By Elissa Blake
Diego Torre is about to become a member of an exclusive club of operatic tenors. Following in the footsteps of greats including Beniamino Gigli, Placido Domingo and Jonas Kaufman, Torre is to have his name inscribed on the honour board of singers who have sung Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana and Canio in Pagliacci on the same night.
It is a huge undertaking. Though Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci are frequently performed as a double bill (so much so they have become known colloquially as "Cav and Pag") and explore similar themes in similar settings, the two lead roles are technically demanding and powerfully different.
Diego Torres will be singing two dramatic roles in one night for Opera Australia.Credit: Steven Siewert
Moreover, each role is individually famous, indelibly associated with the greatest male voices of the past century.
"A challenge is something I am always looking for," says Torre. "I am a person who really works on challenge. Maybe it is ego? Very few people have done it. So I want to see if I am one of those people who can."
Born in Mexico, Torre, 37, has become one of Opera Australia's most admired singers since he made his debut for the company in Un ballo in maschera in 2013. Since then he has sung the role of Cavaradossi in Tosca, the Duke in Rigoletto, the title role in Don Carlos and Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly.
Doubling Turiddu and Canio in OA's staging of Italian director Damiano Michieletto's Olivier Award-winning production is the most demanding thing Torre has done to date. But, he adds, the singing isn't the hard part. It's the acting.
"This is verismo opera, it comes from the truth, you have to experience all the feelings," Torre explains. "But at the same time you also have to be in control of those feelings. If you don't have that really cool control, the feelings go straight to the throat."
Torre knows from first-hand experience. He sang the ageing clown Canio as a young opera student in Mexico City. He was 23.
"Pagliacci was the first complete opera I ever sang and I have to confess it wasn't a good performance because, back then, I wasn't able to control those emotions," Torre recalls. "Right in the middle of the opera, I suddenly had no voice. It is something that has marked my life as a singer. All the time, I have that performance in my brain somewhere telling me to always keep a hold on my emotions, man, and keep it cool."
This is no easy thing to do, Torre says, when you are singing Vesti la Giubba, one of the best known arias in the operatic canon thanks to legendary performances by Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza (in the 1951 film The Great Caruso) and Luciano Pavarotti.
"Vesti la Giubba is about hiding your feelings, putting on your costume, showing your clown's face, even though you are dying of a broken heart," says Torre. "So much of what you do in opera isn't really acting. It can be kind of superficial. You don't have to give what is inside of yourself. But in verismo you must and the more you give, the more the audience will get from it."
Torre sees his Cav and Pag double-header as a step toward what he regards as the ultimate challenge: singing Wagner.
"I just saw The Ring Cycle [in Melbourne] and I was so impressed by Stefan Vinke singing Siegfried for like, five hours," Torre says. "Just singing and singing and singing. His stamina was amazing. It was super human. I am not sure if I am super human. But I would like to find out."
Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci play in the Sydney Opera House from January 12.