Bass Andrea Silvestrelli
A Conversation with Bruce Duffie
In November of 2000, it was my great pleasure to have the opportunity
to interview the Italian bass Andrea Silvestrelli. He was singing for
the first time with Lyric Opera of Chicago, and we met in a dressing room
backstage on a day between performances. His role was Sparafucile in
Rigoletto, which he would sing again in two later seasons. Interestingly,
several of his other roles would also be repeated in subsequent seasons.
These included Colline in Bohème, the Commendatore in
Don Giovanni, Bartolo in Marriage of Figaro, Ferrando in
Trovatore, and Timur in Turandot. Roles he has sung
only once (thus far!) include Fasolt in Das Rheingold, Pimen in Boris
Godunov, Osmin in Abduction from the Seraglio, the Night Watchman
in Meistersinger, Oroveso in Norma, and Nourabad in Pearl
Fishers. He also participated in one of the gala concerts at Millennium
Park.
Portions of this chat were aired on WNIB, Classical 97, and now, in
2025, I am pleased to present the entire conversation. He spoke quite
a bit of English, but, as usual when she is present, my sincere thanks go
to Marina Vecci, Production Administrator with Lyric Opera of Chicago, for
providing the translation for us when it was needed.
While we all were getting settled to begin, comments were made
by each of us about languages . . . . .
Bruce Duffie: We’re talking about speaking
various languages. [With a wink] Is it important that you
speak ‘opera’?
Andrea Silvestrelli: [Laughs] I speak
‘opera’, yes.
BD: Do you like singing mostly fathers, priests,
and kings?
Silvestrelli: Yes, I like very much singing the
old people. In my family, there is my grandfather, my grandmother
and the brothers of my grandfather and my grandmother. I like very
much to speak with older parents, and I like this world, the world of
old people. I like to live in the world of people that have lived
such long lives, and have seen things that I haven’t seen yet.
BD: Is this out of respect and experience?
Silvestrelli: Yes, for the sake of the knowledge
of their world. I also have respect, but most of all for the knowledge
and interests they have.
BD: Are you gaining some of that knowledge?
Silvestrelli: Yes, and when I sing the role
of an older person, I try to understand what this father or grandfather
would have done in that situation. I also like very much to sing
the killer Sparafucile in Rigoletto, because I’m very different.
[Much laughter all around] I like to sing very much characters
that are opposite to what I am, like the killer Sparafucile. I’m
obviously not a killer!
BD: Can we count on that? [More
laughter] Perhaps when you play a character that is against your
personality, it is like therapy for you on the stage. [Vis-à-vis
the recording shown at right, see my interview with Gustav Kuhn.]
Silvestrelli: I don’t know, but it’s very interesting
to me, and I love it.
BD: Are there times when you get killed?
Silvestrelli: [Smiles] Ah, more and more.
I have sung more than a hundred times the Commendatore in Don Giovanni,
and every day this man, Don Giovanni, comes to me and [makes a squawking
sound].
BD: You get skewered!
Silvestrelli: Yes, and I don’t know why!
BD: Would you rather kill or be killed onstage?
Silvestrelli: Oh, I’d rather be killed.
BD: Why?
Silvestrelli: Because first of all I’m a romantic
Italian, and I like dying! But I like coming back into life again.
I know how to come back and be very mad about what they’ve done to me!
I like to be the victim more than the killer.
BD: You’d like to have a second life, and come
back to settle the score with a vendetta?
Silvestrelli: A vendetta! Bad luck! [Much
laughter]
BD: Are any of the characters that you play
very close to the real you?
Silvestrelli: Yes, one Lied from Mahler of
the Rückert Lieder, Ich bin der Welt. Singing
this character is very near to my own character, and the sensibility
of that piece is close to what my soul is like. In Turin, I sang
Murder in the Cathedral by Ildebrando Pizzetti [who also wrote
the libretto, which he adapted from an Italian translation of T. S. Eliot’s
1935 play] . I was
doing the Archbishop, Thomas Becket [the role created in 1958 by Nicola Rossi-Lemeni].
