My
name is Philip Tsaras. I am an actor, singer, dancer, writer and
voice over artist. I was born in the North East of England but
left to live in London when I secured a place on the Professional
Acting Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. That
was almost 50 years ago now.
I come from a musical family and my father was an amateur conductor,
who was musical director of several local operatic societies.
Indeed, music has been a part of my life since before I can remember.
My father played the piano, my mother sang, I also played the
piano and my brother played the clarinet. In my teens I conceived
a passion for opera, which has stayed with me ever since.
Like most actors, I would have fallow periods and when that happened,
I would work at the Music Discount Centre, a London-based classical
record company, which had several shops around London and also
a mail order derpartment. Some of you may remember their shop
next door to Coutts in The Strand, where I often worked, as well
as the tiny shop next to the London Coliseum. Working for MDC
exposed me to a wide range of different music as well as giving
me me the chance to hear all the new releases as they came along.
I started writing reviews for my own pleasure really. I eventually
started to collate them on my own site www.tsaraslondon.com and
I feel honoured to have been asked to write for Musicweb International.
Most of the reviews on my blog are of opera and vocal discs (though
I do occasionally write about other things as well) and this is
my area of expertise.
My favourite singers tend to be those who have instantly recognisable
voices, those like Callas (a lot of Callas), Schwarzkopf, Janet
Baker, Jon Vickers, Gobbi, De Los Angeles and more, all of whom
bring something unique to whatever they sing. Though all these
singers can sing with beauty of tone, it seems to me that their
quest is to fulfil as closely as possible the composer’s
intentions with singing that is beautifully expressed rather than
just to make beautiful sounds. In the words of Keats,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”