A life with the drama of an opera

The world-class tenor Roberto Alagna is famous for his dramatic exits. But at next week's National Concert Hall appearance it's hoped he'll go out on a high C, and not in high dudgeon

WHEN I DIAL the number I've been given for Roberto Alagna, a woman answers. Some sort of PA person I assume as I fiddle with my equipment, trying to disentangle notebook, phone and voice recorder. I ask to speak to the superstar tenor.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" exclaims the swift, silvery soprano at my ear. "I give him to you now. I am Angela!"

It takes a moment for me to realise I've been speaking, however briefly, to the superstar tenor's über-superstar spouse, Angela Gheorghiu. Good grief. It seems I have opera's dream team live, right here right now, on my kitchen table. In a manner of speaking.

Alagna, meanwhile, is burbling happily away about being in Austria, which he pronounces in the French manner. He sounds, indeed, as contented as a child locked into a chocolate factory with a spoon.

"I am in Wien - um, Vienna," he explains. "I'm doing Faustwith Angela. With my wife. That was her."

And are they singing tonight?

"No, no. We sang yesterday night. We sing again in two days."

And how is it going?

"Very well. Very well. I'm very happy, first to be with Angela and also to sing this beautiful opera in French - you know - in this beautiful theatre."

It all sounds suspiciously idyllic. Aren't these two the terrible twins of the international opera scene, renowned for throwing tantrums and chucking their collective weight about and causing Posh-and-Becks-style kerfuffles? I don't mention this to Becks - sorry, Alagna - needless to say. And in return Alagna doesn't mention the problems which have dogged the Vienna State Opera's new production of Faust- the illness of the director, Nicholas Joel, the death of designer Andreas Reinhardt.

Nor does he mention that teeny-weeny spot of bother at the TV studio. It seems that less than a fortnight ago the Alagnas (some unkind folk refer to them collectively as "Angelagna", but let's knock that one on the head right now) stormed out of a scheduled spot on a popular Austrian television show, leaving their mortified host to apologise to the nation on their behalf. Apparently the couple had agreed to a 10.40pm time-slot on the weekly culture show to publicise the Faust premiere, only to discover that the slot before theirs was devoted to a new movie version of La Bohèmestarring a rival soprano-tenor pairing.

Maybe it just slipped Alagna's mind, because by their own standards (see panel) this was prima donna peanuts. And to be fair, they seem to have transcended it all and turned in superb onstage performances.

"Effortless," was the critical verdict on Gheorghiu's Marguerite. "Pure, versatile, urgent."

Alagna, after a slightly dodgy start, "soon loosened up to full and lovely lyric tenor dimensions . . . and his acting was among the best of all the main characters."

Celebrity shenanigans apart, Alagna and Gheorghiu are the real deal - top-notch opera singers in a world which routinely elevates You're a Star mediocrity to the top of the classical charts. Between them they've produced a body of recordings which, while doubtless not perfect, shine like solid gold in comparison to the sickly plastic confection featuring Andrea Bocelli and Céline Dion which is this week's bestseller du jour. Odd, then, that Alagna's programme for his forthcoming gala recital in Dublin doesn't feature the tranquil tenor aria from Faust, Salut Demeure Chaste et Pure, or the tiny-hand-is-frozen moment from La Bohème, Che Gelida Manina, or even that old chestnut Nessun Dorma.

Nothing, in fact, that one would recognise as one of his "greatest hits". What gives, Mr Alagna?

"You know," he says, "when I do a recital or concert I try all the time to put together an interesting programme. So for me it's not unusual, this kind of programme. I sing concerts all over the world - and I don't like when it's only the big hits or very well-known pieces."

Which has to be a big point in his favour. Still, though, an almost completely unknown aria by Anton Rubenstein from an opera so obscure it doesn't even feature in the Viking Opera Guide? What's that about?

"This Rubenstein is fantastic," Alagna assures me. "You know, I sang it in Russia for the first time - in Moscow - and after that I also sang it in Paris. And it's a beautiful melody. I discovered this aria with Enrico Caruso. He recorded that two times. A very beautiful melody. And I would like to do the entire opera. Maybe some day I will have the chance to do Néron. It's a beautiful opera."

Well, he should say that quite loudly when he comes to Dublin - especially if there's anyone from the Wexford Opera Festival within earshot. Wexford mounted a production of Rubenstein's The Demona few years ago, with spectacular results.

"Ah, yes," Alagna agrees. "He was a great composer with a big sense of melody and great orchestration."

Another composer who was an undeniably great orchestrator, but doesn't usually get a look-in on gala tenor-type programmes, is Christoph Willibald Gluck.

