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Arts & Entertainment
‘Honeyed, virile’
baritone makes San Diego Opera debut
Published Thursday, 06-May-2004 in issue 854
Call him Jamie or James or Jim. Canadian baritone James Westman apologizes for “marking” at the La Traviata rehearsal April 28, explaining he has some kind of tonsil thing going on.
Marking is what opera singers do to save their voices for when it matters. When it matters, for Westman, is the May 8 opening of Giuseppe Verdi’s beloved La Traviata, based on the Alexandre Dumas fils novel, La dame aux camelias. Westman makes his San Diego Opera debut as Germont, the disapproving father of Alfredo (tenor Richard Troxell) who’s having an affair with Violetta, a Parisian courtesan (soprano Anja Harteros).
The 31-year-old Westman was born in St. Mary’s, Ontario, where his father still runs a 600-acre farm that’s been in the family since their ancestors immigrated there from Ireland around the turn of the 19th century. In the normal course of things, the son would inherit and run the farm. Early on, however, Westman and his two sisters evinced little interest in the bucolic life. Seems they all inherited some kind of artistic genes from their mother, a music teacher of Greek descent. Older than Westman by seven and 14 years – “my parents had the seven-year itch” – the girls became dancers. Neither married. The eldest runs the Alberta Dance Alliance and the younger teaches at the National Ballet in Toronto.
Westman, who began musical studies on violin, inherited the Voice.
“By the time I was 13 I’d traveled to nearly every country in Europe, most of the countries in Eastern Europe, and a fair amount of the States. I toured with the American Boys Choir, the Vienna Boys Choir and the Paris Boys Choir,” says Westman, who also recorded a solo album and a rare boy treble performance in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Then came the day of reckoning.
”I’ll never forget,” Westman says. “I was doing a coaching with the Vienna Boys Choir and my voice went, ‘oo-ee-guh, oo-ee-guh.’
”My coach said, ‘Mr. Westman, you’ll be going home tomorrow.’ At the Vienna Boys Choir they believe that the minute your voice changes you’re done. The next day I was shoveling manure for my father in Canada. It was quickly humbling.
“So I played hockey for a bit – that’s this scar here. If you’re a Canadian, you play hockey.”
Jamie, now James, entered regular school and the social world again, then went off to the University of Toronto with the intent of becoming an entertainment attorney. He was singing in the university choir and, though he didn’t know anything about opera, auditioned for the chorus in a production of The Marriage of Figaro.
“I learned the aria ‘Non piu andrai’ [he sings a bar or two] and they looked at me, like, ‘Where have you been?’ They hired me for the lead, so the first opera I was in was the first opera I ever saw.” He was 19.
Westman studied for two years at the Britten Pears School in Aldeburgh, England. From there he was accepted into the Merola Program at San Francisco Opera and was baritone in residence with the Adler Fellowship program until March 2000. His performances with San Francisco Opera include Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, Marcello in La Boheme and Renato in Un ballo in maschera.
Westman and his wife, Dini, a Suzuki violin teacher, live in Stratford, Ontario, where they are raising sons, ages 2 and 4. Someday Westman would like to teach, something he’s frequently asked to do and something that comes easily and naturally to him.
“I’ve had a couple of job opportunities that would allow me to settle down, but I’m not ready yet. I want the career to go still a bit more.”
It’s already going. In the February issue of Opera News, Paul Driscoll called Westman’s voice “a honeyed, virile baritone with a distinctively textured, ringing top.” Having sung in Graz, Pittsburgh, Cologne and St. Louis, Westman recently made his Dallas Opera debut as Germont.
When he makes his Act II entrance in San Diego, it marks the 50th time the baritone has sung Germont, which he adores. He models the performance on his own father.
“With the makeup and everything I’ll look old,” he promises with a laugh. “I’ve yet to play Germont with a ‘son’ who is actually younger than I am.”
La Traviata, by Giuseppe Verdi, is directed by San Diego Opera Artistic Director Ian Campbell, and conducted by Edoardo Mueller. Performances are at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, May 8 and Tuesday, May 11; 8:00 p.m. Friday, May 14; 2:00 p.m. Sunday, May 16; and 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, May 19. Performances take place at the San Diego Civic Theatre, 202 C St. (619) 570-1100. Tickets are $20-$150.
Charlene Baldridge is a freelance arts writer, poet and author of San Diego, Jewel of the California Coast (Northland Publishing, May 2003).
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