BWW Interviews: Christopher Purves talks Houston Grand Opera's DAS RHEINGOLD

Houston Grand Opera's first ever Ring Cycle is about to kick off with what is promised to be a spellbinding and incredibly visual production of Richard Wagner's DAS RHEINGOLD. As audiences grow all the more eager to see the show of this groundbreaking show, I chatted with Christopher Purves, who is portraying Alberich, about his career and what audiences could expect from this and highly anticipated production.

BWW: How did you first get involved in opera?

Christopher Purves: I first started opera about twenty-three years ago. I was singing in professional choirs in Britain at the time. My ego got the best of me, and I just wanted to be out in the front, rather than in the back row of the basses. I always wanted to be involved in opera in some way. I auditioned for a small touring opera company called English Touring Opera, and they selected me. The rest, I believe, they say is history. [Laughs]

BWW: When did you know you wanted to perform professionally?

Christopher Purves: I'm one of four boys, and I'm the youngest. I found that the gene pool didn't give me sufficient brainpower, as it were. My brothers all got the brains, and I got the noise. I worked out that if I was loud and could show off, then my parents would notice that I was alive. Actually, that's not such a bad thing to have if you want to go into opera because being loud and showing off [Laughs] are prerequisites.

I don't know, I think it's something you either feel comfortable with, you learn to feel comfortable with, or, for most people in the world, they can't stand the idea. For me, for some reason, it wasn't a problem. I loved the idea of being a little bit of an exhibitionist, and it sort of went from there, really.

BWW: This production of DAS RHEINGOLD features groundbreaking visuals by La Fura dels Baus and has been described as having a decidedly 1950s Sci-Fi B-movie aesthetic to it. What can Houston audiences expect from this take on the classic?

Christopher Purves: There's a lot of 50s-60s science fiction. It sounds a little bit trite. It sounds as if there's going to be a lot of slightly old-fashioned technical moments, but actually it's extremely visual and amazingly imaginative. That's what struck me first of all. I mean, it's always very difficult when you put on something that is otherworldly, as it were. I mean, how do you portray the land where the gods live and the land where Alberich and the Nibelungens live? How do you portray Rhine maidens swimming in the Rhine? It's really difficult, and I think the solutions that the directors have come up with are really truly wonderful. As a visual feast, it's incredibly exciting for us all to be involved in. I mean, it really, really is a thing of great beauty.

Yesterday, I watched the end of the opera, and it's something that is just mind blowing. It really is. You know, there were some fairly hardened opera-types in the auditorium yesterday, and we all started applauding because it really is so beautiful. And, that was just a piano/technical rehearsal. So, I think when the orchestra is playing, and you've had two and a half hours of this rich, beautiful music, I think the audience is really going to take off actually. I just think it's so exciting.

BWW: What has been the most challenging aspect of preparing for this production of Richard Wagner's DAS RHEINGOLD?

Christopher Purves: For me, in my role as Alberich, the most challenging aspect is really the physicality of it. He is supposed to be a dwarf and very ugly. I would say I don't have a problem with the ugly bit, but I do have a problem with the dwarf bit. There is a physicality you can bring to bear for Alberich, and I'm finding that now. That's a challenge. It's not a particularly difficult one, but it's an interesting one.

The most challenging aspect is the text and the way that my role has been written by Wagner. How do you describe it? It's very wordy. It's bitty. There are no sort of nice long, nice Verdian lines. It's full of impact. It's full of cursing. It's full of drama. It's a wonderful role. It's a brilliant role to do, but it's incredibly hard work. I don't want to be particularly technical about the vocal demands, but all I need to say is it's high, it's loud, it's long, and I think that is the most challenging part. There are so many words, and it's a language that it partly made-up. It's very colloquial. That is the real challenge.

BWW: Do you find that you and Alberich are similar in any ways?

Christopher Purves: I hope not. [Laughs] I have to draw, of course, every actor and every singer draws from their own experience or draws from what they believe a character could be like. I know people who are [pauses] tricky characters. We all know them. We know people who've got short tempers. We know people who lie as a sort of way of life. It's not so different from this sphere of reference that we all have. We all know people who have characteristics that are similar to Alberich's, so you draw from that knowledge base and use it as much as you possibly can in portraying a character. Sometimes you get it right, and Wagner, I think, has written very specifically for Alberich. He is one of the only real human beings. Everyone else is a god. He is a Nibelheimer, an underclass of worker, who works for the gods, really. So, the way Wagner has approached it, he is using and drawing on human characteristics, so in that respect it's not so far removed from real life.

