Graham Pushee: "There are so many facets to learning a role and being able to sing it ... There's so many levels it operates on. There's the language, there's the technical level, the vocal, the musical side, trying to make it express something; you have to try and work on the language. You've also got the technical side, the acting side. There are so many things going on ... That's why opera interests me more than concert work."
(source: Sun Herald)
Graham Pushee: "..... I don't think there's any countertenors who sound like women"
Graham Pushee: " ... ... but I do think about life after singing because you do have to be sensible"
Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream",
Sydney Oct-Nov 2003 (Opera Australia production)
INTERVIEW
(october 2003)
audio/video interview
('A night to remember .What happens when you mix Baz Luhrmann, William Shakespeare and Opera Australia? A magical retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We spoke to Graham Pushee about performing in Opera Australia's latest production', Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Sydney Oct-Nov 2003)
(source : Sydney Morning Herald)
Text version
Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Sydney Oct-Nov 2003 (Opera Australia production)
A night to remember .What happens when you mix Baz Luhrmann, William Shakespeare and Opera Australia? A magical retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We spoke to Graham Pushee about performing in Opera Australia's latest production'
Graham Pushee talks about what it’s like to be in performing in an opera directed by Baz Luhrmann.
Graham Pushee: "Exciting. It’s nice to see there’s a very clear concept, there’s a very clear idea as to what the goal of the production is, what it wants to achieve, what it wants to say, how it wants to look. It’s very well thought out, it’s very consistent within itself, and that’s the most important thing. Very often directors look at the actual play, and don’t actual realise that when it’s been turned into an opera, it has gone through a sort of metamorphosis. But this doesn’t happen here. There’s a really clear idea going through the whole thing. The concept’s very easy to understand and consistent and that’s really great, actually, terrific".
Why do you think the role of Oberon was written for a countertenor?
Graham Pushee: "I think countertenor being this sort of, for a lot of people, unusual voice type, this very high falsetto sound that a lot of people are not used to hearing, kind of creates a sort of abstraction, I think, and being King of the Fairies, it gives it a very sort of ethereal, exotic kind of otherworldly character, rather than just giving it to a tenor or a baritone or a bass or something, which would be fine but would be relatively “normal”, in inverted commas. Giving it to a countertenor gives it suddenly this very sort of eerie feeling to it and I think really suits the fact that he’s supposed to be king of the fairies, supposed to be other worldly, so the voice is this very sort of unusual sound that most people when they hear it for the first time sort of are a little bit taken aback because they’re not used to hearing a man sing as high as that. It’s basically the same range as a female alto but, of course, it’s a different color and a different quality of sound and that’s the thing that gives it that sort of special quality, I think, and suits the king of the fairies".
How long does it take to become Oberon?
Graham Pushee: "It takes about a half an hour of blue paint, and lots of shaving and shadowing and big wigs and long fingernails and all sorts of stuff, so it’s quite a process to get in and out of the costume. But the look is so exotic.
And Titania’s world is very much pink and crimson and purple, and Oberon’s world is very much blue. So you’ve got that really contrasting pink and blue world of the fairy kingdom, with this very neutral almost beige creamy colour of the mortals, which is fantastic, actually, the contrast is wonderful".
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Excerpts taken fron
"ACCLAIMED COUNTER-TENOR GRAHAM PUSHEE PLAYS OBERON" interview
(Sydney, october 2003) by Tim Benzie:
"It’s nice to keep coming back to it, especially when you do productions like this that are so varied,? Pushee says. ?The last one I did about five years ago in Italy in Turin, it was completely different. Oberon was in a silver lamé suit with huge hair and sparkles all over it and a silvery knobbed walking stick and it was very strange ? almost like a king of the disco."
"I feel that the dramatic side of performance, the actual acting part of it, is every bit as important as the vocal part of it.
For me, I’m actually prepared to sacrifice vocal – a little bit – but I’m always prepared to go right to the limit dramatically, even if it means I can’t quite do everything vocally that I might be able to do if it were a concert performance …
That’s the challenge in opera, I think, for a singer. That’s why we do opera. It’s not just meant to be a concert in a fancy frock"
"For my level of ambition and drive, I’ve done almost everything that I’ve wanted to do? you think yes, it’s fabulous, it’s La Scala, Milan, then at the end of it you think it’s just another opera house, really. I mean, it’s dreadful!"
Sydney Star Observer
full interview
Published 9/X/2003