Early on, Gerald Finley thought he wanted to be a veterinarian. He changed his mind while doing laboratory work in his native Ottawa. "It was where all the experimental government research things went on," he said. "I just couldn't bear weighing dried mouse feces to check the zinc content." Well ... who among us would disagree with that?
So Finley deserted the mice for music. At first his ambitions were modest. "At the time, I wanted to be a professional choral singer. After one year in London and three years in Cambridge, in the King's College Choir, having sort of reached the ultimate in choral experience, I thought, 'I have to think about being a soloist.'" He apprenticed at Glyndebourne and got an early break when Roger Norrington cast him as Papageno. Encouraged, he began studying with Armen Boyajian, Samuel Ramey's teacher. ("It was critical, because I was surviving on choral technique and didn't really know how to sing at all.") It was a struggle, technically and psychologically. "A lot of the song literature is known as English cowpat, very feeble and pastoral music ... and there's an English style of singing, which is very lyrical but sometimes lacks a certain foundation of big dramatic breathing. I think it's changing now, in the younger generation, with the influence of the American school of training. Bryn Terfel is an example of someone who has not come from a passive choral background."
The ball gathered speed quickly; John Eliot Gardiner cast Finley as Papageno in 1995 for both a tour and a recording with the Monteverdi Choir, and he made his Met debut in the same role in 1998. Does Finley find the Met too cavernous for Mozart? "I think we need to experience The Magic Flute as a grand epic. We can't make it a miniature chocolate box. These operas deal with big human conflicts. In many ways, it's wonderful to be in a huge auditorium and [have to reach] 3,800 people." Finley will be back in New York this month, for a recital at the Frick Collection, and later in the season he returns to the Met as Marcello. The best part about being in Manhattan is that he'll get to work with Boyajian again. "After all," he says, "there's no escaping having lessons."
BRIAN KELLOW
photos: © Malcolm Crowthers 2000
OPERA NEWS, October 2000 Copyright © 2000 The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.