Singing in the shower pretending to be a great concert artist is one of life’s little pleasures.
So what are we to make of a real opera singer with a major career who dreams instead of becoming a lawyer, readily setting aside the concert stage for the courtroom?
In the case of Kevin Burdette, who sings in Seattle Opera’s upcoming production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” you first have to concede that some people are doubly blessed with talent: great voice and brains. In his case, that meant being accepted into two of the nation’s most prestigious schools: The Juilliard School for music and Columbia University for law, and attending both.
He got the opera career first; still time to become a lawyer.
Burdette talked about his double life in a recent interview. He apologized for “not dressing up,” saying jeans and cowboy boots are his favored rehearsal clothes. The outfit suggests comfort rather than Perry Mason. He has boyish good looks and a lighthearted sense of fun, and when he speaks it’s with the deep resonance of the bass voice.
Burdette, who describes himself as “a little hyperactive,” exudes a kind of kinetic energy, drumming his fingertips on the table to emphasize a point. No stand-and-deliver kind of singer, Burdette said he loves the physicality of performance. “I sing better when I am physically free,” he says.
Reviewers take note of his on-stage agility and broad comic acting skills as well as his rich bass voice, all of which were amply on display at his Seattle Opera debut in October in Rossini’s “The Italian Girl in Algiers.”
Expect more of the same when he sings in “Don Giovanni.” A perennial on the list of all-time favorite operas, Mozart’s masterwork offers a double dose of sexual intrigue and sublime music, including show-stopping arias and ensemble singing and one of the most dramatic endings in all of opera.
Burdette gets his share of the musical goodies in the role of Masetto, the peasant boy who is engaged to Zerlina. Don Giovanni spends the opera trying to seduce Zerlina, which fuels Masetto’s jealousy and gives dramatic urgency to the story.
Burdette’s career path included study at Julliard and young artists programs in Paris and San Francisco. His musical odyssey included a year studying voice in Vienna. It was a transforming experience, he said.
“Music is the lifeblood of Vienna” Burdette said. The experience convinced him that opera could be a vocation rather an interest to be perused on the side. With stints as a young artist with the National Opera in Paris and the New York City Opera, a career was born.
In less than a decade, the 32-year old singer has built an impressive resume including performances at the Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco and Seattle, where he returns on Saturday for eight performances of “Don Giovanni.”
An opera career, it turns out, is not all glamour. There’s a lot of travel to opera houses around the country, which is physically taxing and sometimes lonely, making it hard to sustain relationships and friendships, he said. And every performance is like an audition in a way. You’d better sing well if you want to be invited back.
In a broader sense, Burdette said he’s troubled by the lack of broad financial support for the arts in the United States than one sees in Europe. In Vienna, for example, the arts receive government support and are part of the fabric of daily life. But here, “it’s hard for things to survive that you can’t put a dollar sign on,” he said.
And the law still beckoned. “I always knew I would go to law school,” he said. He proved adept at juggling a singing career with schoolwork, taking a semester to study, a semester off to sing.
He’ll graduate in June from Columbia and has lined up a job with a New York firm. And in a neat dovetailing with his singing career, his interests are criminal defense work (where theatrical skills can’t hurt) and intellectual property.
Criminal defense work appeals. In fact, one of the decisive moments in his career transition came when he worked on a legal brief that helped free a man from death row.
Look for him in the courtroom down the road but don’t count out the music. The opera stage may fade, but the recital hall still beckons.
“Don Giovanni”
A Seattle Opera production of Mozart’s opera Saturday through Jan. 27 at McCaw Hall, Seattle Center. Sung in Italian with English captions; approximate running time is three hours and 10 minutes with one intermission.
The story: “Don Giovanni,” among the greatest compositions in Western music, is based on the legend of the mythical womanizer Don Juan. Both comic and highly dramatic, Mozart’s don seduces and murders his way to a tragic end, dragged unrepentant into the depths of hell.
Cast: Seattle Opera has double cast most of the principal roles with an international cast of singers. This new production brings together one of the most successful and popular collaborations in Seattle Opera history, stage director Chris Alexander and designer Robert A. Dahlstrom. Andreas Mitisek conducts
Tickets: $43-$141, 206-389-7676, 800-426-1619, www.seattleopera.org.
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