John Tomlinson

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety eight and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is a singer. He was well on the way to becoming an engineer when he decided to take singing lessons. So, instead of building tunnels, he went to Gleinborn and began building a career on the English opera scene. He sang more than fifty different roles at the ENO before being coaxed into the part which has made him internationally famous, Votan, ruler of the gods, in Wagner's Ring Cycle. He sung it at Bayreuth, Berlin, and Covent Garden, where his pure bass voice has thrilled audiences for ten years now, and the composer's grandson has gone on record as saying that Wagner might have written it with him in mind. My Castaway is more cautious. You go on stage and sing, he says. If you worry about what might happen in three hours' time, you'd go slightly mad. He is John Tomlinson.

Presenter1:17

It is, John, though, a tour de force, isn't it, singing the ringless cycle? How have you ever worked out how many hours you're on stage during the course of it?

John Tomlinson1:25

It varies from production to production, but uh possibly about six hours, I think. Two hours in Rheingold, two hours in Valkure, two hours in Siegfried, approximately.

Presenter1:35

But in comparison with any other role in opera, it's huge. I mean, you're on stage, aren't you, for longer periods?

John Tomlinson1:40

Yes, the normal uh entrance in a Wagner opera is is about an hour, whereas let's say in a Mozart opera you may expect to be on stage for

John Tomlinson1:49

Twenty minutes, half an hour, yes.

Presenter1:50

Top rack.

Presenter1:52

But of course the intervals are much greater in Bayreuth, aren't they?

John Tomlinson1:56

In Bayreuth the intervals are a full hour.

John Tomlinson1:59

And uh personally I I like that because it's time really to to relax and come down.

John Tomlinson2:04

Before

John Tomlinson2:05

getting the adrenaline going again for the next uh for the next act.

Presenter2:08

And you must need it, because the the music not just the music, but the drama of it is so intense, isn't it?

John Tomlinson2:14

Yes, it is. It it's it's a physi very ph physically demanding thing. I I think uh if a member of the public could

John Tomlinson2:23

by a bit of magic put themselves into the shoes of a Voltan or a Brunhilde in the middle of Act Three, they would be amazed at the sweat and the tiredness and the the the the heat and the the intensive lights and the

John Tomlinson2:38

physical strain of being, you know, of perhaps being on your knees for twenty five minutes in a big narration or or or whatever it might be.

Presenter2:46

And often wearing a great black leather coat.

John Tomlinson2:48

U usually as king of the gods you have some pretty pretty heavy gear to carry about, yes.

Presenter2:53

So when you arrive at the end of that first day, as it were, at the end of um the Valkyrie, you've got to sing a beautiful seven minute aria. You must think um as as I said when when at the beginning, you know, you'd go slightly mad if you worried about it, but when you get there you must think, Am I going to be able to do this thing?

John Tomlinson3:11

Well, n it not really, because uh it's too late to worry about things like that.

John Tomlinson3:16

If by any chance your voice isn't there, it's just hard luck. But I I

John Tomlinson3:20

I must say, touching wood, that that has never happened to me.

Presenter3:23

But the first time you ever played him you must have worried whether it would be there.

John Tomlinson3:26

Very much so. I I remember Bayreuth in nineteen eighty eight was very much a sort of turning point, I think, in my career, but also a very frightening experience. Yeah.

Presenter3:37

Not least because, of course, Votan is is a bass baritone and you are a bass.

John Tomlinson3:44

That's correct.

Presenter3:44

about which I want to ask you. But let's pause and have your first record. Tell me about it.

John Tomlinson3:49

Well, it it's uh from De Valkure. It follows on from what we've just been saying, and it it's uh part of Wotan's farewell to his daughter Brunhilde.

John Tomlinson4:01

Uh I know I know of a f a famous uh castaway once chose eight of her own records, and I I'm not going to do that, but

John Tomlinson4:08

One or two I will be bold enough to choose of my own recordings.