He is a character who is very introverted, and I liked it very
much. It was the most beautiful thing to study, and to try and understand
what to do with that character. I like to do some research before
interpreting a role, and in this case I had the work to base my research
on. So it was very easy. When I was singing it, it was interesting
to see, and to try to understand what went through the mind of the real
Thomas Becket at the time, and make sure that what I was doing was what
they were representing on the stage. At the time of Becket’s death,
when everybody was saying to close the doors and not let them come in,
he would say to let them all come in. From the psychological and
dramatic point of view, it was a very interesting experience to do the
Archbishop in that opera.
BD: Do you try to find psychological insight
in all of the characters you sing?
Silvestrelli: Yes. More than looking for the
psychological insight, I’d rather try to put myself in the situation,
and see what I would do as the character. I am a strong and big person,
and when I find myself in a situation of antagonistic things, or a battle,
I myself am very uncomfortable in reacting as a big violent person would.
I understand why some of the historical characters were faced with the
same situations I would be facing, by just going to them and trying to understand
what I would do in their situation.
BD: Most of these are literary characters.
Are there are a few real figures, historical people that you portray?
Silvestrelli: Almost always! Think of Philip
II, or in Nabucco there’s Zaccaria. He’s not a historical
figure, but he’s very close to Moses as a man. There’s Sparafucile
in Rigoletto, and even though he’s not a real person or a historical
person, you can really identify him by some of the characters that exist
even now in Italy, meaning the Mafia, or gangsters and such! [All
laugh]
BD: Do you like being evil?
Silvestrelli: No, I don’t like being bad, but I
just like to be the character that I’m singing. If I have to cry,
then I like crying. I do what the character takes.
BD: Do you also do some comic characters?
Silvestrelli: No, just Truffaldino in Richard Strauss’s
Ariadne auf Naxos, and Pistola in Falstaff.
BD: You don’t do Don Basilio?
Silvestrelli: No, I’ve never done Don Basilio, but
I want to do it. I like the character very much.
BD: From the array of characters you’re offered,
how do you decide yes or no?
Silvestrelli: [With a broad smile] Ha! First
of all, I study the role, any role I am offered. There are roles
like Philip II, which are so huge and historical, especially kings.
All of them are very important for the dramatic Italian literature, and
of course, for Verdi. So, when I am offered a role, if I cannot
be close to the importance of the character, even if they are vocally right,
then I go home, and I don’t accept. I say no if I cannot come up
to all the things that I expect to be able to give in doing this role.
BD: Is it you that cannot come up to the character,
or is it the character that cannot come up to you?
Silvestrelli: Usually it would be me that can’t get
to it because my experience is limited. So far I have only had ten
years of a career, so I haven’t done everything yet. Probably it
is necessary for me to do five or ten more years before I can achieve
a complete range of characters that I can do. This is not for everything,
but for most of the roles that I would be asked to do.
BD: Do you want to sing all roles?
Silvestrelli: Of course. [Laughs] It
would be a great dream to sing all roles! But I am content, and I’m
very happy with what I’m doing, and what I’m being offered so far. I’ve
been very happy with the parts that I have accepted, and the ones that
I’ve declined. The day before I die, I will decide about all the things,
and what I’ve done right and wrong will come up! [More laughter]
* * *
* *
BD: You mentioned Philip II. You also sing
the Inquisitor? [As shown in the CD and video at left, he has
also sung the Friar!]
Silvestrelli: Yes.
BD: Is it good to know both of these parts
intimately?
Silvestrelli: Yes, it’s very good to know both roles,
and also Eboli, Elisabeth, and Don Carlo. My voice teacher says
the first stage direction must take place on the score. Verdi has
written words, music, and stage directions. It’s not a stage direction
as he intended, perhaps, but when you start the aria Ella giammai m’amò,
Verdi wrote the notes as if Philip were sleeping. It is something
that Verdi really thought of deeply. It’s not a casual suggestion
of a stage direction, and you’d hope that the stage director would follow
it. Of course, the singer will have to follow that direction, too.
BD: Should we still follow Verdi’s directions
exactly, or might we branch out and become a little more modern?
Silvestrelli: If you’re going to say that going beyond
or branching off means to do things better, of course that would be a
good thing. But just to go beyond for the sake of it, is not necessary.
