Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radios.
Speaker 2: Vers Oohio gebers a lot of sly.
Speaker 1: This is, of course nessun dorma from Puccini's Torndo, featuring
Speaker 1: the breathtaking voice of my guest today, Jonathan Tedeleman. Born
Speaker 1: a naturally gifted singer, Tedleman was recording with the Trans
Speaker 1: Siberian Orchestra by the eighth grade. He started as a
Speaker 1: baritone before transitioning to his true calling as a tenor.
Speaker 1: After training at the Manhattan School of Music and Manis College,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Teedleman walked away from opera briefly. Following a stint
Speaker 1: working as a DJ in Manhattan nightclubs, Teedleman attended an
Speaker 1: open call audition that would ultimately be the springboard for
Speaker 1: his opera career. He won first prize in the twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen New York Lyric Opera Competition and was the recipient
Speaker 1: of the Classic Award for twenty twenty three Breakout Artist
Speaker 1: of the Year. Teedleman travels the world performing works like
Speaker 1: La Boem, Madam, Butterfly, and La Traviata in world class
Speaker 1: opera halls across Europe and the Americas. I wanted to
Speaker 1: know what his routine is like backstage before a performance.
Speaker 3: So it actually kind of depends on the day. Regularly,
Speaker 3: I eat everything, but leading up to a performance, I
Speaker 3: really kind of have a stricter diet. I try to
Speaker 3: find things that are not going to give me reflux
Speaker 3: or you know, any sort of like spicy foods and
Speaker 3: things like that.
Speaker 1: Avoid religiously dairy region exactly that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And also alcohol. I don't drink two days before performance
Speaker 3: nothing zero Wow, and you feel the difference. I could
Speaker 3: feel the difference, but or I might, you know, I
Speaker 3: think it's just not worth the risk. I've had incidences where,
Speaker 3: you know, I have felt it and I was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, if I can just take out that variable,
Speaker 3: then that's way better.
Speaker 1: Someone recognized that you had a singing was you're growing
Speaker 1: up in Princeton and someone were you either your parents
Speaker 1: taught at the university Nope, So you someone recognized when
Speaker 1: you were eight that you had a voice. It was unique.
Speaker 1: What does the eight year old sound like? You know?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It was in a summer program. It was called Camp
Speaker 3: College at the Mercer County Community College and there was
Speaker 3: somebody there. You could take different courses and all these
Speaker 3: different things, and I took the choral course and the
Speaker 3: director there was like, oh, you know, you have a
Speaker 3: nice you have a nice voice. And he told my
Speaker 3: parents and they were like, well, exactly what does that mean?
Speaker 3: What does he have a nice voice? He was like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: he he could actually maybe do something with that. And
Speaker 3: they're like, well, you're on key, and yeah, exactly. It
Speaker 3: was very natural talent to be able to like the
Speaker 3: fundamentals exactly. All those things came very naturally without any training.
Speaker 3: So he said, you know, you should check out this school,
Speaker 3: the American Boy Choir School, which is in Princeton. And
Speaker 3: I went over there and I was like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is this is right up my alley. I could do
Speaker 3: choral singing every day of my life. That's awesome. And
Speaker 3: as a kid, you know, it's kind of my parents
Speaker 3: are like, that's a little weird. Why does our kid,
Speaker 3: why does our eight year old want to be in
Speaker 3: a choir? But you know, they they saw the value
Speaker 3: in the school, and they saw the value in investing
Speaker 3: in me and the things that I loved, and so
Speaker 3: it took off from there.
Speaker 1: Now, when you're young, when you get pulled into this
Speaker 1: world and invited into this world to sing on a
Speaker 1: serious level, and eventually you record this Christmas thing, what
Speaker 1: does the Trans Siberian Orchestra find you?
Speaker 3: It's so strange. I actually was just listening to that
Speaker 3: album the other day and I was like, this is
Speaker 3: probably the strangest album to ever go gold, I think
Speaker 3: in classical Ish music, you know, I think that they
Speaker 3: just wanted to have a variety because they're kind of
Speaker 3: this more variety type of group. And they have this
Speaker 3: one track with the boys. I think there was only
Speaker 3: five or six of us, and we came into a
Speaker 3: little recording studio like this and we sang this, remember
Speaker 3: whatever track it was, and then we went home. I
Speaker 3: mean it was really really clean and easy, and I
Speaker 3: was probably fourteen years old, so it was, you know,
Speaker 3: very exciting to come to a New York city and
Speaker 3: you know, singing a recording studio.
Speaker 1: You didn't spend much time in the city when you
Speaker 1: were growing.
Speaker 3: Up, not so much, you know, being in school in
Speaker 3: Princeton all the time. I think we had we had
Speaker 3: school basically Monday to Saturday.
Speaker 1: So Princeton's just for people who don't know the area. Princeton.
Speaker 1: I've always said it is just far enough away from
Speaker 1: New York for to be a pain in the ass
Speaker 1: to come in. That's true, the specially in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Transit right from that margin, just a little too far.
Speaker 1: Now you go because you want to meet girls, and
Speaker 1: you want to meet girls who you join a band? Right,
Speaker 1: do you sing in the band or you completely give
Speaker 1: up singing? You just play the guitar?
Speaker 3: Well, you sing rock and roll? Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: I taught myself the guitar. You know, actually all of
Speaker 3: us in high school were kind of like teaching ourselves
Speaker 3: the guitar. I went to kind of like a hippie
Speaker 3: kind of schooling as well. Exactly, you're self taught in
Speaker 3: many ways, self taught, self taught, but you know, I
Speaker 3: got a lot of good guidance. So that's really the
Speaker 3: only way you can develop skills. I mean, talent only
Speaker 3: goes so far. So I think that, yeah, I want.