Speaker 44:56

Fighting.

Speaker 45:01

Yeah.

Speaker 45:04

Yes, but

Presenter5:09

My castaway John Tomlinson as Votan from Wagner's The Valkyrie with the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barrenboim.

Presenter5:17

So it was a great risk to agree to play him. Technically, as I say, you are a bass and he is a bass baritone. How much difference is that? It's only a notch, isn't it?

John Tomlinson5:29

Yes, it's it's quite difficult to explain, I suppose. You you are talking about notches, you're talking about very small differences in the range involved.

John Tomlinson5:38

For instance, the the the range of Voltan goes from uh bottom F to uh to top F sharp, basically a good two octaves.

John Tomlinson5:46

That's not that much different from, say, Zarastro in in in The Magic Flute, which is one of the deepest rolls in the repertoire, which also has roughly the same range.

John Tomlinson5:57

But some of the other

Presenter5:57

So why the division then?

John Tomlinson5:58

While some roles concentrate more on a particular part of the voice, the zarrastro you have to have very strong, low bottom f's.

John Tomlinson6:06

a baritone could get away with singing the Vortan because his top was so good, but his voice would fade away towards the middle. I suppose a good perhaps a good comparison is

John Tomlinson6:18

you know, at the highest level, let's say in the Olympic Games, you know, a four hundred meter runner

John Tomlinson6:25

Could be world class.

John Tomlinson6:28

For the with the hundred meters he would he would probably o be always second rate.

John Tomlinson6:34

We're talking about that sort of

Presenter6:36

Where's the analogy? When are you second rate?

John Tomlinson6:36

Yeah.

John Tomlinson6:38

And

John Tomlinson6:40

Well, you know, I sing the Gournamants in Parzifan, I sing the Vortans in the ring, and I sing.

John Tomlinson6:46

Hans Sachs in the Meister singer.

John Tomlinson6:49

But, for instance, the f the the flying Dutchman also

John Tomlinson6:53

By Wagner

John Tomlinson6:55

I think would be uh for my voice not right. And we're talking of infinitesimal differences in range here and differences in vocal colour. But it's just that bit too barytonal for my bass voice.

Presenter7:09

But is it easier for you as a bass to go up to sing the bass baritone than it would be for a a baritone? A baritone couldn't reach right down where you can go to, could he?

John Tomlinson7:17

No, he couldn't. And I think that the thing about Wagner is uh well, first of all, you have to have the right quality of voice for Wagner, which really you have to have a centre, a core to the voice. The the second thing is the scale of Wagner. There's a lot there is a lot of noise, the orchestra is big, and so a bass voice like mine singing higher in his voice uh

John Tomlinson7:40

never has a a problem with volume.

John Tomlinson7:44

The the danger for a base, of course, is

Presenter7:47

Just to give it too much wealth.

John Tomlinson7:47

Give it to

John Tomlinson7:48

You stick a bit too much well, but also that the high notes could prove too much.

Presenter7:52

You you'd always played the the classic Wagner basses, hadn't you? Hunding and Hagen and so on.

John Tomlinson7:57

I'm doing hog.

Presenter7:59

Who suddenly suggested to you that you should do Voton?

John Tomlinson8:03

Well, I think it was it was a combination of uh

John Tomlinson8:07

Mainly Daniel Baremboim, I think, wanted a new Voltan, he wanted a bass Voltan.

Presenter8:12

But how did you feel in that moment when the call came? Because I mean it it it is a career breaker, isn't it? It is, well I don't know. You don't know whether you can do it until you do it, and if you don't do it well.

John Tomlinson8:17

It is well I don't know.

Presenter8:20

You're done for it.

John Tomlinson8:21

Yes. I talked to Daniel on the telephone the first time and my first reaction was you should phone James Morris, who's a a very good American

John Tomlinson8:34

bass who sings Voltan, who I'd heard when I'd been doing the bass parts in America. But Daniel persisted, he wanted to

John Tomlinson8:40

hear me uh do it and so I I I learned Act Three of Valkure for him and and we had a session together and uh it went on from there.