BWW: What is your favorite part of DAS RHEINGOLD?

Christopher Purves: I've never performed DAS RHEINGOLD before, so I'm new to Wagner's Ring. I'm finding the whole thing incredibly exciting. Obviously, the bits I'm in are by turns very scary and also very exciting. I think the beginning scenes with the Rhine maidens of this production, and I'm not going to give it away, are very clever and very beautiful to watch. I'm not in Scene Two, and Scene Two is in the land of the gods. Scene Three and Scene Four, I am in.

As a performer, you look for challenges and you look for exciting roles, and I don't think they get much more exciting than Alberich. I think of everything I said before about the challenges of the role, and I would say that the beginning of Scene Four is really exciting. That's when I get captured by Loge and Wotan. I get taken down to the Nibelheim, and the ring that I have had forged for myself and that gives me my power is then stolen from me by Wotan, and I curse him. Actually, the last monologue that I have is really exciting to sing. I mean, it's really hard because it comes at the end of quite a lengthy role, but really it's one of those moments you look forward to in an opera because it is so powerful and incredibly exciting to sing.

BWW: What do you hope audiences take away from DAS RHEINGOLD?

Christopher Purves: I think they will take away from this RHEINGOLD the feeling of having been taken to a completely different world. Not only a sound world, but a sort of dramatic and theatrical world. A pictorial world that is full of incredibly interesting and exciting images. They will hear and they will feel power, whether it is form the orchestra or the singers themselves. They will feel and hear beauty, beauty of music that is almost unparalleled. They will enjoy interactions betweens humans and gods. They will enjoy a visual feast. Again, I can't give much away because I think it's incredibly exciting for people coming to their first RHEINGOLD to experience the size of everything.

Everything is done in such huge sweeps, as it were, of imagination, of beauty, of color, of tone, that I think it's inhabiting a world like that that's really exciting, and that's why people will travel thousands of miles to come and witness a Ring Cycle. That's exciting for me. I have friends coming from Oxford, where I live, to experience The Ring. I wouldn't say they're obsessed, but they love it so much and because I'm in it, they want to make the trip. But, there'll be people coming from all over the world just to experience this particular Ring. So, that's why I think it's so exciting to be part of this one in Houston. To be the focus of the operatic world is, I think, incredibly exciting and something I think Houston will enjoy enormously.

BWW: What advice do you offer to others hoping to make a career as a performer?

Christopher Purves: I've talked to my daughter about this. There is something about music in her psyche and in her blood that she responds to, and I would say for all performers you have to find out what you respond to. What it is in music, what it is in poetry, what it is in dance that you love and just explore it. Never stop asking questions. Also, we're incredibly lucky, I think, that we get to meet some really, really wonderful people. I mean, the cast of DAS RHEINGOLD is such a beautiful bunch of people. The dedicated Houston staff, from Patrick Summers, the conductor, to all the people who work in the opera company. We're so lucky we get to be with really dedicated and incredibly wonderful people. I don't think that is necessarily always the case in all walks of life.

I don't know, a performer? I mean, I think you just have to want to do it. It's not something that you would take lightly. It's something you have to think very carefully about. I mean, where am I? For seven weeks of my life, I'm away from my family-from my wife and my three kids. That's horrible. That's really horrible, but you do it because you believe in what you are able to offer as a performer, and you hope in some way that all the sacrifice is worth it. The sacrifice will somehow make someone else, an audience member, a happier person.

It's a very tricky thing. I mean, you always want to think that your motives are noble, and it's not just financial. You do want to create a world that is exciting to live in, and I think that the RHEINGOLD world is an incredibly exciting place to work and to perform.

If there are any budding performers, follow your instincts. Work really, really hard. That's the important thing. These things don't just happen overnight. You have to work and work and work and work and work. As in every profession, it's not a question of turning up, tuning in, and shouting your head off. It's a lot of hard graft, but you hope in the end that people will benefit in someway, shape, or form from your hard work and your sacrifice. If they do, then, I think, it's a job really well done.

DAS RHEINGOLD, produced by Houston Grand Opera, is already almost completely sold out for its run. This not-to-be missed opera runs from April 11 - 26, 2014 at the Brown Theater in the Wortham Theater Center, 500 Texas Avenue, Houston, 77002. Performances are Friday, April 11 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, April 13 at 2:00 p.m., Thursday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. For more information and tickets, please visit http://www.houstongrandopera.org or (713) 228-OPERA (6737).