Speaker 3: I was interested in some girls. I felt like the
Speaker 3: guitar is an easy way to their hearts, and I
Speaker 3: already had the voice, so you know, it was it
Speaker 3: was an easy pairing. And yeah, I started a rock band.
Speaker 3: I would sing, I'd play guitar, and I wrote a
Speaker 3: lot of the songs. I probably wrote maybe twenty songs
Speaker 3: while we were together.
Speaker 1: It was what was the name of the band, Big Talk,
Speaker 1: Big Talk, Big to love It? Now? When you you
Speaker 1: go all through high school? Yes, singing publicly? Yeah? Any
Speaker 1: of the professional Were you singing professionally at all? When
Speaker 1: you were in high school?
Speaker 3: I was with the Westminster Youth Corral and we did
Speaker 3: sing a couple of professional things, But mostly I was
Speaker 3: kind of deciding do I want to be a rock
Speaker 3: and roll singer? Do I want to be a classical
Speaker 3: music singer?
Speaker 1: And I made you choose the way you choose.
Speaker 3: You know, I felt like having some sort of degree
Speaker 3: in music and having real training in New York City
Speaker 3: would benefit me in the long run if I wanted
Speaker 3: to make that choice. So I think you could always
Speaker 3: pivot exactly. You know. I think that having taking the
Speaker 3: chance and actually, you know, getting the formal training and
Speaker 3: getting and making the connections is a lot more valuable
Speaker 3: than kind of just going off my own and really
Speaker 3: rolling the dice.
Speaker 1: Now, I must say that you on YouTube books ten
Speaker 1: years older than you do now, because in person. You're
Speaker 1: much more boyish looking, and on YouTube you look powerful.
Speaker 1: What do you do emotionally, if anything, to get out
Speaker 1: there and sing like that?
Speaker 3: Well, luckily I have a soundtrack, you know, I have
Speaker 3: the music to really pump me up. And that's all
Speaker 3: been within me, you know, that kind of that feeling
Speaker 3: of connecting myself to music has always been there. So
Speaker 3: it's a very natural thing for me to kind of
Speaker 3: feel the strength when I'm on the stage. But if
Speaker 3: I don't feel the strength necessarily that day, you know,
Speaker 3: I I'll do a couple of push ups, a couple
Speaker 3: you know, calisthenics backstage, get myself ready, pump myself up.
Speaker 3: Red Bull never hurts. Also, like Jin Saying and B twelve,
Speaker 3: you know, I'll do whatever whatever's there. You know, if
Speaker 3: I need it, I gotta get it now. When you
Speaker 3: but you then when you finish high school, you went
Speaker 3: to study where first Manhattan School music and you were
Speaker 3: there for how long? Four years underground?
Speaker 1: Four years, four years hard time time? Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 4: I did?
Speaker 1: I did it. It's a great school.
Speaker 3: It was I wish I actually waited to go and
Speaker 3: went for masters. I think it was would be a
Speaker 3: little bit more valuable, but I still really enjoyed the school.
Speaker 3: I took everything I could.
Speaker 1: But you took the Masters of manas took the mesters
Speaker 1: of Manis where's manising on the Upper west Side?
Speaker 3: Upper west Side? Well it used to be. I think
Speaker 3: it's all down in the new school. The affiliate with
Speaker 3: the new school they are, I don't know, it's the
Speaker 3: same school.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. Yeah, So when you finish that, you
Speaker 1: go on to have a private mentor correct a private
Speaker 1: teacher for a while.
Speaker 3: Well, I kind of took a little a little segue
Speaker 3: before my private study, I started DJing in the city.
Speaker 3: I started club promoting. You know, I was a young
Speaker 3: twenty three, twenty four, decently with personality. It was it was,
Speaker 3: it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was an easy career. Was your doing? That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. It was officially a New Yorker, So I
Speaker 1: had they can't do it anymore out there and go clubbing?
Speaker 1: Is you a DJ for how long?
Speaker 3: So? I finished school twenty thirteen, so around then twenty
Speaker 3: thirteen to twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: To just hang out, have some fun, make some money.
Speaker 3: I was going through a transition. I was actually a
Speaker 3: baritone at MSM, and I was starting to move into
Speaker 3: tenor repertoire, and I just felt like I wasn't ready
Speaker 3: for it physically, emotionally, everything, and I just didn't have
Speaker 3: the focus.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I kind of kind of burned out, and I didn't
Speaker 3: want to burn out completely. So I was like, you
Speaker 3: know what, let me try something else for a little while,
Speaker 3: and I'll come back to opera lea at some point.
Speaker 1: So for people who don't understand, to move from singing
Speaker 1: in baritone to tenor is a tremendous amount of work.
Speaker 4: It is, it is.
Speaker 3: I mean I was always kind of a tenor, but
Speaker 3: just a lazy tenor. I didn't really have the facility
Speaker 3: to do it. So it just took it took me
Speaker 3: some time, you know, and I had to I had
Speaker 3: to recalibrate my brain to accept that I was a tenor.
Speaker 1: I couldn't.
Speaker 3: I couldn't go back to being a baritone that I wasn't.
Speaker 1: And when you and when you go from one to
Speaker 1: the other, is that the typical goal of many people
Speaker 1: who are a male singers tenor is where you ultimately
Speaker 1: want to be. There's more opportunities and more great roles there.
Speaker 3: You know I would say, yes, there are, but you
Speaker 3: don't really have a choice. You know, the voice is
Speaker 3: the voice, and you have to develop the voice as
Speaker 3: far as you can go. And if you're a tenor,
Speaker 3: you need to develop your voice to be a tenor.
Speaker 3: If you're a baritone, you need to develop it that way.
Speaker 3: It's I call it the Harry Potter sorting hat. You know,
Speaker 3: you just don't You don't get to choose. The voice
Speaker 3: chooses you.