Presenter8:48

How long did it take you to learn in Toto?

John Tomlinson8:51

Well, with these big roles, it's better to learn them

John Tomlinson8:54

Slowly and patiently, uh you start off with a text.

John Tomlinson8:59

Then you move on to the the music and you the harmonic structure and so on. Uh the slower the better, really. And in the case of Woltan, I suppose, uh, probably a couple of years.

Presenter9:09

Really that long?

John Tomlinson9:10

I remember beginning in the spring of eighty six and my first performances were in the summer of'88.

Presenter9:16

And how many times have you played him now?

John Tomlinson9:18

Well, in in Bayreuth alone, I think uh

John Tomlinson9:22

You know, I I've broken the records there. I've done nine years as Vortan, which I think is getting on for thirty rings, I think, or twenty odd complete ring cycles over the nine years.

Presenter9:31

Yeah.

Presenter9:33

And you're not fed up with him yet?

John Tomlinson9:34

Not remotely. No, there's uh

John Tomlinson9:36

There's no question of that.

Presenter9:38

Tell me about your second record.

John Tomlinson9:41

Um it's really going back to Oswald Twistle days.

John Tomlinson9:45

We were a very much a music loving family.

John Tomlinson9:48

There was a piano there in the sitting room, and everybody played and everybody sang.

John Tomlinson9:53

But w we were not particularly into listening to records until perhaps I was seven or eight and and we actually got a record player and I think one of my older brothers bought this record of the two Oustrachs, David and Igor, father and son, playing the Bach double violin concerto. And so this this takes me back

John Tomlinson10:13

To the fifties.

Presenter11:10

David and Igor Oustrach playing part of Bach's double violin concerto in D minor with the Leipzig Gevandhaus Orchestra and the Berlin State conducted by Frantz Konvichny.

Presenter11:20

What sort of thing did you sing around the piano, then, with your aunties and uncles, and your mum and dad in Oswald Twistle?

John Tomlinson11:26

Oh well we should say. Yes, it certainly was. I suppose lots of Handel in particular, the great oratorios, you know, Judas Maccabeus, Israel in Egypt, and of course Messiah.

Presenter11:26

Lancashire cotton tom, I should say.

John Tomlinson11:38

you know, relatives would come round and perhaps a couple will play piano duets, my brother and my auntie, for instance. Uh

John Tomlinson11:47

My uncle was the conductor of the Accrington Mill Voice Choir, and he was an organist as well.

Presenter11:52

So it was a house full of music. I mean the the desire to sing was strong is the point, isn't it?

John Tomlinson11:57

Yes, it was a very almost sort of physical thing, a very practical thing. You know, we didn't have I I don't think we were pretentious to achieve great things. There were no pretensions of

John Tomlinson12:07

of grandeur there. It was a physical thing. You just wanted to open your lungs and and sing. And that's what we did every Sunday in the chapel, you know. I remember being in the choir there. Uh one would literally it was a it was a physical experience.

Presenter12:22

Do you remember the moment when your voice broke?

John Tomlinson12:26

Well, it didn't bro it didn't break suddenly. I remember w when I was younger uh I was a boy soprano, but I also had a tenor voice. You know, boys have these two voices really. They they have a falsetto voice which developed becomes what we know as the the the treble, you know, the cathedral sound. And there's the chest voice, which you tend to hear more on the continent actually. The boy who sounds

John Tomlinson12:50

Really like a little tenor.

John Tomlinson12:52

And so I I had these two voices.

John Tomlinson12:55

And then slowly

John Tomlinson12:57

I think, you know, my voice changed, and I ended up when I was fifteen or sixteen with this.

