(Photo: c. StefanPop.com)

Romanian tenor Ștefan Pop is considered among today’s leading lyric tenors and he is best known for bel canto repertoire. He is the recipient of several awards including, in 2010, Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition and the Seoul International Music Competition.

Born in Bistrita, and having a strong musical background after studying the violin for twelve years, he graduated from the “Gheorghe Dima” Music Academy (the canto department) in Cluj Napoca.

Seldom giving interviews, he gives his first EVER interview in English to OperaWire at the Royal Ballet and Opera where he is rehearsing for “Faust.”

OperaWire:
Buna Ziua, Ștefan. Thank you for speaking with OperaWire. I know you do very few interviews and I believe we’re privileged to be the first to interview you in the English language!?

Ștefan Pop:
Actually, yes, I know; I spoke yesterday about my upcoming “Faust” performance, but you’re the first one who really makes an interview about me and about my career.

OW:
Welcome back to the Royal Ballet and Opera, you made your debut here in 2012, I believe?

SP:
Yes, in 2012 I was here with “L’elisir d’amore.” I’ve sung quite a lot of Donizetti. In fact, “L’elisir d’amore” was my professional debut in 2009. The first 10 years of my career were mostly in the bel canto repertoire. And now, Verdi and Puccini have become my staple.

I am super lucky that I really did all my repertoire debuting in Italy. Especially in Parma I did, like six debuts. And I studied there with the pianist where, you know, it’s the home of Verdi, which is really, really important. I was super lucky to meet the right person who really kills me; I mean we stay on one page more than two hours and he’s not happy! The pianist is called Simone Savina whom I will thank forever because he really helped me to understand how to read every word. As I say, it’s so important for us artists to go to Italy. To learn the culture, to learn how the people walk on the street. Because my repertoire is Italian. All I have sung is in Italian until now.

OW:
I know you played violin as a child, tell me about your upbringing in Romania.

SP:
Well, my background is that I did a school of music for 12 years with the violin. My family has zero connections with anything musical. My father is a farmer, and he still has 200 sheep today. When I was young I worked a lot like a farmer.
When I won the Operalia at the Teatro alla Scala I was only 23 but my main thought was to win it so I could buy a truck for my father you know?, so he didn’t have to work so much, because he was really working, I mean, hard. I was working hard there too.

But nature is everything for me. And I want to send a message to the people. I think I have a duty from God, especially now that I’m a father myself and I have two small girls: four years and one year and a half. They have changed my life.
When Stefania, Stefania Amelia…Amelia from “Ballo in Maschera.” It’s how I named her, and Anna Maria, when they were born I didn’t have fear or emotion anymore to go on stage. It just became to be a pleasure, you know, because my opera career until then, I always wanted to be number one. Then everything changed and now when I’m singing everything is completely different. It’s a joy. I sacrifice my time to not stay home with my girls, so I really want to do music and of course now with all my experience…because 15 years is not one or two years…so here especially in THIS house, I feel home. Because I don’t know, it’s partly because of the audience. It’s partly because…of the people, how they work in the opera house.

They’re amazing. And of course, it’s also because since 2020, after COVID, I sang every year and now really I feel home and I can’t wait to come back here, it’s truly joyful.

But I must say that all this is thanks to Peter Mario Katona. And I want you to write this, because he brought me here. He saw me in “Rigoletto” in 2019 at Teatro Regio di Torino. He said: “wow, Stefano, your voice changed completely.”

Because from 2015, actually, I sang mostly in Italy. So, let’s say that the beginning was, you know, this NEW coming, winning Operalia then singing all over the world, but then you are young and of course you get some problems. I sang a bit open or something like that. But my luck was that I had one contract of “La Traviata” in Teatro San Carlo with Maestro Nello Santi whom I will remember forever because he changed my life.

He taught me to sing in the old school way when he was conducting. I remember he was always making this hand gesture to turn the voice down when he was conducting. So, I did with him “Traviata” and he came one day before the show to my dressing room. He asked me to sing a passage by Polione from “Norma.” Then he says:
“OK. Let’s do ‘Norma’ together.”
I protested that I was too young you know, and he says:
“No, no, don’t worry. Let’s do Norma together.”

