BY SYLVIE WOODS, LEAD WRITER (NSW)
We dropped into Universal Music Sydney to get CutCommoners acquainted with mega-successful classical-crossover group Il Divo (pictured above).
The multi-national ‘popera’ stars will this October tour their chart-topping new album Timeless across Australia.
These guys have performed for royalty and presidents, with Hollywood icons, and sold more albums than the population of Australia (30 million. They win). They were discovered by Simon Cowell 15 years ago, though have since split with the British producer – we’ll chat all about it.
Meet the artists in question: baritone Carlos Marín (Spain), tenor David Miller (United States), baritone Sébastien Izambard (France), and tenor Urs Bühler (Switzerland).
You guys are performing in October, but you’ve arrived here early, have you?
Carlos Marín: We just came to see you (!!).
Urs Bülher: We’re here for promo. We released our album two weeks ago!
You’re not here to go to the beach?
Sébastian Izambard: We don’t have time to go to the beach! We’re just here to work. We’re off to Melbourne soon.
Sounds frantic. First, I want to hear about the cover you guys just dropped of Adele’s Hello. Because it’s called Hola, is in Spanish, and involves gangsters, guns, shootings and fake passports. It’s basically a movie. Where did you guys all learn to act like that?
David Miller: Well, three of us come from a theatre background. Carlos has done music theatre, opera; he’s been on TV since he was like, six years old. I’ve been an opera singer since 1996; Urs as well –
UB: – and I’ve had three years of drama training. And in the last couple of years, I’ve been taking lessons with a great acting coach – but all we’ve ever really done is video clips!
So, most CutCommoners are classical music lovers or trained musicians. But on the Australian scene, we tend to acknowledge there are limitations that accompany following a purely ‘classical’ career. Have you guys ever imagined what your lives would’ve been like in opera and not ‘popera’? Do you think you would have been able to reach a level of global success like this if you’d done purely classical singing?
UB: I mean, it’s completely different having a career in classical music. Pop or ‘popera’ is something else because of your level of success, the different audience, the financial rewards – you can’t be a kid and then, after 15 years, have earnt millions and millions. That doesn’t happen in a successful classical career.
You make your career later in classical singing. Even if you’re starting early, you’re still starting at 25.
DM: I actually did purely opera singing until I joined the band. I was in Australia in 2000 – actually, over the millennium – singing in Bizet’s Pearl Fishers. What I have to say on that is that the landscape right now for classical music is completely different from when I was a strict opera singer – it’s just changed. Our attention span reducing to two seconds in the online era has just changed society in general.
In Australia and America, we’ve borrowed the culture and heritage behind opera and classical singing. It’s not part of who we are. Our countries are very young, so opera isn’t really part of that. We’re custodians of the artform.
There’s the issue of – if you’re only a custodian and not looking forward, you’re pretty much just sweeping cobwebs for a career. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine in the studio the other day about modern opera. He was saying how kids these days think Billy Budd is modern opera. In auditions, that’s what they’re bringing in as an example of modern opera. But that was 20 years ago. That’s not current and relevant for the landscape of modern composition. The [classical] landscape is vastly complicated.
And having been in a band, doing the same style for 15 years, you must know a lot about each other and what you want. Do you bicker? Do you quarrel?
CM: The magic comes from having had our solo careers before we came together. We didn’t just start our careers in the group. Obviously, we were with Simon Cowell for so long and we’re not anymore, and now we know each other very well.
UB: We have moments that are hard, and also go through times that are really easy. We spend a lot of time on the road, but I think it’s important to take space from one another so we can appreciate being on stage together.
At the beginning, it was difficult because of language barriers; and, coming from solo careers, gelling as a band took a bit of time. But I don’t think any of that is relevant today. What brings us together is that we’re all really passionate about making music.
This album is actually really special because it’s the first one we’ve done one as producers – the four of us. We were with Simon Cowell before, but all decided it would be a good idea to move on from that. That change was very empowering for the four of us, and has helped us to become even stronger as a group in terms of getting to know each other and making decisions.
Do you think coming from different backgrounds helps you all to gel?
DM: I think yes, because we all have fundamental language differences. I think I’m the lucky one, because we’ve ended up speaking in English most of the time. But, I mean, the number of translational errors we’ve had is countless. You have to try to get to the root of what you mean, and have to spend so much time doing that, you’re left putting emotional issues to one side.
You’ve got to focus on what you’re actually trying to get across. You’ve got to put aside those things like emotions and ego that all go into language, and just spend time clarifying and re-clarifying that, by the time you actually get to the point, you’re just exhausted. You can’t be bothered to argue, there’s no energy left for it.
That sounds like a really good way to resolve stuff. Well, it seems to have worked so far.
Catch Il Divo’s Timeless world tour from October 16-25 when the group performs in Australia with special guest Marina Prior and conductor John Foreman.
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