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One small singing role changed Joseph Kaiser's life. So small, in fact, that the 30-year-old tenor sings it to me in seconds backstage at the Festspiele opera house in Salzburg. He renders a lyrical phrase in German and, as always when one is so close to extraordinary talent, it's thrilling to experience. The line is from the role of the First Prisoner in Beethoven's opera, Fidelio, and one Kaiser will surely always remember.
Three seasons ago, while he was singing the part at the Lyric Opera house in Chicago, Kaiser had no idea that the illustrious conductor Daniel Barenboim and the filmmaker and actor Kenneth Branagh both happened to be in the audience. This fortunate convergence of talent and destiny landed Kaiser the starring role in Branagh's film of Mozart's The Magic Flute, which is set to open in the U.S. during the coming year, and a major part in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, conducted by Barenboim, at this year's Salzburg Festival. This is the operatic equivalent of a grand slam.
So here we are, already halfway through the festival, and Kaiser has just come off stage, his character Lensky having been shot in a duel. He's relaxed ("because I'm dead," he jokes), his intense blue eyes radiant with a post-performance glow and the sheer joy of singing at Salzburg.
His final aria—which he performed slumped against the wall, a challenge for any singer—brought a wildly enthusiastic response from an audience that knows opera inside out. "If you're bad, you'll get booed here," says Kaiser, whose easygoing charm seems a million miles from the intense performance I've just seen. "It's a real risk singing here."
Despite his poise and professionalism, the Montreal-born singer can't quite believe he's singing with Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic. "It's insane who's in the audience," he tells me as we exit the stage door into a sultry Salzburg night, the Alps rising up nearby toward the inky sky. "Last Saturday after the concert, I heard someone say, 'Joseph.' I turn around and it's Plácido," he says with a grin.
There is a gaggle of autograph hunters outside, and Kaiser, who's six foot four and wearing gold-rimmed glasses, is easily spotted. He seems almost bashful as he grabs a pen and stoops a little to sign each program. "Until I came here, I was never asked for an autograph in my life," he says.
That's about to change. Kaiser will soon be all the more recognizable after America sees him in his starring role as Tamino in The Magic Flute. Branagh, who admits that he knew little about opera before directing the film, immediately noticed Kaiser's charisma during casting. "I told him, 'You're a handsome lad, but you'll want to have lost some weight before we start shooting,'?" says Branagh. "And, bugger me, four months later this slim figure showed up. And that's the kind of discipline he showed on the set." Kaiser, who has an athletic physique, says he lost 55 pounds for the role, adding with a smile, "But opera people said, 'You got too skinny.' "
