David on David in Bliss
Realising a character in a new opera is no easy task. Tenor David Corcoran, who sings the role of Harry Joy’s son David in the world premiere of Brett Dean and Amanda Holden’s Bliss, says learning the role took the better part of two years.
Corcoran, a member of Opera Australia’s Young Artist Program who’d originally joined the Company as a chorus member, was offered the role by the late Richard Hickox. Having done a workshop for Richard Mills’ The Love of the Nightingale and a small role in Mills’ Batavia, he’s no stranger to new music. But making David Joy come to life was a far more demanding undertaking.
“I don’t think I could have managed without the help of [Opera Australia’s Assistant Music Director] Tony Legge, who provided us with recordings of our notes and rhythms, or without the hours of coaching offered by [repetiteurs] Tahu Matheson and Jennifer Marten-Smith. Those two have been fantastic; they know the score extremely well and it’s thanks to them that cast members have been able to learn the music in time,” Corcoran says.
In rehearsals, Matheson and Marten-Smith always played together, one providing orchestral colours and the other one playing the vocal line. “It helps a great deal to be given your notes in this way because it’s very tricky to remember them when you’re moving around and getting used to the set.” Corcoran also benefited from two Bliss workshops in 2009.
“But when all is said and done you just have to learn it bar by bar.”
Although David Joy has no great aria or arioso, he sings throughout the opera, which makes it easier to focus. “In smaller roles, where a singer is required to leave the stage for an hour or two, finding your way back in can be quite difficult,” Corcoran says.
If singing complex new music does not faze this singer, he felt very nervous when, two hours before the La traviata final dress rehearsal in January, he received notice that he was to go on in the place of an indisposed Aldo Di Toro.
“That was terrifying,” he remembers. “I’d watched Aldo doing all the rehearsals and I’d taken notes, but I hadn’t had my turn on the boards yet; that was going to happen on the Saturday after opening night.” What pulled him through was that as a former chorus member he’d been part of the production many times and knew the set intimately.
Nevertheless, from chorus member to principal male role is a huge leap. “I got all the words and notes and the show didn’t stop,” Corcoran says. “When afterwards I took my bow and heard people clap and shout a few bravos, I knew that I’d done well.”
He could not have done it without the support of his Opera Australia colleagues. “Stage management was awesome in directing me where to go, and the assistant director was backstage, telling me to ‘go up the back, grab her and kiss her!’ The support was amazing and I’m very grateful for it.”
This tall and handsome tenor, who covered Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly last year, and who will be singing five performances as the Duke in Rigoletto later this year, once aspired to be a psychologist. At school he played the trumpet and auditioned for The Mikado “because in an all-boys school it was the best way to meet girls”.
“People would say, ‘You have a good voice’, but no one ever said, ‘David why don’t you go and have a singing lesson?’”
The idea of a singing career first occurred to him at age 23 when, having completed his Psychology studies, he went to see a clairvoyant, “for fun”. “I told her that I was going to take a break from study and that I was looking to take up a new hobby. She said: ‘Have you ever thought of using your voice to make a living?’”
Corcoran, who had been given a singing teacher’s phone number not long before, decided to go for a lesson. Within three weeks he was doing amateur musicals in Victoria. Two years later, a career in Psychology forgotten, he auditioned for the Sydney Conservatorium’s Opera School. Two years into that he was offered a contract with Opera Australia’s chorus, and in 2009, the late Richard Hickox offered him a place in the Company’s Young Artist Program.
Having won several prestigious overseas scholarships in the past two years Corcoran, who is now convinced that he was meant to be a singer, is aiming to make a career of the Romantic tenor repertoire. “The Duke will be my big Company debut, and I certainly hope to continue to perform with Opera Australia,” he says. “That’s what Maestro Hickox envisaged for me, and now with Lyndon here, I certainly hope that I will continue along that road. “
Married to chorus member Margaret Plummer and father of a 13-month-old son, Corcoran sees his future career in Australia, with short overseas stints. “I’ve had incredible support from a team of people who have steered my career here in Australia. I want to be based here.”