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SEEN
AND HEARD INTERVIEW
An Arizona
Debut:
Lyric Tenor
Mark T. Panuccio
talks to Nicholas del Vecchio (NdV)
American Lyric tenor Mark T. Panuccio has
been praised for the "exquisite lyric beauty of his voice,
dramatic expressiveness, unfailing musical sensibility and
professionalism" in Opera
News. He is consistently engaged by noted companies
in the USA including Cincinnati Opera, Sarasota Opera, Opera
Pacific, Utah Festival Opera, Nevada Opera, Michigan Opera
Theatre, Opera Carolina, Portland Summer Opera, and the Opera
Company of Philadelphia, and appears at Il Festival dei Due Mondi
in Spoleto, Italy. He features
on the new recording of Menotti's The Saint of Bleeker Street
under the baton of Richard Hickox on the Chandos Label.
It's an exciting time for Panuccio's singing career as he
has just made a big artistic leap into the opera world. He was
signed by Artistic Director Joel Revzen to sing Edgardo, in
Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor with the company here in
Tucson for one performance and two more at the acoustically-inviting
Symphony Hall in Phoenix. The tenor seems in a reflective, but
affable mood due to the fact that he is not only singing his first
major role with an established regional opera company, but also
that it happens to be as one of Donizetti's most beloved and
tortured heroes. "I was quite happy the way things turned out
yesterday, and I love this role. I think the role suits my voice."
And the audience seemed to agree: when Panuccio stepped out on
stage and sang Edgardo's anxious recitative in the secret
encounter with his fragile, but faithful Lucia, what became
immediately apparent was the way he spun out those Italian vowels
in warm, rounded tones that would have made Pavarotti proud.
Typical of many Italian-Americans, Panuccio was not encouraged to
speak Italian at home. "I learned it from a textbook," he says,
recognizing it as part of what needed to be done to further his
career. Throughout the opera, both Edgardo's romantic
pleadings and moments of terrifying outrage, and ultimately of
despair, made it clear that this tenor has moved far away from his
textbook days, on to the operatic stage with the language
totally at his command.
Mark T
Panuccio (Edgardo) and Laura Whalen (Lucia)
in Arizona
Opera's Lucia di Lammermoor - October, 2007
As for his vocal performances on October 6th and again on
October 13th, he used a mixed style of singing not
very much in vogue today. Like tenors from an older generation,
such as Ferruccio Tagliavini and Giuseppe di Stefano, Panuccio has
a knack for singing from mezzo forte to piano, particularly in
those parts of the opera where it is vocally appropriate and where
the sound is both warm and cleanly placed. When the voice
increases to forte, it takes on a brighter diaphanous quality that
seduces the listener much like Tagliavini and di Stefano used to
do. "My friends say I have an older approach to singing which is
fine with me," he quips.
But what about the tenor's journey to get to where he is today? As
with many young opera singers, his path has not been as rosy as
the bios and the publicity pieces like to portray.
He was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and moved to Philadelphia in
his early twenties searching for any opportunity to sing. While
his time there is a little sketchy, we know he sang in the chorus
of the Opera Company of Philadelphia. He states that on a "cattle
call," one of those huge auditions companies hold to find out what
the local talent has to offer, he met Donald Nally who is now
Chorus Master at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Panuccio started to work with Nally and has been with him
ever since. "Don is my mentor; he taught me the interpretative and
expressive parts of musicianship. I've been with him since the
middle 90's."
It was also during this time the tenor ran up against some bad
luck. He auditioned for the Curtis Institute, one of the premiere
musical schools not only in Philadelphia but in the country and "They
didn't like what they heard, so I didn't get in." Not one to be
disheartened, Panuccio applied to the Cincinnati Conservatory and
was accepted. It was about then that he heard good things about Tom Barasel, a singing teacher at the Conservatory. "I decided that
when I got there, Tom was going to be my teacher, so I called him
up and told him that. Since he hadn't heard of me, he was
surprised by my presumption." Panuccio did become his pupil and is
still with Barasel today. "What he has taught me, is technique and
the discipline that goes with it." The result of Panuccio's work
with Nally and Barasel was evident in his Edgardo where the
tenor's method of singing is so connected to his interpretative
and expressive abilities.
Although Panuccio was getting singing jobs in Cincinnati during
the five years after graduating from the Conservatory in 2002, he
found himself facing an unexpected and troublesome obstacle to
having a major career: his weight. As Panuccio describes it, "After
I graduated, I stayed mainly in Cincinnati where the opera company
sort of became my second home, singing small parts, and people
began to notice me." What he didn't count on was was going to after-performance parties
all the time,
eating, drinking and thoroughly enjoying himself. "I started to
put on weight and before I knew it, I was over 300 lbs. When I
auditioned for my agent, Bernard Uzan, in May, 2006, he told me 'I
like your voice, but nobody in the opera world is going to hire a
three hundred pound tenor, no matter how good his voice is.'"
Coincidentally, around this time, Panuccio had already decided to lose the
weight, so he really took Uzan's words to heart. Just how did he
manage to do it? To hear him relate it, he did it the old
fashioned way," I was determined to do it right, through diet and
exercise." However, Panuccio added a third method, one which he
believes is the key to his successful weight loss. "I made a big
change in my life style; I did it through a life-style change," he
states emphatically, making sure everyone understands just how
important all this has been to his career.
And where does Panuccio's career stand now? After his successful
experience with the Arizona Opera Company, his future looks a lot
more secure now that he has lost the weight. "I'm determined to
keep it off," he remarks as if going back to his former weight is
an option that doesn't even exist. During the past five years,
Panuccio has been singing mostly in Cincinnati, doing concerts and
in repertoire, very different from his foray in Donizetti. "I love
singing all those Neapolitan songs, and they seem to be a big hit
with audiences," adding, "I also sang some of the verismo
repertoire. I sang a Cavaradossi with a small
opera company in Philadelphia which I liked very much." His
comments lead to questions about other composers, such as Rossini.
"My voice is not suited to Rossini, that tessitura is really high
for me. I leave that to Diego Florez and Lawrence Brownlee; in
Rossini, they are the best." His words lead him to make the
necessary comparison, "You know, Florez doesn't sing Cavaradossi.
"
His roles for the immediate future include Raganeau in David
DiChiera's new version of Cyrano for the Opera Company of
Philadelphia and a return to Cincinnati Opera as Edgardo in their
2008 season. As Panuccio's career starts to move in a new
direction - towards Romantic Italian Opera of the 19th
century flooded with roles that easily fit his voice -
does it really matter that he can't accommodate Rossini's endless
fioriture when he has the heightened musical dramas of
Donizetti waiting for him in the wings?
Nicholas del Vecchio
Pictures © Mark T. Panuccio and Arizona Opera
Nicholas del Veccho's web site is
HERE
and
Mark T. Panuccio's site is
HERE