Baritone David loves 'best-ever' Bohème
by Margaret Chrystall
BARITONE David Stout who debuts for Scottish Opera in La Bohème from Tuesday is not unusual – like many of us he starts the day singing in the shower.
"I do have a pretty good routine of getting up and warming up my voice in the shower in a steamy environment," he says.
"The only problem is I’m married to a repetiteur – a pianist for the opera – and she is actually working on the show as well.
"So she occasionally comes in and corrects my Italian!"
David plays the part of Marcello, a struggling artist in the community of bohemians in Puccini’s opera set in Paris.
And he explains his character’s role in an unusual way.
"It’s like in one of these foodie programmes where they say a dish is really unctuous, that it needs a salt to cut through the flavour.
"I’m that kind of character in the opera," laughs David.
"I’m the guy who sort of puts the business in – the comedy, the anger – whilst you’re watching the opera’s central characters, lovers Mimi and Rodolfo, sing about love and tenderness which is a bit syrupy.
"I provide that kind of awkwardness and humanity to the opera, so for me it’s great.
"Marcello sings the first line and the last line and he’s often listed at the top of the cast list. It’s a very demanding role, but it is also a lot of fun."
Read David’s impressive list of roles performed so far in his career and you’d have no idea he came to opera late – he finished his opera degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at 32.
But not every rising baritone started out as a safari guide in southern Africa.
"I was born in England but my parents moved to South Africa – not quite South Africa but a homeland in southern Africa called Bophuthatswana when I was quite young. That is where I spent my formative years in a town called Mefikeng.
"I spent my teens and formative years growing up on the edge of the Kalahari Desert – and what it doesn’t say on my biog is I became passionate about natural history, took a degree in zoology and became a safari guide in Botswana!
"I studied natural sciences and zoology and that was my first career, training to be a safari guide."
But soon David moved on.
"I went to Cambridge University in ’98 to study education and I became a biology teacher.
"I taught biology at Epsom College for five years where I was also able to coach rugby and cricket which were my two sports growing up in South Africa.
"And I continued to run my small safari expedition to Namibia.
"That was really my passion and it was incredible. travelling to southern Africa in the holidays and learning where to take my next expedition – I still get asked a lot ‘Where do I go on safari?’."
In his early school years, David had returned to England.
"I was head chorister at Westminster Abbey in 1987 – so I had a very good musical schooling.
"When I was teaching, I would occasionally sing in choral societies on a Saturday afternoon to get out of taking a hockey fixture somewhere."
But someone heard David singing, invited him to audition for an amateur opera – he got the lead and soon he was being invited to audition for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
David has had a busy career in opera for just over 10 years, but with a lot of travelling time on his hands, he has written a book which he is hoping will be published in the near future.
"I suppose that is one thing about this career, it does give you the opportunity to do things the sensible nine to five job prevents you from doing!
"I’ve always wanted to write something. It was something that was meant to be a South Wales walking guide that somehow turned into a novel!" David says.
"It follows where I’ve been in my life, so it starts with a group of choristers who discover a plot. And there is another storyline which is in Africa about a group of missionaries. And there’s another plot about the Switzerland-Austrian border which I wrote when I was in Bregenz in Austria."
If David pitches his book to publishers himself, there’s a strong chance he’ll talk them into publishing – his enthusiasm bubbles over as he talks about Scottish Opera’s production of La Bohème.
He has appeared in several much-praised productions by other opera houses and other well-known directors – but this is his favourite.
He explains: "For me it is the best production I have ever been in.
"Director Renaud Doucet and designer André Barbe are one of the most exciting director-designer combinations there is in the modern opera world.
"Renaud Doucet has remained absolutely married to the score and allows the music department to do exactly what Puccini wrote and, at the same time, produce onstage something which is incredibly touching and has really reaped the whirlwind on all the emotion that Puccini has put into the score.
"But also the designer André Barbe has created for the chorus this extraordinary costume world.
"They have transported the main action of the opera into the modern day – which is a bit of a vogue thing to do with opera.
"But every time Mimi walks onstage, a subtle lighting and costume change takes us back to the 1920s and the flea markets of Paris."
"It’s incredible music. The singer Musetta – played as the great Josephine Baker the great American jazz singer – is sung by Jeanine De Bique from Trinidad and Tobago who just simmers onstage.
"And the opera is very comic as well and there is a lot of silliness.
"But at the heart of it is this incredible music – and us singing our hearts out."
La Bohème opens at Eden Court on Tuesday, June 13, Thursday, June 15 and Saturday, June 17 with the hour-long free unwrapped performance on Wednesday, June 14 (but book with box office for a ticket) and there's a free but ticketed pre-performance talk on Saturday, June 17 at 6pm.
