MATTHEW ROSE

●  Lovely to have you here! Please, introduce yourself to our lovely readers!

Hello lovely readers, my name is Matthew Rose, I have been incredibly lucky to have had a very fulfilling career as an opera, song and concert singer, and I also discovered about 10 years ago the joy of organizing, teaching, giving and putting things together to try to help people looking to become singers the best way I can.

●  You were born in Brighton, then decided to study in the US. How did you make that decision and what brought you back to the UK and Europe?

I was born in Brighton, but I grew up in Seaford about 15 kms east of Brighton, not far from Glyndebourne. The decision to go to the US to study wasn’t one made quickly. I was in the last year of Highschool in West Sussex and I was doing a bit of singing, but it wasn’t something that I thought would become my profession. One night, I was babysitting for my music teacher and he asked me whether I have ever thought about becoming an opera singer. I thought that was ridiculous, but that was the first time anyone ever put that idea into my head.

I didn’t do as well as I should have academically in the last year of Highschool. I was playing a lot of serious Cricket and golf, and doing lots of concerts including “Messiah” (on my 18th birthday) with the choir. It was fulfilling in the sense that I got to do a lot of activities, but academically wasn’t the best year for me. I then went on to a tertiary college in Canterbury in Kent, where I had the pleasure and great fortune to meet Benjamin Luxon and Sheila Amit Luxon, Sheila becoming my singing teacher there. Ben Luxon also worked with us, and I have to say, he was absolutely one of the greatest singers of all time. There is a great recording of him and Janet Baker in “The Rape of Lucretia” with Benjamin Britten and he is in a level in every way with the great Janet Baker. 

Sheila invited me to come and do a course with her in Italy. So I went to this small town called Urbania in Le Marche and there were singers from Juilliard, The Curtis Institute of music, and the head of the voice department from Curtis, Mikael Eliasen was there. I remember singing Schubert’s “Aufenthalt” for Mikael, and he told me he heard 3 or 4 notes in my voice that he could work with. He asked me to come audition at Curtis, and because I sang that Schubert song in a little town in Italy, I went to study at the Curtis Institute of Music for 5 years, and have the career I have had.

●  Was there a core memory that built you into the artist/person you are today?

You just used a very important word: build. Everything that you have experienced builds you up to become who you are. We are all the residue of the influences that we have had, the circumstances that we’re in and the teachers and colleagues we encounter. All of these lucky situations influence the people that we become and I had an amazing singing teacher, who I would visit every week in New York called Marlena Malas. She was someone who I had in my life until December 2023, when she passed away, and I was still having singing lessons with her. 

She really took me under her wing in the last few years of her life, I was around her and her teaching a lot both in New York and The Chautauqua Institution, and I got to witness her working with singers of all ages from all over the world. That experience showed me that it is absolutely possible to teach anyone to sing well. I am living proof of this. I had the incredible luck to study with her at Curtis, with very little ability to sing well, and by the time I was graduating at 23, I had done 25 operas at the school, I had done work at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, but I also got to sing lots of songs. This was very important for me because singing Schubert was how I fell in love with singing in the first place, and even now, alongside all the operas and concerts, I sing as much Schubert as I can. He teaches us all we need to know about music, song, words...

●  Funny that you mention Schubert. Our next question is: You just performed Schubert’s “Winterreise” not too long ago, and you have performed it multiple times in the past. We all love this cycle very much, but what makes it so special for you?

It is such a great piece for a singing actor. Schubert, at the end of his very sad, short life, happened to stumble upon 12 poems by Wilhelm Müller (and then later the other 12 poems) at a time when he was writing such sensitive and provocative music. He wasn’t writing because he was getting paid to do so, this was his way of expressing his anguish, pain and despair. He had no other choice than to put these words to music the way he did. As singing actors, this is a gift for us. I must have performed the piece about 200 times by now and it is so very different every time. The things that Schubert wrote about, and the way he did it with the harmonies and expressions that he chose to use are all such gifts to us. I’ve gotten to the point where I know exactly how I want to perform the piece, and that sadly doesn’t give my pianist colleagues a lot of space to express themselves (sorry pianists). I’ve performed the piece enough times to know what it is I like and what it is I don’t like, so I have to find pianists who are willing to go along with my very particular way of thinking and expressing themselves text and music.

●  You mentioned that you’ve performed this piece about 200 times by now. Did you ever lose the love for the piece?

No. How can you? As I said, the way Schubert chose to write this piece is just incredible. The way we sing the cycle, the poems are not in the order of the drama, so you are taken from happy places to bleak, mad and sad places very irrationally. It’s definitely not an easy thing to perform, but to have those 24 songs flow out as one act of continuous drama, and the music that flows with it, how can you not love that? 