Speaker 1: Now, this piece Remini Francesca, Yes, and and the piece
Speaker 1: you you took a year to prepare for that piece,
Speaker 1: over a year, right, and over a year. So this
Speaker 1: is this during that phase when you were doing all
Speaker 1: your nightclub work and stuff and like that. The I
Speaker 1: had already committed.
Speaker 3: I've already committed. I've already been a tenor. I'd done
Speaker 3: a couple of tenor roles, but this one was really
Speaker 3: starting to reach into the tenor.
Speaker 1: Depths of technique and ability.
Speaker 3: I got the role kind of early on when I
Speaker 3: was when I was getting my new work as a tenor,
Speaker 3: and I was a little hesitant to take it because
Speaker 3: it's a really it's a really dramatic piece and for
Speaker 3: a young guy, it's it's tough, but it's strange because
Speaker 3: it's it's written for a young singer but with a
Speaker 3: veteran technique, so it's very difficult to cast. But I
Speaker 3: was ambitious and I was like, you know what, I
Speaker 3: could do it, no problem. I was preparing the role,
Speaker 3: and then I had started to have my doubts, and
Speaker 3: right at that moment, COVID hit and I had six months,
Speaker 3: seven months to just sit in my place and prepare
Speaker 3: the role. And thank goodness, I actually had that time.
Speaker 3: So I took advantage of it, and I really really
Speaker 3: prepared that role. I've never prepared any other role before.
Speaker 1: What do you do for a year or more to
Speaker 1: study your rolling? What are you doing?
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, you know reading the story.
Speaker 3: I read the Dante, I read the libretto many times.
Speaker 3: I really got to understand the other characters in the story,
Speaker 3: not just mine. I usually only have time to learn
Speaker 3: my character, and then in rehearsals I learn everybody else's characters. So,
Speaker 3: you know, putting that all together on top of the
Speaker 3: technical difficulties of the role, which is which can take
Speaker 3: I mean, it could take a year, it could take
Speaker 3: five years, could take ten years. I mean, you just
Speaker 3: don't know the voice is. You only know what you
Speaker 3: can accomplish with the voice when you do it. And
Speaker 3: luckily I had a lot of time to do that.
Speaker 1: You have to find out if you can do it.
Speaker 1: I had to find out, yeah right now. When you
Speaker 1: are young, I mean a lot of people they start
Speaker 1: to track roles or if they don't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: play it. I just really love and enjoy that role.
Speaker 1: When do you start to track the roles you wanted
Speaker 1: to play? How old are you?
Speaker 3: I think I'm in that right now. I mean that's
Speaker 3: that's kind of I'm getting it in itself now exactly.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of getting to the level where I can
Speaker 3: decide these are the things that I really want to
Speaker 3: take on, and then these other things maybe not so much.
Speaker 3: And then there's a really like do not fly list.
Speaker 3: It just takes a lot of experience because opera you
Speaker 3: kind of just get shoved into it. You get pushed
Speaker 3: onto the stage and you just got to do it.
Speaker 3: And even with this last role at the Met, you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't think that necessarily I would love the role,
Speaker 3: but I ended up really not enjoying it at all
Speaker 3: because I felt like the character itself just doesn't have
Speaker 3: enough character. Puccini didn't right enough for the character to
Speaker 3: have gravitas and intensity. And I learned that, you know,
Speaker 3: I learned that this is just I will do it
Speaker 3: here and then goodbye.
Speaker 1: Some of these roles, I'm assuming every one of these roles,
Speaker 1: but some more so than others, are very physically demanding
Speaker 1: on you. Physically. Yes, I know you look an athlete
Speaker 1: in terms of training for that as well.
Speaker 3: Or I'm in the gym maybe twice a week, not
Speaker 3: too much, but I have a two year old daughter,
Speaker 3: so you know, I'm constantly doing dead lists, ready for.
Speaker 1: The Olympics, ready for you're going to Paris, that's right,
Speaker 1: But you're tracking those roles. I'm wondering how much acting
Speaker 1: is involved in what you do.
Speaker 3: It depends on each person. Some singers take it very seriously,
Speaker 3: and you know, you will see some actual professional actors
Speaker 3: on stage. But the majority, I would say, of opera
Speaker 3: singers are not so attuned with the acting component of
Speaker 3: the opera because it's on such a big scale. You know,
Speaker 3: most most of the operas are not on TV. You know,
Speaker 3: most of them are not even in a small vaudeville theater.
Speaker 3: You know, they're in a huge four thousand seat arena
Speaker 3: size building and you can't really see the acting. You
Speaker 3: don't really you don't notice it. For me, I mean,
Speaker 3: I try to really balance it out. I really try
Speaker 3: to focus mostly on my voice, of course, because that's
Speaker 3: the thing that you know, tells the story in the room.
Speaker 3: But the acting part is something actually that I think
Speaker 3: helps the colleagues. You know, when I give things and
Speaker 3: i'm and I'm working with somebody and I'm feeling emotions,
Speaker 3: it not only heightens the intensity between the characters, but
Speaker 3: also my own character. And I think that there's a
Speaker 3: huge value to that. That's kind of an It's unfortunate,
Speaker 3: but it's not such an unnecessary component in the in
Speaker 3: the opera preparation process anymore. So.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming all these roles are challenging, but of the
Speaker 1: ones you've done thus far, and then in a separate
Speaker 1: category ones you hope to do, what's one of the
Speaker 1: most challenging ones you've done so far?
Speaker 5: And why?
Speaker 3: You know, they're all very challenging in different ways and
Speaker 3: sometimes unexpected ways. I'll give you an example. The last
Speaker 3: stoper I did at the MET, I didn't think it
Speaker 3: was going to be challenging, you know. I learned the role,
Speaker 3: I learned the character everything, I was like, wow, this
Speaker 3: is this is going to be a walk in the park.
