Meet our Artists
A conversation with Lt. Pinkerton, Martin Nusspaumer
This week we sit down with a Martin Nusspaumer, a former FGO Young Artist, who has performed on the FGO mainstage several times before. Most recently he performed the roles of Ismaele in Nabucco and Nicias in Thaïs.
Martin will return to the FGO stage in the role of Lt. Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly on November 15 and 22, and December 4 and 6.
Hello Martin! Welcome back to the FGO mainstage! Why don't you tell us a little about your background?
I am from a small town, Juan Lacaze, located in the
westen part of Uruguay. I studied electrical engineering. I was really passionate
about it, until I found music, which took over my life completely. I started to
study voice when I was 23 years old, after I moved to Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital city, to continue my degree in Electronics.
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Honest. Passionate. Perfectionist.
You recently became a new dad – congratulations! We heard that your daughter’s name comes from an opera. Is that true?
Yes! Thank you! Her name is Amelia, which indeed comes from one of my wife’s and my favorite operas, Un ballo in maschera. At the same time it is a name that works for both Spanish and English. She is almost 3 months old, and we can already tell that, fortunately, she loves music. She likes listening while we practice at home and only cries when we stop singing!
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| Soprano Maria Antunez |
You’re married to soprano Maria Antunez. What are some of the challenges and benefits to raising a child with a fellow opera singer?
So far the main challenge has been to be far away from our families. They live in Uruguay, our home country. Fortunately we have good friends that we trust to help taking care of her while we are working at the same time. On the other hand, one of the benefits our careers allow us is to spend most of our time with our daughter, unlike if we had a regular job. Family is important to us and we try to arrange our schedules so that we all can be together.
You mentioned earlier that you moved to Montevideo to pursue a career in Electronics. What was your
inspiration to switch professions and pursue a career in
opera?
The first time I heard Pavarotti’s voice I was amazed by it. I wanted to understand how
a human being could sound with such power and beauty and make the most amazing
lines of music along with an orchestra. I think that was the first “click” in my mind and then I started to research about this type of music. I
went to see my first opera La Traviata, then I asked a voice teacher if
I had the talent to become a professional opera singer myself, and she said
that I had enough to start working on it. Later on I discovered that talent is
just a small part of this career.
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| Martin as Ismaele in FGO's Nabucco (2013-14) |
How valuable
to you was your experience in FGO's Young Artist program?
I am very grateful I had the opportunity to be a Young
Artist with FGO. I learned a lot about myself and gained tons of experience
working among great professionals: singers, voice teachers, stage directors,
conductors, etc.
Who do you
consider your top 2 role models in opera and why?
I am a big time listener—I like to research and learn from the great ones. I wouldn’t say I have two favorites; it always depends on the
repertoire I am about to explore. I already said about Pavarotti, how
fascinated I am by his singing. I could also add Nicola Martinucci, Jussi
Bjorling, Placido Domingo, and Jonas Kaufmann. All of them giving me different
tools.
How do you
feel about playing your lead position in Madama
Butterfly to open
FGO's season at the Arsht Center?
I am very excited about it! I have wanted to sing
this role for a while now, it feels very good in my voice. I love the music and I am happy to make my
debut in this company which I could call home. It also helps to have such a
great group of colleagues and a conductor whom I admire and from whom I get so
much encouragement and energy.
What would surprise any non-opera singers about performing in a full production?
I think one of the things that would surprise them would be the amount of people working behind scenes. There are so many things to be done apart from music and staging, like costumes, make up, sets, stage management, rehearsal schedules, etc. It is incredible the amount of time and energy to make this happen. Saying that, it is imperative to have more support from our community to help Florida Grand Opera to survive in these difficult times.
What are the
biggest challenges for you in this role?
To be honest it is hard for me to portray this type of
character—I get mad at him. Superficially,
Pinkerton could be seen as a real cad, but I don’t like to believe that people are evil just because. I like to go deeper
in the character and find a justification for such behavior.
I don’t want to
think that Pinkerton’s intentions are to hurt Butterfly,
he is simply being selfish and doing what other lonely officers might have done in
his time.
Vocally it is a very intense role where you cannot get
carried away by the emotions in order to be able to sing well. Puccini’s realistic drama is all over the music. Also
Pinkerton is absent during the second act and it is key that I don’t let the energy down for what is coming on the third one.
What do you hope audience members take away from seeing Madama Butterfly?
For opera lovers, Madama Butterfly reminds them why they first fell in love with opera. For new audiences, this title certainly has what it takes to seduce them to come back for more!
Okay, now just for fun: If you won $20 million in the lottery, what would you do with
the money?
Wow, what a fun image to have in mind! I would definitely use half
of it to invest in different businesses. The other half I would use to travel
all over the world, buy a nice boat, the last Tesla car model, and some other
toys. But what I would do for sure is to become one of the principal donors at
Florida Grand Opera!
To see Martin Nusspaumer perform the role of Lt. Pinkerton and purchase tickets to Madama Butterfly, simply call our Box Office at 800-741-1010, Monday–Friday, 10am–4pm. You may also order securely online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at www.FGO.org.
| CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR TICKETS |
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