I could actually listen to Schubert all day, everyday. BBC 3 Radio did a whole weekend of just Schubert’s music and that was something that proved his music, in its subtly appropriate ways, can show everything we humans crave.

●  You’ve done everything possible from huge opera roles to singing song and concert repertoire. How would you compare these three disciplines?

Obviously there are a common set of skills that you need for all three disciplines, but they are all very separate entities. Singing just with an orchestra, choir and a conductor is something so different from running around a stage portraying an opera character; doing a “Missa Solemnis” “Beethoven 9th Symphony”, “Verdi Requiem”, “Messiah” or even and opera in concert I get to to do the job I was trained to do. I primarily think of myself as a musician and the ability to just stand there and do the music is so completely satisfying.

My favorite rehearsals for preparing for an opera is also the Sitzprobe. When you get to stand there and make music with other colleagues at such a concentrated level, that’s when I feel the most satisfied. In opera, you do need to do a bit more than just that. There is acting and staging going on and of course by doing multiple things the ability to succeed at every facet is much less likely. I was thinking about this last night: when playing an opera role, there are constraints put on you not only by the composer and the librettist, but also from the conductor and the stage director. It is then also very satisfying to have as much artistic input of your own as you can. It’s an artform on its own to be as artistic as you can within all the restrictions. When Strauss writes his music, you have to do exactly what he has written down and we have to respect that. It’s a very satisfying feeling to be able to do your job in the constraints of these brilliant people who have created this extraordinary art. 

Song is completely different. How Schubert wrote his songs is different to how he wrote his other pieces. Take “Erlkönig” for example, you have a complete opera in the span of 4 minutes. 4 characters telling a complete story. How incredibly lucky I am to do what I do?

●  You’ve been a mentor to not only myself, but countless other artists. You are very passionate about helping the next generation of artists. Where does this passion come from? 

I came into being a singer needing to learn every aspect of the craft. I had some linguistic abilities, I had a potentially pretty voice, but I had to turn my vocal abilities into an instrument that I could use in opera, song, or concert work. I was incredibly lucky that I had amazing people helping me develop my armory to become what I am now, primarily Marlena Malas and Mikael

Eliasen, and I realized that all of the input that I had attained would be important to pass on to other singers, no matter what their talent level is. So my favorite thing, and thing I probably do best, is to put together a group of remarkable oper and sing practitioners who can help young singers with their progress, to understand themselves and the demands of the craft of becoming a working singer at a high level, with all the demands that come with the JOB! I think some of the younger generation has less understanding of what it actually means to go up on stage and be a great singer. Unfortunately, with social media as a major part of society, that has somehow distorted the idea of what it means to be a successful artist. Getting likes on your instagram does not make you a great singer or artist. The actual bare bones of having to stand up in front of an audience and knowing what has to happen is something I feel has gotten a bit lost. I want to make sure everyone is standing on stage doing the best they possibly can in every single aspect of their singing. That’s what I always aim to do by gathering a group of experts every year in Italy (Spoleto Vocal Arts Workshop) and in England (Tosti International Singing Academy). I’ve had the great luck of meeting some amazing people in life and my job is to bring these brilliant people together to help the next generation of artists understand the demands of being a great singer. Even if som audience members have no idea about what great singing is, if they come to see and hear a great performance, they will be moved by the visceral reaction to meaningful

singing.  As artists it is important to get away from our own egos and get back to doing what is needed to keep this artform alive, which is to present the text and music in the most heartfelt and passionate way we can. 

● You mentioned something that’s very interesting: you mentioned how the development of social media has changed the industry. Do you think because of this, our generation may have lost appreciation and profundity for the arts?

In today's world, profundity has become less important. It’s sometimes more about having impressive high notes and shows. When you went to the opera 50 years ago, you came out crying. People who went to hear Janet Baker sing were so moved by her intensity and passion that they cried. What we should aim to do, and what our art has the capability of doing is to make people feel emotions that they don’t ordinarily feel on a daily basis. We’ve got to a point where people make pretty, introspective sounds to satisfy themselves rather than doing something that will affect people in a profound way that their lives and emotions are changed. I was singing “Schwanengesang” the other day and there were 3 people crying. That’s when I knew I had done my job. What makes that happen is doing something with such belief, depth and feeling alongside beautiful sound and music making, serving Schubert’s music without showing to people “Look how marvelous I sound”. We have to make music with such depth and integrity that people’s lives are changed.

● Are there other artistic disciplines that interest or inspire you?

Not just artistic. I draw inspiration from everything I do in life. I love sitting and watching people. I even used to watch donkeys. That’s how you actually know how become a donkey on stage as well. (I have often played the part of Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where he is for part of the play “transformed” into a donkey). 

