Credo... Sir Thomas Allen
The acclaimed baritone and opera director on loving Mozart, hating X Factor and craving some peace and quiet in between the music
I tend not to listen to opera unless I’m working. I prefer a bit of Frank Sinatra or Nina Simone. In all honesty, if you spend your life up to your neck in music like I do, you just want a bit of piece and quiet. Music is so easily abused – especially now. And we need quiet in our lives.
I can’t be bothered with TV shows like The X Factor and The Voice. I’m not being snooty but I fi nd them quite trivial. Every day for the past 50 years I’ve dealt with people who are totally dedicated to their art, and there’s no substitute for that – it’s a lifetime’s journey. There’s a world of difference between it and the instant recognition offered by these programmes. I feel the public are being misled.
I love singing Mozart. His work appeals to my mind – there’s an intellectual quality to it, and a very human thing as well. I never tire of Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro or Cosi fan tutte.
I love Scotland. I grew up in the north-east of England, so Scotland was on the doorstep. We were always on holiday in the Borders, Ayrshire and the West Coast. In fact, I feel half-Scots and I don’t want Scotland to secede from Britain. I can understand feeling far removed from London, and that London gets all the cream, but I think we belong together as a common entity.
I have just rediscovered how much I enjoy golf, which I played pretty well as a teenager. I’d love to get my handicap down. I’m mad about nature too, and painting and drawing.
I avoid any routines before going on stage. I try to stay loose and be like the great Sybil
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WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK
Latin. (n) ‘I believe’. A set of beliefs which infl uences the way you live.
Thorndike used to be: no Dustin Hoffman-style method-acting; just be entirely normal, take a couple of moments and then you’re on. Singing is not easy, but it’s not rocket science.
Who would play me in the fi lm of my life? John F Kennedy would have been ideal – people used to confuse me with him. But he’s not available!
I have lost my voice, as have most singers. I went from being able to sing all day every day to being unable to manage more than a few notes. It was triggered by a smoke effect on stage in Paris – my voice seized up, and it took ages to unfreeze. It was a nightmare. You start looking at the Guardian jobs page. But life feels so much better on the other side of an ordeal like that.
Apart from having the most wonderful family, the proudest moment of my life was being made chancellor of Durham University.
My greatest inspirations are the enormously impressive German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and my dad. Arnold Palmer was impressive as well.
I enjoy cooking, though I tend to make a fairly limited spectrum of things – a lot of roasts and pastas. I can put anything together with pasta and make it work. I also do a mean risotto.
I don’t believe in ghosts. As Jonathan Miller said, when people claim to have been reincarnated, they’re always Florence Nightingale or Napoleon, never Jack Smith the coalman. Having said that, I once spent a night in a house in Yorkshire when I was a student and I had a strong feeling there was something in the room with me. I could hear a shuffl ing sound all night. And in the morning the owners asked me if the ghost had kept me awake…
Sir Thomas directs Scottish Opera’s current production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Eden Court, Inverness, 8 and 10 November; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 November). See
www.scottishopera.org.uk for details
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