So, I did “Norma” with him and Mariella Devia who was known, in Italy, as the Regina del Belcanto until, I think 2018 or 19…I’m not sure…we did her last “Norma” ‘Addio Alle Scene,’ because before that “Norma,” actually, I did the whole four years with Mariella, all productions of “Norma” in Italy, I was the tenor. They called me ‘Tenore di Mariella,’ you know? (Laughs) So, that, thanks to all this experience, you know, that changed my life and the way how I’m singing today is a result of all this.
Because, as Bonaldo Giaiotti, for example, my teacher in Italy said…(he’s also passed away now)…I was really lucky. He told me, after I had been studying with him for five years: “Stefan, from now on you are your own maestro.” One summer, for the entire summer, I did only vocalizing lessons. That’s it, nothing more. That was the old school. But he also told me, for us, for young singers, what is killing us, actually, is the airplane, which is true. He says, you never have time to rest. You fly from here to there, you sing on that opera, and then on to another repertoire, which is true. He told me that when they travelled together, Pavarotti…who is my idol…who sang a lot with Bonaldo Giaiotti,…when they travelled to America, for example, they would stay one month on the ship with the pianist, all of them together, then at the hotel, all of them together speaking, learning from each other, which nowadays, doesn’t happen.

But I try to stay out of all negative things because the life all of us have has problems. I think the most important thing is to be just positive. When I’m here, and the makeup girls always ask me: “Stefan but how come you are so happy?”

Well, because the drama will come when the show starts and I have enough drama outside, so I make sure that I give off the good energy to send to the audience. For me, going on stage is really, I think, a duty if you ask me. I trust in God a lot in my destiny because otherwise I can’t explain how, from a small city called Bistrița in Transylvania…from a family of farmers with no musical experience…playing violin for 12 years…I ended up being the leading tenor from Romania and one of the best from my generation. (NOT what I am saying, but how others have described me).

OW:
So how DID you decide you wanted to be an opera singer?

SP:
Again, it’s back to Pavarotti. I decided I wanted to be involved in opera the first time I saw “La Boheme” with Luciano Pavarotti. And just look at my destiny! When I made my debut in “Boheme” in Teatro Reggio di Parma in 2016, it was the same production and in the same costume of Pavarotti!

But back to that first “Boheme” when I decided I wanted to sing. I was studying in the high school as a teenager because I studied violin. We had one hour of canto every week. I also sang for six years as a child with my grandmother because she would bring me to the church every Sunday and I sang always. Then in the school it was the choir, but I also started singing at people’s weddings I would sing traditional songs when people got married. So, for me, singing was always something natural and something that was to remain a part of my life.

You know, my dream is to do concerts, because I want to have the people in the audience in my hand. Like, I’m looking in their eyes! Opera, it’s okay, I love the opera because you have so many different characters, but my dream is to do open-air concerts like Luciano, because I started like that, singing with the people.

If we are honest now, who I am and what I’m doing….at whatever level…all what happened in my life was just in the same direction. I was just young and when I won Operalia, all I was thinking was to win only 10,000 dollars so I could buy my father a truck. I didn’t want to win more. But I won a competition in Seoul and then Operalia, so actually in one month I won 80,000 dollars! At 23, can you imagine? So of course I buy not only a truck, I buy also land, and more sheep for my father.

And that is why I think my duty is to send the message, especially to the young singers, to understand that everything is possible. Our world is so much more today, but the opera world is still a small world if we think about it, compared to other industries. So, it’s possible. You just need to dream. As Verdi says in one of his letters: either to wait or to look to the light and to never stop. I can’t remember exactly which opera he was composing but I remember the quote well because it was important for me.

I went to Sant’ Agata, to Verdi’s house, and I discovered that actually he bought land, and he made work for people, and he loved agriculture and nature like me. I was like… wow! Unbelievable.

OW:
I know you’ve sung quite a lot of the Verdi repertoire. Other tenors have described Verdi’s music as being “written for the singer” or “medicine for the voice.” Would you agree with that?

SP:
Medicine for the voice? Well, it can be medicine because he wrote everything comparing from the past bel canto. Verdi, he just put value in every word so that then came the “Parola Verdiana” the Verdian word. So, in the way that you sing the words in Verdi’s operas it’s really soul medicine. But if you are not a super specialist in bel canto, if you ask me, it’s not medicine; you can kill yourself!