John Tomlinson13:02

dark, sort of huge

John Tomlinson13:04

bass voice, which I really didn't know what to do with, which almost

John Tomlinson13:09

It was it was half embarrassment, but half a source of great pride, you know, because uh it was it was I suppose in a woman my identity.

Presenter13:16

And did you have any idea of making a living out of it then, De you know, I mean, you knew you liked it, you sang with gusto, as you say, but did you think, One day I'm going to do something with this? Or was that

John Tomlinson13:22

We did

John Tomlinson13:26

I think that came later. I think I didn't have thoughts like that until I was uh on my engineering degree course at Manchester when I was eighteen, nineteen, twenty those those years.

John Tomlinson13:38

Perhaps there was something of

John Tomlinson13:40

You know, perhaps I was a little bit afraid of uh anonymity.

John Tomlinson13:45

and of being a number in the future. Do you know what I mean? I think

Presenter13:48

What if being a nine to five worker?

John Tomlinson13:48

What up being a knight?

John Tomlinson13:50

Yes, I think there was some you know, the voice was something, as I said a minute ago, identified me.

John Tomlinson13:56

And um

John Tomlinson13:58

I I

John Tomlinson14:00

decided to to

John Tomlinson14:02

Pursue it.

Presenter14:04

Tell me about your next record.

John Tomlinson14:06

Well, this is going back.

John Tomlinson14:08

Again to Oswald Twistle days, it's a chorus from the Messiah by

John Tomlinson14:12

Handle

John Tomlinson14:14

The composers I've chosen I felt I couldn't live without.

John Tomlinson14:18

And I suppose this is my favourite chorus from the Messiah. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Speaker 414:30

Much is going on

Speaker 414:41

His father, his father, is further his father, his father is fine.

Presenter15:25

Part of the chorus His Yoke is easy, His Burden is Light, from the first part of Handel's Messiah with the English Concert and Choir conducted by Trevor Pinnock.

Presenter15:33

So you might have been an engineer, John Tomlinson. You sacrificed a job designing a tunnel, or a possibility of a job, designing a tunnel under the Mersey to sing. Your mum and dad must have thought you were mad.

John Tomlinson15:44

Yes, I think they did.

John Tomlinson15:45

If you think the previous generations of the family, probably since the Industrial Revolution, had been living probably in poverty, and I think the last couple of generations had dragged themselves up a bit. My father had got himself qualified and was an engineer.

John Tomlinson16:00

I had a d a decent job.

John Tomlinson16:02

Security meant a lot to them, qualifications meant a lot to them.

Presenter16:06

And you'd been a good boy until that point, hadn't you? I mean, you'd worked hard as well. You got to Manchester University. You were reading maths. You were going to be an engineer.

John Tomlinson16:11

We're gonna

John Tomlinson16:12

I've been quite a good boy, a bit noisy, but I've been quite good.

Presenter16:16

So what what suddenly happened to make you change course?

John Tomlinson16:20

It was really a a sort of obsession with the singing in my teenage years, and also I was very aware that.

John Tomlinson16:27

My voice was was was faulty there were great gaps in the rain.

John Tomlinson16:32

I use the word obsession. I think it was almost an obsession to to get it right and to improve it so that I could really enjoy singing, because I was so aware of the failings. There was hardly an operatic area I could sing, because they were all too high for me.

Presenter16:47

But, you know, how did you go about it? How does a math student at Manchester University suddenly decide to sing? What did you do?

John Tomlinson16:53

Well, I I it's quite simple. I I put a note on the notice board at the Royal College of Music saying singing lessons required.

John Tomlinson17:02

And a man called Patrick McGwigan, who is still there in Manchester, he's the head of vocal studies there at the Manchester College, phoned up and replied to my inquiry and I began singing lessons with him. And I was with Patrick for about four years because after my degree in engineering I then went on to a course at the College of Music to study singing.

John Tomlinson17:25

and um he taught me technically a vast amount about about the voice.

Presenter17:30

And your parents supported you through this, did they?

