Herb Benham: Opera is this East grad's aria of expertise
| Monday, Jul 27 2009 05:15 PM
Last Updated Monday, Jul 27 2009 09:22 PM
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Tomas Alvarado, center, stands next to Sissy Baker, left, and Brandon Ascenzi during preparations for the opera "Don Giovanni" in Viterbo, Italy. Alvarado’s role in the production is Masetto.
Tomas Alvarado attended East High and USC.
Tomas Alvarado appears with Laurel Semerdjian in an opera called "Summer and Smoke."
If you had told somebody you were an opera singer at my high school, you probably would have gotten stuffed in a trash can. If not that, they might have put a mouse in your desk.
Fortunately, it's 40 years later and Tomas Alvarado went to East High, then USC, and then Italy. When they discover you're an opera singer in Italy, they throw flowers from the balcony as you walk by and answer your "buongiorno" by singing the first few lines of "La Traviata."
Yes, Alvarado is an opera singer and as foreign as that might seem to many of us in the Golden Empire, what is even more surprising is that Bakersfield has a tradition of great opera singer. Yes, "singer," singular.
The world-famous baritone Lawrence Tibbett was "born on November 16, 1896 in Bakersfield, California.[1] His father was a part-time deputy sheriff, killed in a shootout with desperado Jim McKinney in 1903. Tibbett sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera." (Thank goodness for Wikipedia)
It's not the Metropolitan Opera, but the 22-year-old Alvarado is singing in the Tuscia Operafestival in Italy. This last weekend, Alvarado, a baritone, knocked out the role of Masetto in the opera "Don Giovanni." He's in Italy, he's singing -- life is good.
"Opera is still a part of life and the culture in this country," Alvarado wrote in an e-mail. "When you tell people you are an opera singer in the U.S. you get a funny look as opposed to here where it is more than respectable! The Italian people are gracious and helpful, for the most part."
Alvarado had the kind of high school career that would have intimidated everybody but the starting backfield for the football team. He played the alto sax in the marching band, sang in the honor choir, participated in mock trial and led the debate team to the state championships.
By his sophomore year, Alvarado was taking voice lessons from Sandra Venturinoand had been asked to sing in the chorus at Cal State Bakersfield for a performance of Verdi's "Requiem."
That experience turned him inside out. All he needed next was a powdered wig and a soprano with a heaving bosom.
"The beauty and drama was captivating, not only for me as a singer, but to see and feel the audience's reactions when we began singing 'Dies Irae!' I was in love," Alvarado said.
At USC, he was torn. Lawyer or opera singer? Both were heavy in words, however opera sounded better in the key of D.
Alvarado graduated with honors from the Thornton School of Music. Great moment for Alvarado, father Robert, a physical therapist assistant, and mother Pat, a family nurse practitioner. When he returns from Italy in August, he'll spend the next year working a normal 9-5 job as well as studying with Rodney Gilfry, (an opera coach) along with David Wilkinson, his voice coach, Brent McMunn,the conductor in residence for the opera department at USC and Ken Cazan, USC's stage director in residence.
Alvarado has more people on his squad than Pete Carroll, but that's opera, which involves lighting designers, set designers, costume designers, a director, conductor, music from a number of instrumentalists, coaches to work with the singers and of course singers who have to sing and act.
A year from now, Alvarado may apply to graduate school. After that, who knows. Fortunately, he's not racing the clock.
"It is nearly impossible to make it big in the world of opera while in your 20s, especially early 20s," Alvarado wrote. "The human voice continues to grow and change as we grow older. Voices, at least for men, don't finish maturing until their late 20s or early 30s."
By then, opera lovers may be throwing flowers from second-floor balconies. A century ago, those flowers would been have earmarked for Tibbett, Bakersfield's first great baritone. This time, it could be Alvarado, head back, singing toward the heavens.