Donizetti is more like medicine! You know, we all have different opinions, it’s very important to know how to control your breath. We are like sports people at times, no? If you don’t know how to really control the breath…and that comes in bel canto more, you learn more about breathing in bel canto…because the problem is that Verdi, he’s amazing, he wrote everything amazing. But at the same time, especially for the tenor, you are “Scoperto,” how do you say, exposed! Especially in the ensemble where everybody sings because you sing in the passaggio which is super difficult. If you don’t sing this certain way…exactly how Luciano describes as “covering,” it’s not really covering but more “coperto” rather, compared to “raccolto.”

You need to focus and, as Bonaldi says, to send the voice to the last line of the audience you need to have this image all the time. After you learn how to do that and when you arrive to express to put your soul in every word. Maybe that’s also the reason why I didn’t do so many interviews in English. This is the first one. My English is not the best, but I am just open, you know? Italian is much easier than in Romanian now for me. Because I am really thinking like them. After so many years studying there. It’s also the case you need to have luck to meet the right person.

I started super young which was very dangerous but in another way for me was much better that I have this opportunity to work with important conductors and singers…to take from them. I mean I sang “Traviata” even with Edita Gruberová, with Mariella Devia, so you know from that old school.

I am a super perfectionist, and I learned that from Mariella, but I am like that too. I really want to be note-perfect every time and I know when it’s not good, but you don’t have time to fix it in the performance. But today we are super lucky to have all these things to record…videos for example…so it helps, I think, compared to twenty years ago.

When I was studying in Parma, I was learning to really understand how is the Verdian way. How to sing to promote the note, to make the phrase elegant, you know? The legato…the pronunciation. I was listening to Carlo Bergonzi, and I never understood him but now he’s one of my favorites because he really sings the Verdian style. In the beginning I didn’t understand.

OW:
Tell me about “Faust.” How does it differ from your other work, and how are you finding the production?

SP:
Well, I sung this around nine years ago in Oviedo, Spain, but let’s go to the beginning. Destiny, or not, exactly in May, 10 years ago, I did my debut in Bucharest with “Faust.” The way I was singing then compared to now is completely different. I was super young and maybe the first the part where you sing with the “young voice” was good already but then you have scenes where you have to sing with a mature, or “old voice.” You know, in the past they used two tenors in this role, always. Okay? Kraus, for example, never sang the first part, because it’s completely different, vocally. It’s difficult to sing “old” you know? It’s not easy. It’s one of the most complex roles I ever sang. But I am happy that Peter commissioned me for this role and I’m so looking forward to it.
This particular production by John McVicar is the very best in the world now. But this “Faust” is also the most difficult production in a way, because for me, even if I’m not singing I need to be on stage all the time. I need to stay focused, to concentrate all the energy; the production is tough, I must say, but it’s super beautiful.

OW:
So, lots of Donizetti, Puccini and definitely lots of Verdi. What do you have in your mind for the future. How do you see your journey developing?

SP:
Well, now is the time for “Un ballo in Maschera.” That’s my dream, because I was supposed to do it in Genoa, but Covid stopped it when we did the rehearsal, and then I did my debut actually in 2021, but here we are in 2025, and I don’t have a production offer. I did it in Romania and it fits me so well. So “Ballo” I think will be the best role now if somebody gives it to me. And I really want to do again “L’elisir d’amore.” Nobody offers it to me anymore because they say:
“Your voice is big!”
But it’s not true. Also, perhaps “Il Trovatore.” I believe I can do many things. I still have two voices. I mean, I can sing Donizetti with mezza voce, and also, as Pollione, a spinto tenor voice.

I love Verdi. I love to do the old Verdi. Now I have, I think, 11 roles or 12 of Verdi which is good. Not bad for 38! The dream of course is “Othello.” I would also love to do Calaf in the future. I could have done it already as they offered it to me to sing but I said no.

I think the secret, like Luciano and Gregory Kunde have, in order to sing for as long as possible is to take care with the repertoire. One of my dreams was to record. To have a recorded CD…even though today they don’t really sell them…but I had an opportunity to record “Tosca” in Berlin. Speaking with the producer at dinner, I told him it was my dream to record a Canzonetta album, like Luciano. Then after one month he called me, to first record a Verdi album, which came out last year, and then this year my dream arrived, the Canzonetta album!

It’s already on YouTube! The whole album! “Volare,” “Arrivederci, Roma,” “Funiculì, funiculà,” “O sole mio!” Get it! Put it on in the car for the summer!