John Tomlinson17:33

Yes, they did. I think they supported me, but I think they were quite anxious, and I think they thought it was a mistake.

John Tomlinson17:39

And I think they thought it was a case of great um

John Tomlinson17:43

uh vanity on my part.

Presenter17:46

Do you think it was?

John Tomlinson17:49

There's some vanity in there, I suppose, yes.

Presenter17:52

Next piece of music.

John Tomlinson17:55

Well

John Tomlinson17:57

It's one of my favourite ensembles from Mozart's music, the sextette from The Marriage of Figaro.

John Tomlinson18:05

From Act Three

John Tomlinson18:07

It's always a wonderful piece to sing uh on the stage because for two and a half acts

John Tomlinson18:13

Figaro and Susannah have been struggling against all the odds to uh to get married.

John Tomlinson18:19

Uh and then all of a sudden

John Tomlinson18:22

Bartolo and Marcellina discover there the father and mother of Figaro, and

John Tomlinson18:26

To cut a long story short, all the problems are solved and the the

John Tomlinson18:31

This is a wonderful sextet of total contentment.

Speaker 418:38

He's hoping you're not there.

Speaker 418:40

A God in love and faithful in our love of singing.

Speaker 419:13

Babista Babesta.

John Tomlinson19:17

Roll of my first

Speaker 419:19

Yeah.

Speaker 419:21

He caught up.

Speaker 419:24

Slightly.

Speaker 419:26

Sunday.

Speaker 419:27

Safety was not

Presenter19:35

Part of the sextet from Act Three of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, with my castaway John Tomlinson singing Figaro, with Gunther von Kahnen, Andrea Schmidt, Richard Brunner, Phyllis Panchella, and Joan Rogers, and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Presenter19:50

Do you John, like a lot of professional singers, think of your voice as as the voice, you know, something separate from yourself, as it were, which you you look after and nurture and train, but at the end of the day you kind of hang it up on its professional peg and until you want it next?

John Tomlinson20:07

Um I d well, I think of the voice really as as an instrument. It's part of me, of course. But you have to have respect for it, you have to train it, you have to

John Tomlinson20:17

exercise it, you have to take care of it. Not to an not to a

John Tomlinson20:22

Neurotic

John Tomlinson20:24

Degree

John Tomlinson20:25

Uh but y y you you neglect it at your peril, because if you neglect it it it won't serve you adequately.

Presenter20:33

You've got to get it back up to speed again if you use it.

John Tomlinson20:34

Yeah.

Presenter20:35

So how much do you practise every day?

John Tomlinson20:38

Well, it varies. Uh if if I'm singing a l a long Wagner part, that you really have to train up to those performances and in the days preceding that I sing a lot. I mean the th the day before I'm easy to sing a performance I will sing at home the whole part. I will sing it properly, not a hundred percent, but I'll really sing it so that the following day

John Tomlinson21:01

The muscles will be really sort of toned up. But of course, at other times of the year, one has a holiday, you have to rest.

Speaker 421:07

Hmm.

John Tomlinson21:08

And um

John Tomlinson21:09

Perhaps in a month's holiday, in the middle of that month, you have a couple of weeks without singing at all.

Presenter21:14

But as you say, you are like an athlete. You are constantly in training. You're often learning one opera while you're performing another. I mean, as you say, it took you two years or more to learn Votan, so obviously that was going on all of the time.

John Tomlinson21:20

Yes, I need to.

John Tomlinson21:23

Photons are obviously.

Presenter21:26

Um

Presenter21:27

You know, it it's a lot to do. Wasn't there a time when you actually learned the wrong opera and arrived somewhere to the other side?

John Tomlinson21:33

How did you find out about that? Yes, I went to Lisbon once to sing Farraone in a performance of Mo of Moses by Rossini.

John Tomlinson21:43

all prepared with the the part. This was about nineteen eighty two.

