Peter Furlong (Master of Music, Vocal
Performance) studied at Hartt from 1993 to 1995. He is currently living
in Berlin, Germany.
What
have you been up to since you graduated from Hartt?
Hoo, boy. That’s a long one (which means it’s been a
long time). Right after graduating from
Hartt, I was an apprentice at The Santa Fe Opera (for whose audition I
sacrificed a vocal jury at Hartt) for two summers. From there I was a Young Artist at Opera Colorado
for three seasons and was eventually asked back to sing as a MainStage artist
by none other than Maestro Julius Rudel. From Denver, I moved to NYC where I sang with
Dicapo Opera and I received my three NY Times reviews (all positive,
thankfully) during a ten-year period of being a guest artist there. I also sang with other companies around the
US (Opera Colorado, Fort Worth Opera). Then
I moved to Dortmund, Germany to sing a one-year fest contract. From there I called Italy home for almost ten
years while I sang in Italy, Scotland, NYC, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and
Berlin (where I reside, now). It’s not
all been fun and games, though. There
was a two year hiatus to deal with acid reflux which had been making singing
impossible and threatening to end my career, and a recent Fach change from
lyric tenor to Heldentenor took me out of the performance business for a year
to learn a lot of new repertoire.
What
are you involved with right now?
Right now, I am co-producing a concert
with my wife (soprano Julie Wyma) called Lovers’ Quarrels: Arias and Duets from the dysfunctional world of opera,
which we are performing in Niemegk, Germany (Berlin/Brandenburg)
on March 27th, and in Concord, NH on April 8th as part of the Walker Lecture Series (free admission).
After that, I am very excited to be
singing my first Max in Der Freischütz at Kloster Chorin (Chorin Cloister) near Berlin June
6, 7, and 13.
Then it’s back to the USA to another
co-production concert this time called Three
Tenors and a Soprano which will be July 23rd as part of the Summer Music Associates concerts in New London,
NH.
In addition to the above, I am also a
founding member of a group of opera singers here in Berlin called Voci
Inglesi. We are a group of classically trained, English speaking
singers who are bringing high-quality, English-language opera and art song to
European audiences. Our inaugural season begins this July, 2015.
What
is one of your most memorable things about your time at Hartt?