"Gluck, you know, it's one of my favourite composers," Alagna declares. "I remember when I was young I sang it all the time, you know? Because I love also Georges Thill, the great French tenor. Last year I sang the entire Orphée." On this occasion he will present a short scene from the opera in the company of his guest soprano, Nathalie Manfrino. "She sang with me on Cyrano de Bergerac- she's on the DVD - and she also made Werther. She was Sophie. She's a good soprano with a beautiful voice, and I'm very proud to have her with me, and . . . what I can say?"

Well, what would he like to say - since he's speaking directly to his Irish audience?

"I'm really happy to return to Dublin because I have a very good memory of singing there," is the prompt reply. This, it turns out, was when he was asked to do a couple of numbers at a big event for the record company EMI. "It was for the pop singers - it was Queen, you know, a lot of great singers - and they asked me to come there to sing one or two songs for the people. It was, I dunno, 20 years ago.

"I said to them, 'To go in this pop world and sing opera, maybe it would be boring for them, no? May I come to sing with my brothers and two guitars? My brothers were very, very young - 16 and 17 - and we went there to sing, and we had such a great success. It was for me magical in that moment."

So well did the impromptu group go down that EMI suggested the trio make a recording. It's called Serenades, and it's still available, complete with baby Alagnas on the cover.

"So now I'm very moved to return to Dublin to play," Alagna says. In the Alagna household, impromptu musical get-togethers are nothing out of the ordinary. The tenor has just published a book in French on that very topic. It's called Je Ne Suis Pas Le Fruit Du Hasard(I Did Not Happen By Accident) and it's not, he says, an autobiography but a kind of family saga. He wanted to set out his musical background.

"I explain the way in which I was educated, you know, because in fact in my family music was the - fil conducteur? I don't know this word in English . . . "

I don't either, but the dictionary translates it as "flow" - which is appropriate because Alagna has launched into the fast-moving and complex tale of his great-grandfather, who emigrated from Sicily to New York's Little Italy, where his daughter fell in love with a tenor.

"He was like the tenor for the Mafia." After that, "they had a lot of troubles". They fled to Argentina, then to France, then back to Sicily - which explains Alagna's Franco-Sicilian background and also explains why he is equally at home singing both French and Italian repertoire. And there are plenty more colourful characters in that family closet, apparently.

"Yeah - yeah! It's like a movie, my family, you know?"

AT THE AGE OF 44 THE MOVIE OF HIS own life as an international opera star has yet to reach its final reel. At this stage, however, with major triumphs in opera houses all over the world under his belt, does Roberto Alagna have any goals left to achieve?

"Oh, you know," he says airily, "I would like to sing everything, but it's impossible. But, you know, with opera I'm like Don Giovanni with women. I would like to sing everything. When I hear something new, I'm in love. Now, for example, I would like to do unknown pieces."

He rattles off a list of works by contemporary composers, several of them Romanian.

"I'm interested in this kind of repertoire," he says. "New music, it's like you are reborn in your heart and in your soul - and for me, today, it's also important to sing new operas. It's very important, because only in this way can we understand opera is not something old-fashioned. It's something from today."

He sounds earnest, sincere and absolutely genuine when he says this. His fans, however, probably don't need to worry. He'll probably be singing Puccini and Verdi for a few years yet.

And it's a fair bet that for his encore at the National Concert Hall on November 4th, he'll produce some top-drawer tenor tune - and go out, not in high dudgeon, but on a high C.

Roberto Alagna, will perform at the National Concert Hall on November 5th as part of The Irish TimesCelebrity Concert Series

EXIT:STAGE LEFT

In December 2006, minutes into his second performances as Radames in Verdi's Aida, Alagna walked off the stage of La Scala after being booed by a section of the notoriously partisan loggionisti at the Milan opera house. He was fired from all remaining performances and "released from any future contracts with the house".

Alagna insists it was the crowd, not he, who misbehaved.

"I could accept being booed if I was singing badly, but not being lynched," he has said. "Why because you have paid for your tickets do you have a right to insult somebody? Do you think when a singer is on stage you will help him to sing better if you are insulting him? I don't think so."

In the autumn of 2007, Alagna learned the role of Pinkerton in Madama Butterflyin two days so he could sing it at the Met in New York - as well as appearing in Aida and singing the eponymous hero in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. Heroic? Undoubtedly. Understandably, however, he wanted the missus to come and cheer him on. She applied for permission to leave rehearsals for La Bohèmeat Chicago's Lyric Opera, and was refused. She left anyway - and was duly fired.

In 1998 the Met sacked both Alagna and Gheorghiu after the tenor objected to set designs for Verdi's La Traviata. Then there was that walk-out from the TV studio in Vienna a fortnight ago.

"Enough already about the diva attitudes," was the comment from one internet blogger. "Can we just talk about his blue satin suit? Together they look like Superman ice cream."

Check out the outfits online at operachic.com