John Tomlinson21:47

Only to find, along with a tenor, a man called Rockwell Blake from America, had the had the same problem that I did, that we had basically learnt the wrong opera, because Rossini had written two operas, both called Mosé. Well, actually one was called Mosé, the other one Mose in Egito, Moses in Egypt. They were doing Moses in Egypt, and we had learnt Moses.

Presenter22:09

What did you do? I mean, how long was there to go before the purpose of the

John Tomlinson22:10

I don't know.

John Tomlinson22:12

There was a week, a very short rehearsal period, as is often the case in in some of these places, and uh I remember waking up the morning after I'd I'd realized the situation and thought, Oh, thank God that's that nightmare again

John Tomlinson22:24

Thank God that wasn't true. Oh, my God, it is true

Presenter22:27

Black code number five.

John Tomlinson22:31

Well, this is

John Tomlinson22:32

This is the beginning of Act Two of Wagner's Guttedemmerung, and I choose this because uh it's going back again in time to nineteen sixty eight when I was at college in Manchester. I didn't have a grant in that first year.

John Tomlinson22:45

And so I went to the Scottish Opera Chorus they had been round auditioning and I got in.

John Tomlinson22:51

and I went up there to earn some money.

John Tomlinson22:54

and it was my first encounter with Wagner's music.

John Tomlinson22:59

And I was absolutely stunned. I found this music

John Tomlinson23:02

Absolutely magnificent.

Presenter23:59

The beginning of the prelude to Act Two of Wagner's Goethe Demmerung with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bernard Heiting.

Presenter24:06

What kind of audiences do you like, John? Um do you prefer the kind of committed ones who will travel to to Bayreuth for three days, or will you sing to anybody who'll listen?

John Tomlinson24:16

Well, I suppose I'll sing to anybody who'll listen. But audiences do vary. Uh you're quite right. The Bayreuth audience it's a festival audience. People go there usually for a week or for several days.

John Tomlinson24:27

They're thinking only of the music. They're there because of of of Wagner, because of the work, which is wonderful, and you notice that. There's a rapt attention usually during the performance.

Presenter24:39

But what about when you were in at at the Royal Opera House in ninety three, in that very controversial um Wagner production where there were kind of Ford Cortinas and

John Tomlinson24:47

I mean you

Presenter24:49

I mean, the audience was not happy, was it?

John Tomlinson24:53

No, I suppose you can't please all the people all the time. I suppose in the opera world we have there's almost two types of well, at a minimum there's two types of audience.

John Tomlinson25:04

There there's the audience who like

John Tomlinson25:07

real music drama. They're almost really a theatrical audience.

John Tomlinson25:12

You know, the English National Opera at its best caters for that audience.

John Tomlinson25:18

The people who appreciate theatre and music theatre and music drama. And then there's another type of audience which.

John Tomlinson25:26

goes to the goes to the opera house more to enjoy a warm bath of music, and not particularly to get involved.

John Tomlinson25:34

You might call them the Canary Fanciers.

John Tomlinson25:37

You just

Presenter25:37

You disapprove of them, do you?

John Tomlinson25:40

Well, the word canary fancing is not a particularly, you know, it's a pejorative term.

Presenter25:43

A pejorative term.

Presenter25:49

But they want to hear the familiar stuff done in the traditional way, is what you mean, yeah?

John Tomlinson25:54

Yes, possibly. And and it's the singing and the music which is dominant.

Presenter25:58

Oh.

John Tomlinson25:58

In their mind.

Presenter25:59

And but you think it's better if audiences are more tested, do you?

John Tomlinson26:04

I think per personally

John Tomlinson26:07

I wouldn't complain about any uh anybody who comes to the opera house for for any reason really, but I think for o for my own view as a as an artist

John Tomlinson26:16

Is I suppose I feel like I'm a singing actor, basically. I was going to say.

Presenter26:20

I was going to say, I mean, isn't it the truth that there are two types of opera singer as well? Uh one who is, as you say, the actor which you choose to be, others who just go on stage and sing very beautifully?