Speaker 3: But really, the way that Puccini designed the role is
Speaker 3: it's kind of boring and it's a challenge to play
Speaker 3: a boring character with a lot of boring music. And
Speaker 3: it's a lot of a lot of dialogue and not
Speaker 3: a lot of melody. It's it was a ch in
Speaker 3: its own way, lad And it's more, it's not really
Speaker 3: an opera. It's more of an opera atta kind of
Speaker 3: mixed with a play. It it doesn't really have this
Speaker 3: operatic moment that you're that you expect from Puccini until
Speaker 3: the very end. There's a beautiful duet at the end,
Speaker 3: which thank god it's there. But the rest of the opera,
Speaker 3: especially for my character, is is very dialogue based. It's
Speaker 3: not it's not so, it's not so Puccinies.
Speaker 1: What do they tell you to try to motivate you?
Speaker 1: What does the director say?
Speaker 3: I found my own motivation really, yeah, came to work
Speaker 3: with the director sometimes interesting.
Speaker 1: That's interesting now when you're there. Obviously, the met is
Speaker 1: considered one of the Great Lascala in all these legendary places,
Speaker 1: and the Meta is considered one of the great houses
Speaker 1: to sing an opera. But is the met still the
Speaker 1: temple of opera that people view it as?
Speaker 3: It certainly is the United States, if not the world.
Speaker 3: I mean it's it's the it's top three, top.
Speaker 1: Five opera house. You know, the thing you enjoy performing there?
Speaker 1: I do, I do.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a wonderful acoustic it's a it's a
Speaker 3: it's a barn. I mean, it's the Colosseum. I mean really,
Speaker 3: I feel like, you know, Russell Crowe, you know, Gladiator
Speaker 3: in there, but uh, you know, and that that's its
Speaker 3: own challenge. But I think it's it's very well designed
Speaker 3: and it's very well run, so it works. It's a
Speaker 3: machine that I would not want to operate myself, but
Speaker 3: I'm glad that I could be, you know, a fly
Speaker 3: on the wall and see what's going on.
Speaker 1: Is that world constricting a little bit like classical music
Speaker 1: in terms of the audience.
Speaker 3: And I think in the United States, yeah, a lot,
Speaker 3: because you know, it's all privately funded, you know, and
Speaker 3: the money it's it's hard to get now, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, it only gets harder with the with the
Speaker 3: arts and the way that in politics we portray the
Speaker 3: arts unfortunately. I think in Europe. That's why we're mostly
Speaker 3: over in Europe. You know, I have a lot more states.
Speaker 3: I mean, every little city, every little town in Germany
Speaker 3: has an opera house and they're all at a reasonable level.
Speaker 3: And then you have places like Berlin and Munich and
Speaker 3: Hamburg and Frankfurt, and you know, they you can make
Speaker 3: an easy living over there, and then you could just
Speaker 3: fly one hour to Vienna or two hours to Milan
Speaker 3: and sing internationally.
Speaker 1: How would you describe the difference between audiences in the
Speaker 1: United States and Europe.
Speaker 3: You know, there is a difference. I would say the
Speaker 3: typical United States audience, I would say, you know, you
Speaker 3: probably have twenty twenty five percent of the people are
Speaker 3: regular opera goers that really know the.
Speaker 1: Peace in Europe.
Speaker 3: In the United States, I would say about twenty percent
Speaker 3: they know the piece, you know, they go all the time.
Speaker 3: And then the rest is kind of people that are
Speaker 3: going there because they like opera and or first timers
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So I think the enthusiasm for
Speaker 3: the opera in the United States is always pretty good,
Speaker 3: you know, unless it's a real train wreck. You know,
Speaker 3: you never, You're never. I basically say the met you know,
Speaker 3: you always see a standing ovation at the end of
Speaker 3: the night because they're always very happy place New York exactly,
Speaker 3: you know. And but I would say in Europe you
Speaker 3: got to really work for that, especially places like London.
Speaker 3: You know, I think that the personality of the people
Speaker 3: is a little different. So to get people on their
Speaker 3: feet in Covent Garden or at the Colisseum, it's it's
Speaker 3: much more difficult. And then in Italy, well then we'll
Speaker 3: keep going. Well, actually we'll go to Germany next. Germany,
Speaker 3: you know, I think even getting an applause after an
Speaker 3: Aria is extremely difficult. You know, they're much more reserved.
Speaker 3: But if they really like the show, they'll applaud for
Speaker 3: twenty thirty forty minutes after just for bows. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's a completely different thing. Then, and then we head
Speaker 3: to Italy. There's nothing, there's nothing good in it, especially
Speaker 3: if you're American. Should they A lot of them think, oh,
Speaker 3: he's an American, he should be paying to sing on
Speaker 3: this stage. God and you I mean they you know,
Speaker 3: the mafia kind of still exists there in terms of
Speaker 3: the opera. You got to pay off certain people to
Speaker 3: give you applause or not give you boot in the
Speaker 3: equipment exactly. So it's it's the wild, wild South down there,
Speaker 3: I think. Still, but that's really the I think that's
Speaker 3: the authentic opera culture. And I think that they're right.
Speaker 3: I think that they're totally right to have this, because
Speaker 3: that's really what you want. You want this excitement. You know,
Speaker 3: you have no idea what the hell's going to happen,
Speaker 3: and anything can just go wrong at any moments. Notice,
Speaker 3: somebody could just start screaming, booze or throwing things that
Speaker 3: you Also, the theaters are very different. All of the
Speaker 3: American theaters are very new, I mean nineteen sixties, but
Speaker 3: you know they're not from the seventeen eighteen hundreds. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a very big difference in the acoustics and the
Speaker 3: way that they smell and they feel. And when you
Speaker 3: walk into an Italian theater, you this history kind of
Speaker 3: just like flows over you. You always feel it when
Speaker 3: you're in there, even as an audience member, you're like, wow,
Speaker 3: you know, this is this is something else.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: The met is very historical, of course, but it's a
Speaker 3: relatively new opera theater compared to something like Vienna or Lascala,
Speaker 3: any of these places.