BD: How far is too far?
Silvestrelli: Ha! I don’t know. To change
the ideas that go beyond what’s right, is to change the ideas that motivated
the composer. For example, Mimì cannot die by an overdose of
drugs, as they’ve done in one production [by Ken Russell, which is discussed
in my interview with Alessandro Corbelli].
Mimì is as poor girl and is in love, and she must remain a poor
girl who is in love.
BD: Without mentioning any names, are there
times when stage directors go either too far, or in a wrong direction?
Silvestrelli: Yes, and especially in Europe this happens
sometimes, because they want to believe that they have to invent something
new, so I guess they do!
BD: Are there some times when that invention
works?
Silvestrelli: I’m not against doing innovative stage
directing or productions, but I wouldn’t like to portray Sparafucile who
is full of money. I accept him as a Mafioso, or a crazy homeless person,
but not a rich man, or one who is very sophisticated. That would change
the nature of the character.
BD: Does all of this help to make these operas
speak to us today?
Silvestrelli: Yes, yes, yes. If they are well
done and well thought out, then they do succeed in making us closer
to the piece.
BD: Is it possible to make all of these pieces
that are two or even three hundred years old, speak to us today when
we have come through wars and depressions?
Silvestrelli: Yes. The lyrical music, the
opera language, is about a story. It may date back to the 1400s,
but it can speak of love, and it is very probable that it’s very similar
to any story that speaks of love of in the 2000s.
BD: So, people are people are people?
Silvestrelli: Yes! [Laughter all around]
BD: Is music is music is music through the
centuries?
Silvestrelli: Yes, wow! The music changes...
but Mozart speaks of love in Don Giovanni. Verdi speaks
of love in Rigoletto. Strauss is the same thing, as is Wagner.
It’s only the musical language that changes. The feelings
of people are the same.
BD: Is this what makes an opera great, that
the composer was able to delve into these feelings?
Silvestrelli: Absolutely, yes! [Much laughter]
* * *
* *
BD: Your voice is of a certain size. Do you
change it at all for a big house or a small house?
Silvestrelli: No, no!
BD: Not at all?
Silvestrelli: No! Of course, it depends a
lot on the conductor of the orchestra. [Laughs] They do
ask you for certain things, and one tries to listen to them and give
them what they want.
BD: Is it what they want, or what the composer
wants?
Silvestrelli: Sometimes it’s what the conductor
wants, and sometimes the composer! [More laughter] But there
are times in which I cannot do either what the composer wants or the
conductor wants! I am not able to achieve it at times.
BD: Can we assume that most of the time you
get it so that you give them both?
Silvestrelli: Yes, I always try!
BD: Without mentioning names again, are most of
the conductors you work with sympathetic towards your plight as a singer?
Silvestrelli: Yes, yes, but naming names, the great
conductors, such as Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta are fantastic,
and you can work very well with them. When I sang Don Carlo
at La Scala with Riccardo Muti, it was an experience of being schooled every
single day and learning something new, because Muti understood that work
exceptionally well.
BD: Are you pleased with that recording [shown
at left in CD and video]?
Silvestrelli: Yes, it has been one of the most beautiful
things I have done in my life, singing with Luciano Pavarotti, with
Samuel Ramey, with Daniela Dessì, and
being conducted by Riccardo Muti at La Scala with their orchestra. Wow!
This was in 1992, and it was an incredible experience.
BD: Does it surprise you that you were there?
Silvestrelli: I was originally in the second cast
of that opera, and then Riccardo Muti decided to change that, and I was
in the first company. So I guess that was a great thing to do.
BD: Do you feel that your career is progressing
at the right pace?
Silvestrelli: [Thinks a moment] Yes, I am content.
I’ve made some wrong decisions and choices, but that’s life, and you do
that!
BD: Of course, when you’re young.
Silvestrelli: Yes, but perhaps not even when you’re
only young but later on! [More laughter]
BD: I hope you’ve learned from the mistakes.
Silvestrelli: Yes, but not always. You learn
right away that it takes you a while.
BD: But I assume you don’t want to be overly
cautious.
Silvestrelli: But I don’t think of them too cautiously.
