One of India’ s most well known faces of Western music and director of the country’ s first full fledged opera production‘ Il Matrimonio Segreto”- Patricia Rozario talks all about the production and her journey as the’ Soprano in Saree’
SRIRAM RAVISHANKAR
Patricia Rozario
One of India’ s most well known faces of Western music and director of the country’ s first full fledged opera production‘ Il Matrimonio Segreto”- Patricia Rozario talks all about the production and her journey as the’ Soprano in Saree’
India’ s expansive musical culture and popular media has given general audiences a rather vague and hazy image about Western music and Opera, unless you are a connoisseur of the art form, of course! What is popularly mimicked as“ shouting” or“ screaming loudly” is an age old art form with a rich heritage running for over 300 odd years! Opera, in fact Western Music itself in India has been quite a niche since its arrival from the British times. Except for the passionate few, the rest of them have barely accessed the music until artists like Zubin Mehta put Indians on the world map of Western musicians. On the lines of such heritage, meet Patricia Rozario, a Mumbai based British Soprano who is one of the country’ s finest musicians. She has performed at the English National Opera, Opera North, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and the Garsington Opera in England, and has performed on stage across Europe in Aix-en-Provence, Brussels, Frankfurt, Ghent, Innsbruck, Lyon and Stuttgart.
“ When Patricia and I inaugurated the opera house musically last year, we immediately thought‘ Now that the opera house is open, it is time to put an opera in there whenever we can. Since we teach Indian singers, we thought it is absolutely perfect! It is a purpose built space for opera,” said Mark Troop( Piano) as we began talking about their first full fledged Opera Production‘ Il Matrimony Segreto’ featuring a completely desi crew which staged at the Royal Opera House, Mumbai.“ We chose a light comedy, not too grand not too very early opera. we thought our students can cope with it. Its comic! it has marriage in the title which is good in India-“ The Secret Marriage”- Its a comedy of manners!
Its light and sparkling. We thought it is better to do that than the really heavy ones- it will fit really well in the opera house,” he briefed. Talking about the opera house, the historic building in Charni Road, Chowpatty is India’ s only surviving opera House form the British Times built in 1911.“ All of these opera houses are built on the european model of the opera houses; So they look similar, sound similar, have the same type of acoustics, so this opera is perfect for that,” Troop exclaimed!
Cutting through the brief conversation Troop and I were having, Rozario walked in elegantly and introduced herself shortly as she sat down by the sofa next her ancestral baby grand piano. Without wasting much time, we got talking about her beginnings as a musician,“ We grew up with my mother teaching me and my brothers, the piano( as you can see). My parents both sang, so we learnt to sing with them. And in this area of Santacruz, all the adults organised a festival with great enthusiasm. Every child in the area was allowed to perform or participate in a competition- vocal, piano, and violin. Choir, plays, recitals- very unusual! This was my platform to develop the experience of getting up on stage and communicating with an audience. I didn’ t realise that my bachelor’ s degree in English and French, would be such a great asset to learning this art form! It really helps you connect to the pieces you’ re singing with greater confidence! The literature is what did the magic! Then, when I went abroad, I went to the Goth Institute to learn German, Italian at Guildhall( school of music and drama) where I went on to study, I was firmly convinced that I would come back after three years. During my time at the Guildhall, I went to numerous competitions in Spain, Salzburg, Holland, England etc. which helped float my name around. Soon enough, I had agents coming to me offering work. Before finishing college, I met Mark which was a huge sock for my parents( laughs)! but i gave them some time to come around it,” she recollected. From there, started Rozario’ s illustrious career as an Indian British Soprano often remembered as the‘ Soprano in Saree’.
One of her most notable appearances was across Europe in The Marriage of Figaro, conducted by Sir Georg Solti. She has also given concerts in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and as part of The Proms in England, and abroad in Amsterdam, Athens, Berlin, Halle, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Cologne, Leipzig, Madrid, New York City, Paris, Riga, Rouen, Strasbourg, Vienna, Winterthur and Zürich. She performed in a production of Elvis Costello’ s Meltdown. Rozario has made numerous recordings of the works of composer John Tavener. Gifted with a voice described as“ liquid gold”, Rozario’ s wide concert and opera repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary music. She is an exponent of bel canto – the fabled method used by the great Italian singers of the 19th century. Feted for her achievements, Rozario is a recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, royal honour OBE, and is a fellow of the Royal College of Music.
The Score Magazine
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