John Tomlinson26:31

Yes, I I wouldn't use the word just because I think going on stage to sing very beautifully is not is is not easy.

Presenter26:38

I take your point, but go on stage, sing beautifully, but aren't necessarily thinking about acting. In fact, some of them can't act, frankly, can they?

John Tomlinson26:47

It's very hard to have everything uh as an opera singer. I if i if if you're a great actor and a great singer and a great musician.

John Tomlinson26:55

If you have the nerve for the job.

John Tomlinson26:57

If you have the memory, if you have all those the reliability, if you have the health, if you have all those things, you're a very lucky person.

Presenter27:05

Record number six.

John Tomlinson27:09

Another composer that I

John Tomlinson27:11

I don't think I could live easily without is Giuseppe Verdi.

John Tomlinson27:15

And this is uh an excerpt from Rigoletto, Act One, Scene Two, and an excerpt I've always loved the father-daughter duet between Rigoletto and Gilda.

John Tomlinson27:41

Oh, it's me.

Speaker 427:46

Where is the spirit of Remagitan for him?

John Tomlinson27:52

Yeah.

Speaker 427:54

Where's my mom and a failure? We wanna see you.

Speaker 428:15

I can't for record

Presenter28:19

Robert Merrill and Anna Moffo as Rigoletto and Gilda singing part of their duet from Act One of Verdi's Opera with the RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter28:30

You've done it all and gone on doing it all, John Tomlinson, from performing in the big international opera houses to Opera North here in Leeds and ENO in London. What are the main differences between those two ends of the operatic performing spectrum?

John Tomlinson28:46

Well, I think there are huge differences really. Uh I suppose it

John Tomlinson28:50

In reference to our previous discussion about uh music drama versus pure singing.

John Tomlinson28:57

in a in a way that encapsulates the difference. You know, let's say at the Coliseum,

John Tomlinson29:01

At its best one is talking about music drama, you know, in English, hopefully so people can understand, immediately. So it's it's really like an extension of straight theatre with the added dimension of music.

Presenter29:11

With

John Tomlinson29:13

which is such a powerful expression of the emotions involved.

Presenter29:16

But would you also get more rehearsal with something like that, with the with the you know?

John Tomlinson29:21

It it varies

John Tomlinson29:23

Enormously. One sometimes I go to to Vienna to do a performance and I may have half an hour's rehearsal.

Presenter29:31

Or sing a duet with somebody you haven't met before.

John Tomlinson29:33

That that happens quite a lot.

Presenter29:35

Does it?

John Tomlinson29:36

It would never

Presenter29:36

It would never, ever happen, would it, in in Leeds or at the Coliseum?

John Tomlinson29:40

No, it wouldn't. I mean there one might one could even have uh problems at the other end of the spectrum uh in in having rehearsal periods which were too long.

Presenter29:48

But conversely, there there's a a total difference presumably in the fees that you receive.

John Tomlinson29:53

Yes, I I receive a lot less. Let's say the difference between Opera North and Vienna may may be one is a third perha perhaps of the other, or a quarter or something, yes.

Presenter30:02

Recool.

Presenter30:04

Hmm.

Presenter30:05

And but have you got to the point now where the money doesn't matter, you just go and sing where you want to sing?

John Tomlinson30:12

I've I've tried to work on that basis for

John Tomlinson30:15

perhaps the last ten years, uh to do

John Tomlinson30:18

Really?

John Tomlinson30:19

work that I believe in.

John Tomlinson30:23

and which I enjoy doing.

Presenter30:25

Next record.

John Tomlinson30:27

Well, this is uh this will come as a surprise to many people. It's uh it's a pop song. It's from the police. It's one of our last tracks.

John Tomlinson30:37

The synchronicity two.

John Tomlinson30:40

And I suppose for

John Tomlinson30:42

For us in the post war generation,

John Tomlinson30:45

You know, pop music has been our sort of folk music.