I’m humble, and I’m trying to be respectful of the composer and what
the opera entails and needs. I’ve renounced a Nabucco at
La Scala, and I renounced it on the day of the dress rehearsal.
BD: [Surprised] You walked out???
Silvestrelli: No, I didn’t walk out. I renounced
before the general rehearsal. I sang the dress rehearsal. Muti
was the conductor, and he came to my dressing room and asked why I would
not be continuing, as I sang well. My answer was that I could have
sung Zaccaria, but it wasn’t right to sing it that way. It didn’t
feel right for me.
BD: Is it not very dangerous though to leave at
that point?
Silvestrelli: Yes, but I was hired to understudy
another singer, not to sing it first. As it turned out, the other
singer did not sing it, so I was called in to sing the first role.
BD: When you’re setting up your agenda, do
you leave enough time for yourself to study, and for home life?
Silvestrelli: Yes. I try always to leave a month
free after every engagement, but sometimes it’s not always possible,
because if it’s an important theater, or an important stage director,
or an important conductor offering me something, of course I feel like
I should go. [More laughter]
BD: I assume you could sing every night if
you wanted to?
Silvestrelli: Yes, but I do sing every night! [Gales
all round of laughter]
BD: Is it a little easier for a bass to sing
more often than, say, a tenor because many of your roles are shorter in
duration?
Silvestrelli: Perhaps psychologically is it easier,
but I don’t think of it as being different because I have a bass voice.
I study to search for the true sensation, and to add color to my
voice. The tenor has done the same thing, and is always doing the
same thing, and so does the soprano, and everybody. But perhaps doing
a performance, an error from the tenor is more important than the error
from the bass. [All laugh]
BD: What is your range, top and bottom?
Silvestrelli: I sang Neptune in Monteverdi’s The
Return of Ulysses, and it goes to bottom C [C2], and then I do Escamillo
in Carmen with a G4. [In the illustration at left, besides
the two notes that Silvestrelli mentions, C4 is middle C, C5 is the high
C of the tenor, and C6 is the high C of the soprano.]
BD: Now we can all say, “Wow!”
[More laughter]
Marina Vecci (translator): [Jokes that they would
not be sung on the same night, of course, which provokes gales of laughter!]
Silvestrelli: In China I sang Turandot, which is
a middle-range role with not much height. The day after the last
performance of Neptune, I went to Tokyo to sing Carmen, and the
first two days were not terrific. But after that, I liked it very
much.
BD: Do you like traveling all over the world?
Silvestrelli: This is my work, but it’s not really
work. I love to sing, to know people, and to travel in new places.
BD: Is the public different from China to Japan
to Italy to America?
Silvestrelli: Yes, very different. I like the American
audiences very much. I like the Japanese audiences, as they are
very similar in a sense to the American public. I don’t like the
Italian audiences very much. There are the audiences of the big
well-known theaters, but I do like singing for people in general.
BD: Do you ever feel that it is a contest?
Silvestrelli: No, no, no, not for me. When
I sing, I try to tell people my stories. Maybe it’s an interesting
story, or maybe it’s not an interesting story. Or, maybe it’s
interesting, and I can’t tell it right. [More laughter]
BD: Isn’t that up to the composer?
Silvestrelli: Not only him. A joke can be
very beautiful and very funny, but if you can’t tell it right, nobody
laughs.
BD: Should the public become as infatuated
with the low C of the bass as the high C of the tenor?
Silvestrelli: It’s an impossible thing. When I hear
‘Vincerò’ from the tenor [at the end of Nessun dorma
in Turandot], wow! I think being a tenor is like being on a
trapeze. It’s really like being an acrobat, and so deservedly he
receives much applause for that... if he’s a good tenor! [More laughter]
BD: Should we applaud you for your low C?
Silvestrelli: Yes, but the bass is more a person. The
tenor is always the lover, the hero, the handsome man, and one who always
has lots of women! The bass is always cuckolded by the tenor.
He’s old, or a priest, or a man of the cloth, or Mephistopheles,
the bad guy.
BD: Should some new composer write the lover
to be the bass?