Speaker 1: You lot, Jonathan Tedelman. If you enjoy conversations with powerful
Speaker 1: operatic voices, check out my episode with five time Grammy
Speaker 1: Award winner soprano Renee Fleming.
Speaker 4: So when I sing Tayis, for instance, at the met
Speaker 4: some years ago and had these spectacular costumes from Christian Lacroix,
Speaker 4: you just thought the stars have aligned to make this
Speaker 4: role suit me perfectly. Right now.
Speaker 1: I love singing in French.
Speaker 4: I love Massona the way it lies, the character, the
Speaker 4: fact that you know, the psychological drama, and this opera
Speaker 4: where these two people completely change places with each other.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Renee Fleming, go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Jonathan
Speaker 1: Tedleman shares the story of meeting his wife on a
Speaker 1: dating app. Hi'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing.
Speaker 2: Man on Me, demnd.
Speaker 1: Sae Mobby Lady.
Speaker 2: Love Money Money.
Speaker 1: See this is Jonathan Tedelman performing Donna nonvidi mai from
Speaker 1: Puccini's Mano Let's Go. Tedeleman has worked with some of
Speaker 1: the best conductors in the world. Yet he is clear
Speaker 1: to make the distinction between your average maestro and the
Speaker 1: conductors who can conduct opera.
Speaker 3: I think there's very few great, great opera conductors. I
Speaker 3: think that there's probably a handful of them in the world.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of good conductors, but really top
Speaker 3: people that know these operas so well, that know the
Speaker 3: voice so well.
Speaker 1: This is really rare now.
Speaker 3: I think that it's also become difficult I think for
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of singers, because you know,
Speaker 3: you never really know what you're going to get with
Speaker 3: a conductor nowadays, because there's there's just so many of them,
Speaker 3: and a lot of them are kind of learning this
Speaker 3: art as they go as well, like the singers are well.
Speaker 1: Levine, who I loved and wanted him to do this
Speaker 1: show with us, and who obviously had a controversial to
Speaker 1: his career and then died recently. Yes, Levine was somebody
Speaker 1: who wherever I would see him, without becoming silly and
Speaker 1: without becoming excessive. He had this wonderful level of enthusiasm
Speaker 1: when he was conducting. He was like you could see
Speaker 1: him feeling it in a way other people are keeping time.
Speaker 1: The old maestrows, don't get too emotional. Some of them
Speaker 1: are going to fly off the podium they're wound up.
Speaker 1: And he was somebody who just had to was just right.
Speaker 1: The level of passion right that he was imbuing with
Speaker 1: his motions and his movements and things like that. I
Speaker 1: loved Lemon. Is there someone you can mention that you
Speaker 1: dream of working with his or conductor ether you're thinking, God,
Speaker 1: you know that? Would we don't insult all the other
Speaker 1: ones you already worked with.
Speaker 3: You know, I could say that I've I've already worked
Speaker 3: with one of my favorite conductors, Daniel Orrin, and I
Speaker 3: think that this is he's a rare breed.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: You know, he grew up as a singer. Actually it
Speaker 3: was discovered by Leonard Bernstein. His talent, and he's also Jewish.
Speaker 3: He's part of my tribe, so I appreciate that. But
Speaker 3: you know, he's really old school Italian kind of conductor.
Speaker 3: You know, all of his training was in Italy, and
Speaker 3: he knows the pieces better than I think almost anyone.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's an unbelievable and unbelievable maestro. He's a
Speaker 3: little temperamental, but I think that that actually comes in
Speaker 3: your favor when you get on stage and you have
Speaker 3: somebody to support you and and help you deliver when
Speaker 3: you need it.
Speaker 1: Now, you were born in Chile, yes, and you left
Speaker 1: there when six months old and your parents took you
Speaker 1: or you were, well, they adopted me, but they were
Speaker 1: they didn't take me. So you never met your birth parents, never,
Speaker 1: and you know any about their history. No, your adoptive
Speaker 1: parents are Jewish. Yes, you want you know, Chilean Catholic
Speaker 1: or something. Probably was it was.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure I was from Castro and that's
Speaker 3: like the Catholic the capital of Chile.
Speaker 1: So right, But you were raised Jewish, I was by
Speaker 1: your parents, So no connection to Chile, no feelings about Chile.
Speaker 3: No, No, I mean I will actually be doing some
Speaker 3: sort of South American tour next year. I am planning
Speaker 3: to go to my place of birth. There's actually a
Speaker 3: beautiful theater nearby called Teatro de Lago, and it's this
Speaker 3: theater on the lake obviously, and and then I'll maybe
Speaker 3: sing in San Diego, Buenos Aires, Peru, Monte Video, just
Speaker 3: kind of re enter my South American Harris South American
Speaker 3: circuit exactly exactly. But I really wanted to do this,
Speaker 3: and I've been waiting to do it. I was planning
Speaker 3: actually doing it this summer, but unfortunately my wife's visas
Speaker 3: issues we cannot be from. She's Romanian. That's why the
Speaker 3: Romanian connection, and that's the Romaining connection. And they won't
Speaker 3: let her leave the country until she has her green card.
Speaker 3: So here we are stuck in the US of A.
