night at the opera

night at the opera image

Richard Greager (aka Don Basilio) shares his favourite opera memory.

I arrived in London at the beginning of 1973 and commenced coaching with New Zealander John Matheson, at that time a staff conductor at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. It was all very new and I had almost zero experience of actually singing in opera. Nevertheless his faith in me resulted in a nice freshly signed Junior Principal's contract at the Royal Opera and I was on top of the world. Not only that, I had met the woman who would become my wife the following year. Naturally, I wanted to show her what she might be letting herself in for so on a balmy spring evening we took ourselves off to the Festival Hall to a concert performance of Samson et Delilah.

It was a dream cast. Placido Domingo, at that stage in his 30s and singing like a god (little did I know that I would be understudying him in a new production of La Bohème at the Royal Opera six months later) and Shirley Verrett, a sultry and charismatic performer: Georges Prêtre was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

What followed was a performance that has guided my perception of opera for the last 35 years. From the start an almost unbelievable energy and commitment emanated from the stage. It may have been a concert performance but no one was in any doubt as to the drama being enacted.

At the end - silence. Then a football crowd roar of cheering that seemed endless with the audience surging down the aisles to the stage, still wildly clapping and cheering.

For me it was a defining moment. I learnt that opera is about communicating human life, love and death, not just spectacle and expensive costumes and sets. Nothing else matters.

Richard Greager plays the role of Don Basilio in our upcoming production of The Marriage of Figaro.