Tosca hero Freddie: I want to be Katherine Jenkins

Tosca hero Freddie: I want to be Katherine Jenkins

News

norman lebrecht

December 09, 2021

The English tenor Freddie de Tommaso who saved last night’s Tosca at Covent Garden has been answering a few collegial questions for Edinburgh Music Review.

The answer that caught our eye was this:

For now, I will be sticking to the operatic and classical repertoire. No one knows what the future will bring, but I am not particularly interested in veering from that path at present. 

I am going to try very hard to bring opera into the same limelight as the Katherine Jenkins/Alfie Boe world, but avoiding the tacky crossover aspect, and keeping true to the traditions and values of proper classical singing.  I am very happy to remain in the world of opera. This is the music I love, and I want to share it with as many people as possible!

Read on here.

Comments

  • V.Lind says:

    Not exactly what he said…I often wonder at this inclination to go with redtop (and inaccurate) headers.

  • HugoPreuss says:

    I had to google both Katherine Jenkins and Alfie Boe. You can’t know everyone. And I seriously doubt that they are household names outside the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

  • Nik says:

    I cannot reconcile your headline with the quote.

  • Zelda Macnamara says:

    The headline is misleading. He quite clearly does not want to be Katherine Jenkins

  • Maria says:

    Good luck to him! Great little money-earner to be like KJ.

  • Allen says:

    “I want to be Katherine Jenkins”

    That is not what he says. It’s clear that he doesn’t think much of crossover.

  • Bean says:

    Clickbait headline considering what he actually says is that he wants to raise the profile of opera without doing tacky crossovers.

  • operacentric says:

    Katherine Jenkins, the famous opera singer who has never sung an opera.

  • Sisko24 says:

    I admit I didn’t know who Katherine Jenkins is. I quickly misread the title to say that he wanted to be Florence Foster Jenkins…which would’ve been a real headline, don’t you agree?

  • BRUCEB says:

    Clickbait, sure. Clicks is what makes the world go ’round.

    At least this time you don’t have to actually follow through to the link (which might have a paywall) and read the article (which might be in another language) to find out what he’s actually talking about. Not one of his worse ones.

  • Colin says:

    Freddie de Tommaso wishes to avoid
    “the tacky crossover aspect”. For him, is all crossover somehow “tacky” or is some crossover acceptable to him?

  • christopher storey says:

    I heard him on Radio 3 yesterday, never having heard of him before . He should do very well round the pubs

  • Rick says:

    Come on, Mr Lebrecht, that is such a stupid and misleading headline – you should be ashamed of yourself for that kind of primitive clickbait. Mr de Tommaso says rather the opposite.

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