Silvestrelli: Mozart did with Don Giovanni, Figaro, and
the Count, but I don’t sing Mozart that much. When I sing Mozart,
it is Sarastro, and he is a priest. Or, if I sing Osmin, he’s a
eunuch, so what can you do? [Everyone giggles] But in America,
there is less distance between the tenor and the bass in terms of public
acceptance and likings.
BD: That means we like a lot of basses!
Silvestrelli: Yes, I think so. I got this
impression when doing Rigoletto here in Chicago, as I got great
applause. So it was a great liking from the audience.
* * *
* *
BD: What is the role you’ve sung most?
Silvestrelli: The Commendatore, Pistola, Sarastro...
BD: Are you keeping those roles, or are you
moving away from them?
Silvestrelli: I wouldn’t want to leave those roles,
but I would like to add other ones.
BD: Is there any German in your repertoire,
any Wagner?
Silvestrelli: Yes, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Parsifal
…
BD: Gurnemanz or Titurel?
Silvestrelli: Titurel. I hope one day Gurnemanz,
[laughs] but I don’t speak German. I have studied Gurnemanz,
but it’s one of those roles, like all great roles, that needs respect and
attention and care. Then there is also Richard Strauss’s
Die Frau Ohne Schatten, Capriccio...
BD: La Roche is a good role.
Silvestrelli: Wow, fantastic!
BD: Are you at the point in your career that you
want to be now?
Silvestrelli: No!
BD: [Surprised] Why not?
Silvestrelli: In my family, they call me bimbo
[child], and I don’t want to be the child anymore. However, I
am still that child. [He was born May 22, 1966.]
BD: Is it schizophrenic that you are ‘the
child’, and yet you’re always playing the old man?
Silvestrelli: Yes, yes! If there had been
more planning in my career, I could have been more advanced at this point...
but I’m bimbo!
BD: A child with a wonderful voice!
Silvestrelli: Oh, thank you.
BD: Are you coming back to Chicago?
Silvestrelli: Yes, several times including 2003
and 2004 for The Marriage of Figaro, and for Don Giovanni.
BD: The Commendatore again?
Silvestrelli: Yes, but I like the Commendatore,
and I like Chicago. There will also be Fasolt in Das Rheingold,
and I am learning Hagen in Götterdämmerung.
BD: There’s a great part.
Silvestrelli: Ah, the bad guy again! It is
a very good part, a beautiful part, and I like it because I have a few
years to study it. [He would sing it in various places, including
San Francisco in 2018.]
BD: We look forward to having you back year after
year.
Silvestrelli: Yes. A career is like a ladder.
Hagen is towards the upper part of this ladder, almost near the top,
and one has to go step by step in order to get up there. My dream
is Hans Sachs, and Der Rosenkavalier, and Mephistopheles.
BD: Gounod, Boito, or both?
Silvestrelli: Boito, because it’s Italian, and I’m
an Italian. Boito is really Mephistopheles, whereas Gounod is Faust.
BD: Thank you for coming, and thank you for the interview.
I appreciate it.
Silvestrelli: Oh, thank you so much.
© 2000 Bruce Duffie
This conversation was recorded in Chicago on November 10, 2000.
Portions were broadcast on WNIB a few weeks later. This
transcription was made in 2025,
and posted on this website at that
time. My thanks to Marina Vecci, Production
Administrator with Lyric Opera of Chicago for providing the translation.
My thanks also to British
soprano Una
Barry for her help in preparing
this website presentation.
To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed
and posted on this website,
click here.
To read my thoughts
on editing these interviews for print, as
well as a few other interesting observations,
click here.
* * * *
*
Award -
winning broadcaster
Bruce Duffie was with WNIB,
Classical 97 in
Chicago from 1975 until its
final moment as a classical station
in February of 2001. His interviews
have also appeared in various
magazines and journals since 1980, and he
now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM,
as well as on Contemporary
Classical Internet Radio.
You are invited to visit his
website for
more information
about his work, including selected
transcripts of other interviews,
plus a full
list of his guests. He
would also like to call your attention
to the photos and information about his grandfather,
who was a pioneer in the automotive
field more than a century ago.
You may also send him E-Mail with comments,
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