Speaker 1: If anybody can sing their way to their wife's green card,
Speaker 1: I have faith, amen, I have faith to the White House. Probably,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm not the first one. Anything I can
Speaker 1: do for you there, Jonathan, you like, as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, mister President, that's right. They were in a
Speaker 1: little favor you could do for me. Now, what's one
Speaker 1: of the strange I mean, opera is so complain I
Speaker 1: watched that documentary about the Ring and Levine conducted that
Speaker 1: and they showed those big big paddles, those seaws and
Speaker 1: the whole crazy thing. Yeah, and they showed the rehearsals.
Speaker 1: They would they would stop and go sliding down park
Speaker 1: like they were in Washington Square Park. You'd be like,
Speaker 1: zip off the stage. What's the craziest thing that ever
Speaker 1: happened to you during a show that any like wacky
Speaker 1: things ever happening when you were doing a show.
Speaker 3: Well, I've definitely injured myself a few times. I've done
Speaker 3: the opera Tosca, and always in that opera there's the
Speaker 3: death of Covered Dulcie where he gets killed by firing squad.
Speaker 3: And before I really actually knew how to fall, I
Speaker 3: was falling and falling and falling, and then eventually I
Speaker 3: had this enormous bruise across my entire leg and up
Speaker 3: my back. And I kept because I just kept falling
Speaker 3: on my hip every night, and by the last show,
Speaker 3: I was like hobbling the entire opera.
Speaker 1: It was horrible.
Speaker 3: But then I learned, you know how to actually do
Speaker 3: it correctly.
Speaker 1: I did a play once and I'm banging my hand
Speaker 1: on a table. I'm punching him. I'm doing street car
Speaker 1: named Desiron Broadway. On the line is remember what Ui
Speaker 1: Long said? Every man is a king and I am
Speaker 1: the king around here. I bashed the team. It was
Speaker 1: a hickory table out with the hardest fucking wood. With
Speaker 1: the wood they made like Washington's coffin out back hard.
Speaker 1: I heard the wood exactly. The table hit me and
Speaker 1: I literally get I crushed my knuckle. I kill my
Speaker 1: nerve from in between my pinky finger and the next
Speaker 1: finger of it. I crushed the nerve wrapping up in
Speaker 1: behind my through my forearm, wrapping up in like the
Speaker 1: saiattica of your upper front, and it goes wraps around
Speaker 1: my bicyle. And I couldn't do one push up. I
Speaker 1: went down. I just and my chest muscle just died.
Speaker 1: Well and it comes out of the air down anyway,
Speaker 1: like if you do push ups. Yeah, you're you know,
Speaker 1: exerting the same system. And this happened to me, and
Speaker 1: my hands are turned black, not blue black.
Speaker 3: My goodness.
Speaker 1: No he's your wife an opera singer.
Speaker 2: No she's not.
Speaker 3: We actually met on Tinder in London. She was working
Speaker 3: for the Soho House. She was a manager of a
Speaker 3: restaurant at the ned.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you're so desperate, you're you know, I
Speaker 1: was just I just was there to make.
Speaker 3: You know. It was It's like one of those tender
Speaker 3: stories that actually out hotel.
Speaker 1: Am I swiping?
Speaker 3: Am I that I don't know super swiping? Actually you
Speaker 3: met her? We met, Yeah, we met.
Speaker 1: What's it like for you when when you're on Tinder
Speaker 1: and you meet the person either there what you hope
Speaker 1: they would be or they're not.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think she was more the person that
Speaker 3: I expected than I was the person that she expected.
Speaker 1: What does she expect?
Speaker 3: Well, you know I had some nice pictures and all
Speaker 3: these things. You know, you've seen me on on on
Speaker 3: the camera and you see me in the real life.
Speaker 3: You know that there is difference. So I think that
Speaker 3: it's slight different, a slight different the guy.
Speaker 1: I also had a.
Speaker 3: Little bit more weight at that time, so you know,
Speaker 3: it was a little bit more powerful, a little power.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I like that powerful play. You look like you
Speaker 6: could be playing defense event for the Cowboys. I don't
Speaker 6: know on video video. In person, you look you could
Speaker 6: be playing tennis and Yale or something.
Speaker 1: That's good. That's good.
Speaker 3: Yes, I get I got a lot of I got
Speaker 3: a lot of federer.
Speaker 1: Actually, that's that's that's my that's my So we get
Speaker 1: the woman, your wife, who the woman who're gonna actually
Speaker 1: partner with and have a baby, And are you married? Married?
Speaker 3: We just got married as we went. We got off
Speaker 3: the plane at JFK, drove down to West Virginia and
Speaker 3: got married the next morning. Why West Virginia because you
Speaker 3: can get a marriage licensed day of and we wanted
Speaker 3: to submit everything as fast as we could to get
Speaker 3: the green carts.
Speaker 1: Ordinially raised in Princeton with my wife from Romania, get
Speaker 1: married in West Virginia.
Speaker 3: That's right, And now we're gonna we're gonna be moving
Speaker 3: back to Berlin next year. So yeah, that's where we'll be.
Speaker 1: Love that to be home for now. Why a lot
Speaker 1: of work, Yeah, it's the work.
Speaker 3: It's it's just the it's simple. It's more simple there.
Speaker 3: We can go to her family very easily. It's only
Speaker 3: two hours. I can go to basically anywhere in Europe
Speaker 3: within three hours. And you know, it's just that's where
Speaker 3: the opera really is. You have three major opera houses
Speaker 3: right in that city. Then you have obviously the Berlin Philharmonic,
Speaker 3: and then also universal music is there. So for me,
Speaker 3: it's it's almost a no brainer. And the education is
Speaker 3: very good and free.
Speaker 1: Do you see yourself doing this for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life? I mean, like in my own case, I
Speaker 1: did this for forty something years and now I'd rather
Speaker 1: stay home more than work. Well, I'm happier staying home
Speaker 1: than working. I used to go to work. I was
Speaker 1: very enthusiastic and work rather than let one off the other.
