A COUNTERTENOR VIRTUOSO

Glyndebourne's latest new star
talks to RODERIC DUNNETT

<< Continued from Wednesday

Robin Blaze grew up in the village of Shadwell, on the outskirts of Leeds. 'My family background's not a musical one, at least not in the Classical sense. My dad's a golf professional, and my mum has always quite liked Classical music across the range. But they had no idea initially I might have a desire to go into music.'

'Like quite a lot of countertenors in the English tradition I started young, and came from a choir background; but by chorister standards I began a bit late, in that I didn't actually go to choir school until I was ten or eleven.

'Most people in my situation can probably pinpoint one person who switched them on to music. At Leeds Grammar School junior department I had an inspirational teacher, Stephen Lomas, who took it upon himself to start a choir with the kids who were available and to expand their musical horizons as much as possible.

What's more, Lomas gave Blaze his first taste of the male alto voice. 'Opera wasn't something I'd go to normally at that stage. But Stephen took a group of us, around l980, to see Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Leeds Grand Theatre (present home to Opera North) -- I have it in my head that it was the Glyndebourne Touring production; they don't go to Leeds nowadays, but I think they might have done in those days. James Bowman was singing the role of Oberon. It was probably the first time I'd ever heard a countertenor voice -- I'd never heard a recording, or anything like that before; indeed I hadn't really ever heard an opera singer.'

'I was slightly nervous of these sopranos and tenors, with heavily produced vibrato in their voices -- that's slightly unnerving if you're not used to it. But James just stood up and dominated through the colour of his sound, the way he walked on the stage, the sheer weight of his personality. For me, aged nine or ten, it was absolutely stunning.

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