All elements of life have inspired  composers to write they have written. When Schubert wrote his music, he didn’t do it because he could, he did it because that was what he was witnessing in his life at the time and was then able to express these things through his music. It’s the same with us. Everything that we are surrounded by and influenced by is going to have an impact on how we think and thus how we perform and express the music and words we are given. Only if we’re brave enough to go there, to the  deepest levels of self understanding, rather than just making pretty sounds, will we be serving this great art. It’s all about life experiences that we feel in our guts that we have to release through our music. 

Very deep things for a Thursday morning in Berlin!

● Who are some artists outside of your own genre that you like?

I love visual arts. The act of being able to put things down on paper is remarkable. I have some amazing artist friends, whose pieces I have on my walls. Writers as well. I actually just had a children's book written about me: about a large hairy opera singer. A friend of mine wrote it. M.G.Leonard is her writing name. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m really excited for that. I think sportsmen inspire me as well. In fact, even more so than some musicians. (N.B. Matthew is a passionate golfer). The idea of putting a golf swing together to hit a golf ball really well makes as much sense to me as putting a coordinated singing technique connected to the body together to make great sounds. Singing can visually be as mechanical as a golf swing, in that you need to put everything in the correct  order for things to happen correctly and efficiently. 

I admire people from all different fields of profession. Great cooks, great writers, great artists, a great barista even…

Anyone who does their jobs with conviction and dedication, I will admire.

● What are some trends in the music industry that excite you and what are some that you find concerning?

I think we are trying to attract audiences by doing things a different way. I think opera was made to be done in opera houses, and I see how opera is being done elsewhere to draw people in. We need to focus on doing the best in the environments that were built for us to do our jobs. Opera houses were built specifically for opera to be done easily, and yet we take opera elsewhere where it is difficult to achieve. I think we really have to believe in just doing what we do really well, with the love and respect it deserves, and that then people will be drawn passionately to it. I don’t think we need to do things differently to how we have been doing it to attract people. I fell in love with this artform having known nothing about it, and music inspires me every single second of every day of my life. We shouldn’t have to think we need to dumb anything down, but rather make people understand what it is that we do at a much higher level. When I do courses for singers, I try to organize as many public events, concerts and masterclasses,  for people to come watch and learn so that they will actually understand what it means to put together a Schubert song or an opera aria. It’s such an important thing that they understand what that means. Even this interview is an example of that. People normally see me sing in front of an audience without any explanation of how or why I am doing it, but actually having the chance to talk about the depths of my passion for what we do is so important. “The Marriage of Figaro” has to exist. “Don Giovanni” has to exist. Schubert has to exist going forward. We have to be the people to make sure that it gets passed on to the next generation in the best possible way. 

If I may add, we gave music away for free. Music is so accessible these days that it has lost some of its value. The art world, the book world and all these other places have been clever enough to keep value on what the product is. Art galleries are being visited more than ever. Why isn’t classical music going the same route? I think it’s because we gave music away for free. You can pay a small fee on Itunes to hear every piece of music that has ever been written. It’s actually crazy that we gave it all away like that and we need to reclaim it back somehow.

● Since we are called “Songbird Magazine,” with which bird do you identify yourself?

Maybe it’s because of Schubert’s “Winterreise”, but I am fascinated by crows. There is another bird called the nuthatch. I used to enjoy it when they came to my window. 

● Is there a question that you’ve always wanted to be asked in interviews? Or is there something you’d like to add that would give us an insight into your thoughts?

I think you’ve already asked amazing questions. Sometimes we stand on stage but people don’t quite understand the passion that we have for our artform. Having the chance to actually talk about this passion and desire for what we do is really important. I want to pass down this passion and desire to the next generation and that is why I organize workshops and masterclasses every year to help young singers, and getting the chance to talk about this has been wonderful, so thank you very much.

Just one last point, we have to normalize what we do. I think it’s much better here in Germany and also in France, but in the UK, going to the opera is such an elitist thing. I was at the Staatsoper unter den Linde last night watching “Don Giovanni” and there was a mixture of very old people but also very young people. It just seemed to me that watching an opera done very well is a much more normal thing than it would be in England. Schubert songs should be a part of everyone’s lives. That’s actually something that the UK does really well. There are all these lovely Song festivals and the Wigmore Hall does multiple song recitals a week, whereas in Vienna or Berlin, there is not that same pushing for song. Obviously there are amazing operas and orchestras here, but in London, Song is put on the same level with these other things. We should be grateful to Graham Johnson for all the knowledge of Song that he’s given us with the Hyperion recordings and his books. That’s the difference with Song, people need to understand it a bit better to appreciate it, whereas with opera, the curtain goes up and you can enjoy the performance with little knowledge about the piece. With Song, you need to know how the harmonies shape the words and the nuances. Wigmore Hall put up the words on the back of the wall on stage for people to read and I think that is what should be happening more. It affects us so much more when we get the words, and I think we have to make that become more normal for people.