Speaker 1: You know, for a twenty year period in all I
Speaker 1: cared about really was work, right, but I cared about
Speaker 1: my family and so but I really didn't hesitate to
Speaker 1: go out and grab the jobs while they were there.
Speaker 1: And now I'm just not as interested.
Speaker 3: I understand, you know, I think I would like to
Speaker 3: do other things eventually, I would I would like to
Speaker 3: do a lot of things. I'm interested in actually acting itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were going to say my producers that were like,
Speaker 1: what about acting? When are you going to go into that?
Speaker 3: I am interested, you know, and I'm kind of a
Speaker 3: big fan of Mariolnza and this kind of tradition of
Speaker 3: these great singers in film. I think that that's kind
Speaker 3: of a missing element to the world right now. I
Speaker 3: think that that's there could be a draw for an
Speaker 3: inspirational thing for a lot of young people to really
Speaker 3: connect with music that is so meaningful and.
Speaker 1: So so you should develop an NETNA series for like
Speaker 1: a Netflix or Apple or one of these people are
Speaker 1: of Amazon Prime where it's about the world of opera
Speaker 1: and it's a narrative. You play a character. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a cooler world.
Speaker 3: And most people know, you know, most people think opera okay,
Speaker 3: they they're just talented. They just get on that stage,
Speaker 3: they sing, they you know, they make they do that,
Speaker 3: they do that thing. I don't want to know really
Speaker 3: about that, but yeah, it's that thing. But actually it's
Speaker 3: it's a kind of normal life mixed with this life
Speaker 3: of just like going from job to job, place to place,
Speaker 3: person to person and roll to role. You know, everything,
Speaker 3: every new place is a new experience. It's it's actually
Speaker 3: very exciting.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, as you probably can guess, if we
Speaker 1: did the TV series with you and the lead as
Speaker 1: the opera singer, you'd be this incredibly handsome, gifted opera singer,
Speaker 1: but in behind the scenes you'd be completely fucked up
Speaker 1: and messed up, completely exactly on TV you gotta be
Speaker 1: messed I'd have to ask your buddy to take me
Speaker 1: to the clubs and you have to really wind down,
Speaker 1: you know, add just can't. You got to pull it
Speaker 1: together for one more.
Speaker 3: You know, this is no longer reality show.
Speaker 1: This is a drama. Yeah, exactly, this is a documentary.
Speaker 3: This is actually Mario Lonza.
Speaker 1: Chess tenor Jonathan Tedtleman if you're enjoying this episode, don't
Speaker 1: keep it to yourself. Tell a friend and be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Jonathan
Speaker 1: Tedleman shares what happens behind the scenes before an opera
Speaker 1: can be staged. M I'm Alec Baldwin and this is
Speaker 1: here's the thing.
Speaker 2: Jelly Lamony, son of.
Speaker 1: Shame John.
Speaker 2: With on set.
Speaker 1: From Puccini's La Ba M. This is Jonathan Tedleman with
Speaker 1: k Jalida Manina.
Speaker 5: Mama, you do not know.
Speaker 4: Me.
Speaker 1: Tittleman may be a young man, but he's been singing
Speaker 1: for two decades. I wanted to know his advice for
Speaker 1: the next generation of opera singers.
Speaker 3: You know, to be an opera singer, you have to
Speaker 3: have the most open mind. You know, you really and
Speaker 3: you really can't think that you know you know everything.
Speaker 3: You really have to always second guess a little bit.
Speaker 3: You have to really be ready to change things about
Speaker 3: who you are and your voice and and your perspective
Speaker 3: and everything like that, because you know, all the time
Speaker 3: your instrument is in your body, and your body is
Speaker 3: always changing and you you can't really take it for
Speaker 3: granted to be like, oh I know how to sing,
Speaker 3: I can just sing. You know, every day is a
Speaker 3: different day, so you have to have a plan for
Speaker 3: anything to happen and everything to happen, because it will happen.
Speaker 1: When you come to work. When you're performing like a
Speaker 1: big role, yeah some you know, it's a real serious
Speaker 1: gig for you with some heavy venue. What's your day like?
Speaker 3: It depends on the opera house I met. They like
Speaker 3: to rehearse, I'll say, you know they have a saying
Speaker 3: the same day. No, no, I mean we rehearse. We
Speaker 3: don't have to we don't have to sing.
Speaker 1: Luckily, what's an opera rehearsal with no singing? What do
Speaker 1: they do? Well?
Speaker 3: We just do staging, I mean staging and logistics, choreography.
Speaker 3: If if you're lucky, you have a good director and
Speaker 3: you have a good collaborative team of people that can act,
Speaker 3: then you can develop things even more. You know, it
Speaker 3: just just depends on who you get. And that's the
Speaker 3: thing about operator is you don't really know who you
Speaker 3: get until you get there.
Speaker 1: What do you like to do with your spare time?
Speaker 1: Do you feel that you can go clubbing and enjoy life?
Speaker 1: To the fullest story. You have to really really, are
Speaker 1: you like Jake Lamada asking him for a piece of ice?
Speaker 3: You know, I never I never need to go to
Speaker 3: another club. I think I'm I think I'm all set
Speaker 3: right now. You know, we're preparing our wedding reception because
Speaker 3: you know we've got married.
Speaker 1: We're hired to sing there.
Speaker 3: Actually, you have an open piano cocktail hour, so all
Speaker 3: of my buddies and whoever wants to get up will
Speaker 3: have a so they could just get up and do
Speaker 3: their thing. Are most of your friends in the business, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I would say, or or there's in some way interested
Speaker 3: in singing, which is really weird. My whole, my whole
Speaker 3: wedding party. I'd realize that every one of them is
Speaker 3: an opera singer or wants to be one.