Speaker 430:51

Under Supervisor Family Morning!

Speaker 430:57

The mother screaming

Speaker 431:03

Love this high up

Speaker 431:06

Uh

Presenter31:15

The police and synchronicity too. That'll shock your fans choosing that.

John Tomlinson31:19

I suppose you start off choosing eight records, you know, and you think I'll have eight sublime moments from from the whole world of music.

John Tomlinson31:27

Uh but

John Tomlinson31:29

Quickly you realize that

John Tomlinson31:31

You know, eight sublime moments on your desert island will probably drive you completely bonkers.

Presenter31:35

You need some light and shade.

John Tomlinson31:37

You need light and shade, you need contrast, you need and this is that song's an aggressive song, isn't it? It's full of frustration and sort of anger.

John Tomlinson31:45

Yeah.

Presenter31:46

It'll get you up in the morning.

John Tomlinson31:47

It certainly would. It'd get me sort of uh running along the sand and uh sawing logs for for my log well, except you won't give me a saw, will you, I don't think.

Presenter31:54

Yeah.

Speaker 431:54

No.

John Tomlinson31:55

Uh

John Tomlinson31:56

Also it it

John Tomlinson31:58

It shows what I've come away from, if you imagine me there on this desert island.

John Tomlinson32:03

Uh what we've just heard is about

John Tomlinson32:06

Modern Europe, isn't it?

John Tomlinson32:08

with a modern industrial society. So

Presenter32:11

Everything you've left behind.

John Tomlinson32:12

Yes, perhaps part of me will be glad, you know.

Presenter32:15

Will you be glad to go there to this island?

John Tomlinson32:17

No, I would I I would

John Tomlinson32:19

I'll be terrified.

Presenter32:20

Would you?

John Tomlinson32:21

Of of the loneliness, I think.

Presenter32:23

But you sing to keep your Becker up, and you?

John Tomlinson32:25

I suppose I would sing every day, probably yes, to keep my feet on the ground.

Presenter32:29

Last record.

John Tomlinson32:31

Well, this is a sublime moment. Uh

John Tomlinson32:36

It's from Act Three of the Maistersinger.

John Tomlinson32:39

This is a little bit uh similar I suppo I suppose to the sec step from Figueroa.

John Tomlinson32:44

Um

John Tomlinson32:45

There's been a lot of strife and a lot of struggle.

John Tomlinson32:48

against all the odds for the first again, for the first two and a half acts of the piece.

John Tomlinson32:55

And then everything is solved?

John Tomlinson32:57

And then comes this this quintet which is has a a profound joy.

Presenter34:04

Part of the quintet from Act three of Wagner's De Meistersinger, with character Matthew as Eva, Jose van Damme as Zach, Ben Heppner as Walter, Herbert Lippert as David, and Iris Vermilion as Magdalena, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte. A truly sublime moment to end on, really.

John Tomlinson34:21

Quite a contrast with what came before.

Presenter34:23

With synchronicity, too, yeah. If you could only take one of the eight, though, which would it be?

John Tomlinson34:30

I think I might take the Bach, the double violin concerto.

Presenter34:32

Thank you.

Presenter34:34

What about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

John Tomlinson34:36

What I would like is a a book of the flora and fauna of a tropical desert island.

John Tomlinson34:44

so that I could spend all my time deeply involved in what was around me on the island.

Presenter34:51

And what about your luxury?

John Tomlinson34:54

I thought first of a microscope or a telescope, but then I thought perhaps a box of lenses which has happened to end up on the beach, you know, from the shipwreck.

John Tomlinson35:03

And with this box of lenses, I could concoct my own microscope and my own telescope, and I could.

John Tomlinson35:09

gaze endlessly at the skies or or

John Tomlinson35:13

Observe leaves and insects.

Presenter35:17

John Tomlinson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 235:28

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co dot uk slash radio four.