice?
You know, I never I never need to go to another club. I think I'm I think I'm all set right now. You know, we're preparing our wedding reception because you know we've got married.
We're hired to sing there.
Actually, you have an open piano cocktail hour, so all of my buddies and whoever wants to get up will have a so they could just get up and do their thing. Are most of your friends in the business, Yeah, I would say, or or there's in some way interested in singing, which is really weird. My whole, my whole wedding party. I'd realize that every one of them is an opera singer or wants to be one.
So what do you do?
What do you like to do on a night off?
I mean, we don't take many nights off. You know, we're mostly at home, just like hanging with the kid and playing with her. You know, it's a it's an important time right now. You know, we really enjoy spending time with our daughter. But you know, when we're on tour, you know, we have actually we don't really want to stay home. You know, we want to see the cities. So when we're in Italy, you know, we want to see all the churches, we want to see all the museums.
We just want to walk around. We were in Palermo recently, and you know, we would go to the market every day and get get fresh fish, fresh groceries everything. You know that that's like it's a different type of life.
European life.
Very cool actually, because you know, and get the practice a little Italian or any of your.
Parents or either your parents willing to go on the road with you for these luxurious trips. You can have the kids and take care of the kids.
They're a bit too willing. That's their retire may my son like, son, where are we going? We're gonna go to They'll find us. They'll find us, you're kidding, that's where you go. They usually come and they spend maybe three to three to five weeks with us at a time, which is really nice.
Yeah. Easy.
You know, I don't have them forever, so it's it's wonderful to have them.
You know.
At any moment, what are you doing next? Well, I'm doing Butterfly at the met now you're rehearsing. Now, we're rehearsing.
Now.
Actually I'm I'm supposed to sing tomorrow, but I'm not feeling well, So I think I'm not going to sing tomorrow. And when you make that call with them, it's a tough call, you know. I think I think it's they appreciate it. And I think that a lot of singers struggle making that call because they feel like, oh, if I cancel, you know, they'll they won't hire me again. They'll think I'm unreliable. But I actually think it's an important.
Order for everybody else to move forward during the rehearsal right, not be held up by you, even though it's say, well.
Now we're in the performances, so oh you're running. Oh we're running. We're running tomorrow opening night. But you know, tomorrow's the opening night, opening night, and and I'm not there. You know, I just know that I'm not going to be at.
I usually have an understudy.
Obviously, we have an understudy. And if I'm not ninety percent, I don't sing. Actually saying that HD broadcast last week, completely sick, I had no voice, and luckily I had a great doctor who prescribed me some wonderful Western medication to get me through the show, but otherwise I would have had nothing.
Now, watches, What is your thing about collecting watches?
You know, I kind of mostly collect Omega watches. I actually really like the Omega history of Omega. There's so many different types of Omegas, probably one of the more interesting brands, I think, because they didn't really set out to be like, oh, this is a luxury brand or whatever. You know, there are really a lot of them. A lot of them I have are like officer watches or kind of daily wear watches. And then they kind of they did the James Bond stuff. So their history is
very interesting. I think it's very rooted into like people that want collect watches. They don't make them fifty thousand dollars, you know, they make them under ten grand typically, So I think it's a it's a good brand to connect myself too. I wish they'd give me a.
Call, you know, hello Omega at Hello Swatch watches and sing Madama Butterfly. That's right, Well you're running at the met in Madam Butterfly for how.
Long until May eleventh? That's the HD broadcast actually, so that's that show. Will be that will be broadcast, yes, live, it'll be a live broadcast.
And when you do that show typically, because this is something I'm rather ignorant about, it typically runs how many performances.
Typically I would say a run is anywhere between five and twelve shows. It depends. So my my Rondine was eight and the Butterfly's five.
No, yes, only five shows.
That's right.
Well, if it's in May labor of love, you can't sing every night. You can't.
You have to sing, I mean, at the most once every other night, but you really need two days off to rest the voice. That what you have now, I have that now at the met that's what they give you. And it's really it's a luxury in Europe. You don't always get that. It's a lifestyle. You know, you have you come to expect it that this is what you do.
Special thanks to Deutsche Gramophone for the beautiful recordings in this episode. My thanks to Jonathan Tedeleman. I'll leave you with his rendition of a look of that lustelle from Puccini's Tosca. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing, is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Little. It's a.
I would bus so still enough for Inta, I didn't not feel like a hunting.
Me cut the not even that charm. Oh word.
Love me.
Crt intre of love. Never laugh, for.
Smarty had sent the son your NEDO to lit my Sten