Speaker 4: So what do you do?
Speaker 1: What do you like to do on a night off?
Speaker 3: I mean, we don't take many nights off. You know,
Speaker 3: we're mostly at home, just like hanging with the kid
Speaker 3: and playing with her. You know, it's a it's an
Speaker 3: important time right now. You know, we really enjoy spending
Speaker 3: time with our daughter. But you know, when we're on tour,
Speaker 3: you know, we have actually we don't really want to
Speaker 3: stay home. You know, we want to see the cities.
Speaker 3: So when we're in Italy, you know, we want to
Speaker 3: see all the churches, we want to see all the museums.
Speaker 3: We just want to walk around. We were in Palermo recently,
Speaker 3: and you know, we would go to the market every
Speaker 3: day and get get fresh fish, fresh groceries everything. You
Speaker 3: know that that's like it's a different type of life.
Speaker 1: European life.
Speaker 3: Very cool actually, because you know, and get the practice
Speaker 3: a little Italian or any of your.
Speaker 1: Parents or either your parents willing to go on the
Speaker 1: road with you for these luxurious trips. You can have
Speaker 1: the kids and take care of the kids.
Speaker 3: They're a bit too willing. That's their retire may my
Speaker 3: son like, son, where are we going? We're gonna go
Speaker 3: to They'll find us. They'll find us, you're kidding, that's
Speaker 3: where you go. They usually come and they spend maybe
Speaker 3: three to three to five weeks with us at a time,
Speaker 3: which is really nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Easy.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't have them forever, so it's it's
Speaker 3: wonderful to have them.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: At any moment, what are you doing next? Well, I'm
Speaker 3: doing Butterfly at the met now you're rehearsing. Now, we're rehearsing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Actually I'm I'm supposed to sing tomorrow, but I'm not
Speaker 3: feeling well, So I think I'm not going to sing tomorrow.
Speaker 3: And when you make that call with them, it's a
Speaker 3: tough call, you know. I think I think it's they
Speaker 3: appreciate it. And I think that a lot of singers
Speaker 3: struggle making that call because they feel like, oh, if
Speaker 3: I cancel, you know, they'll they won't hire me again.
Speaker 3: They'll think I'm unreliable. But I actually think it's an important.
Speaker 1: Order for everybody else to move forward during the rehearsal right,
Speaker 1: not be held up by you, even though it's say, well.
Speaker 3: Now we're in the performances, so oh you're running. Oh
Speaker 3: we're running. We're running tomorrow opening night. But you know,
Speaker 3: tomorrow's the opening night, opening night, and and I'm not there.
Speaker 3: You know, I just know that I'm not going to
Speaker 3: be at.
Speaker 1: I usually have an understudy.
Speaker 3: Obviously, we have an understudy. And if I'm not ninety percent,
Speaker 3: I don't sing. Actually saying that HD broadcast last week,
Speaker 3: completely sick, I had no voice, and luckily I had
Speaker 3: a great doctor who prescribed me some wonderful Western medication
Speaker 3: to get me through the show, but otherwise I would
Speaker 3: have had nothing.
Speaker 1: Now, watches, What is your thing about collecting watches?
Speaker 3: You know, I kind of mostly collect Omega watches. I
Speaker 3: actually really like the Omega history of Omega. There's so
Speaker 3: many different types of Omegas, probably one of the more
Speaker 3: interesting brands, I think, because they didn't really set out
Speaker 3: to be like, oh, this is a luxury brand or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know, there are really a lot of them. A
Speaker 3: lot of them I have are like officer watches or
Speaker 3: kind of daily wear watches. And then they kind of
Speaker 3: they did the James Bond stuff. So their history is
Speaker 3: very interesting. I think it's very rooted into like people
Speaker 3: that want collect watches. They don't make them fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: you know, they make them under ten grand typically, So
Speaker 3: I think it's a it's a good brand to connect
Speaker 3: myself too. I wish they'd give me a.
Speaker 1: Call, you know, hello Omega at Hello Swatch watches and
Speaker 1: sing Madama Butterfly. That's right, Well you're running at the
Speaker 1: met in Madam Butterfly for how.
Speaker 3: Long until May eleventh? That's the HD broadcast actually, so
Speaker 3: that's that show. Will be that will be broadcast, yes, live,
Speaker 3: it'll be a live broadcast.
Speaker 1: And when you do that show typically, because this is
Speaker 1: something I'm rather ignorant about, it typically runs how many performances.
Speaker 3: Typically I would say a run is anywhere between five
Speaker 3: and twelve shows. It depends. So my my Rondine was
Speaker 3: eight and the Butterfly's five.
Speaker 1: No, yes, only five shows.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Well, if it's in May labor of love, you can't
Speaker 1: sing every night. You can't.
Speaker 3: You have to sing, I mean, at the most once
Speaker 3: every other night, but you really need two days off
Speaker 3: to rest the voice. That what you have now, I
Speaker 3: have that now at the met that's what they give you.
Speaker 3: And it's really it's a luxury in Europe. You don't
Speaker 3: always get that. It's a lifestyle. You know, you have
Speaker 3: you come to expect it that this is what you do.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Deutsche Gramophone for the beautiful recordings in
Speaker 1: this episode. My thanks to Jonathan Tedeleman. I'll leave you
Speaker 1: with his rendition of a look of that lustelle from
Speaker 1: Puccini's Tosca. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing, is brought
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: Little. It's a.
Speaker 5: I would bus so still enough for Inta, I didn't
Speaker 5: not feel like a hunting.
Speaker 2: Me cut the not even that charm. Oh word.
Speaker 6: Love me.
Speaker 2: Crt intre of love. Never laugh, for.
Speaker 5: Smarty had sent the son your NEDO to lit my
Speaker 5: Sten