Ready For The Met

One of international opera’s rising young stars, Quinn Kelsey returns home to star in HOT’s production of ‘Madama Butterfly’

Wednesday - February 28, 2007
By Alice Keesing
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Quinn Kelsey in the Chicago Lyric Opera production of
‘Rigoletto’

a shortcut on the way to lunch. The stage was dark and quiet. But he was there.

“It was definitely a moment of reverence,” he says.

Kelsey graduated from the training program last year and just finished his first contract with the company. He’s already started stepping into lead roles, and there’s no question he’s found his niche.

“Not to sound like a control freak, but I love the power we have over the audience,” Kelsey says. “I feel like people come to the opera and pay for their tickets because they really want to believe in something, they want to believe in the sorrow, they want to believe in the excitement, they want to believe in the tragedy or the spectacle. I like standing out in front of everybody else and having the audience in my hand. Time slows down, and all of a sudden it’s just me in a dark void with the spotlights on me.”

Kelsey talks about various operas like he’s talking story about people and events he knows. In Butterfly, he sings the part of Sharpless. It’s his first time in the role and when MidWeek met with him he was emotionally exploring the part.

Puccini’s opera is the heartbreaking tale of geisha CioCio-San (Madama Butterfly) who marries a young American Navy lieutenant called Pinkerton. Sadly, Pinkerton’s interest is but fleeting and Cio-Cio-San’s heart is broken. When Pinkerton returns with his new American wife to ask to take Cio-Cio-San’s son back to America, Butterfly agrees and then kills herself.

Kelsey imagines the emotional hair-pulling that his character must go through as he helplessly watches the tragedy play out before him.

“Yeah, this is definitely the show where you would fall apart,” he says, nodding slowly.

While the life of an opera singer is an itinerant one, Kelsey now calls Chicago his home base. There he stands out as something of a novelty and is known as the big Hawaiian baritone. He’s gotten used to the weather; he’s grown up a little bit. He found a plate lunch spot - and a girlfriend, Marjorie Owens, a soprano whom he met at the Lyric.

Kelsey still wears his aloha shirts, but a few flourishes give away his theatrical bent, like the urbane chin-strap facial do, the thick gold chain and jaunty black cap.

When Kelsey was growing up and in one of HOT’s youth programs, he participated in a workshop with a world-famous soprano, who warned them that the opera singer’s life can be a brutal one full of egos, politics and crushingly hard work.

So far Kelsey has been lucky. His life is hectic and it’s hard work, but his talent has carried him through to the point where he’s teetering on the big time. If there’s one sour note in the aria right now, it’s Kelsey’s statuesque size. While that gives him a commanding presence on stage, his agency has warned him that today’s directors are starting to look at the way singers look as well as sound.

Kelsey tells the story of the famous soprano who was bought out of her contract because she didn’t fit the director’s vision of a little black dress.

“This is what’s happening now,” he says. “So many companies want the singer to look the part as well, so it’s a big concern for me.”

And Kelsey makes no bones about the fact that he’s aiming for the sky. In the opera world, the sky is New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Already, Kelsey is knocking on that door.

“I’ve done a number of auditions and they’ve basically said, ‘Yes, we like what you’re doing, come sing for us.’”

While he’s in Hawaii this winter, Kelsey’s agency, the big-hitting Columbia Management Artists, is in negotiations for him with the Met. When considering the role he might be stepping into, Kelsey is understated. He does-n’t know. He just has to wait.

But you can probably get ready for more adjectives in the rising career of Quinn Kelsey.

Hawaii Opera Theatre presents “Madama Butterfly” by Giacomo Puccini on Friday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 4 p.m., and Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

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