Opera in his heart

Roland Burks, a resident of downtown Jersey City for about five years, couldn’t sing when he was a kid.
“I was a clarinet/sax player since age 10, and I started acting in school plays when I was 12,” he said. “I did not have a singing voice until my voice changed. But from the moment it did, I had the exact same vocal range at 16 that I have today.”
While 16 is considered very young to train for opera, he had a teacher who encouraged him.
His vocal chords, he claims, are pure opera. Since then, he has made his living globetrotting between performances and teaching. He sometimes even teaches via Skype.
“My first voice teachers were able to recognize operatic potential from the beginning,” he said. “So I started out singing classical music and fell in love with it from the start.”
Since one of his family members was a singer with The Platters, one of the most successful vocal groups of the early rock and roll era, he might have gone off in a different direction. But he said his voice is pure opera.
While he will sing musical theater, he said, he prefers opera.
“I am related to a member of The Platters,” Burks said. “My mother’s youngest brother, Terry Smith, became lead singer for The Platters when they made a comeback in the ’70s. He was amazing. He inspired me to want to perform other types of music, but my vocal cords were only happy singing opera.”
His voice, he said, is vibrant now, more than a decade after he started as when he was 16, he said.
While Burks has not yet become a household name in opera, he has already made his mark. He has performed numerous roles in opera, oratorio, musical theater, and in concert both in the United States and abroad. He has sung with New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, and Pittsburg Opera Theater. He has also performed with the Center for Contemporary Opera in New York City, Phoenix Symphony, Mercury Opera in Edmonton, and many others. Burks has appeared as the lead in Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd,” Frank Maurrant in Weill’s “Street Scene,” Tonio in Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci,” and the Four Villains in Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffman,” as well as Cesare Angelotti in Verismo Opera’s “Tosca.”
On April 22, Burks will perform the role of Timur in the company’s grand production of Giacomo Puccini’s dramatic fairy tale, Turandot presented by the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera.
When asked what his favorite music is, he laughed.
“That’s a hard one. I have very eclectic tastes. Probably “Tosca”, something Sondheim, all things Wagner, and a bit of Led Zeppelin,” he said.
Although he always felt confident in his ability to sing, act and perform, he didn’t see opera originally as a career.
“I just always wanted to be free to live and play in life. Therefore, I have not always fully committed to the ‘career’ aspect,” he said.
Opera, he said, takes a huge commitment.
“Hence I would take lots of time off to live and play in Austria, Spain, Paris, Italy, Amsterdam, etc,” he said.” But I’m finally grown up enough to do it now. It took a while.”
As he grew up, his role models were the great composers.
“I am awe struck by them, and how their minds function,” he said. The magic they create will live forever. I am honored to get to be a small part of their world.”
Although well-established in the industry, he said it is still all coming together for him.
“I am just now ready and willing to commit to the demands of this career in opera, and/or life on stage in any capacity,” he said. “These are fun times in my life. I would not change a thing.”

It’s all magic for him

Commitment to a career in opera, of course, means a lot of rehearsal.
“I sing, on average of two to three hours every day,” he said “However, I memorize very quickly, so when it comes to learning a new opera, the process tends to be fast and fun. I love every second of learning a new piece, from researching the character, to learning the language, to studying the music. It’s all magic in the making.”
Although he loves all the roles he portrays, large and small, he has three favorites: Tonio in “Pagliacci,” Baron Scarpia in “Tosca,” and Sweeney in “Sweeney Todd.”
A far as favorite venue, that’s obvious.
“Well, we all want to sing at the Metropolitan Opera – some day,” he said. “From the time I won my district, and placed in regionals of the Met competition in 1997 Midwest region, I knew (and was told by my judges) that I would sing in that house one day. But they also told me that I would bloom vocally later in life.”

Crying during the rehearsals not the performance

Like most acting, emotions are an issue in opera.
“Opera is a play set to music. It’s very emotional, and you have to monitor how much emotion you allow in the voice before you get choked up,” he said. “Whenever I sing a role that requires extreme sadness (for example, the role I’m singing in ‘Turandot’), my process is to let myself completely break down and cry in rehearsal approximately one week before the performance. This gives me enough time to pull back the emotion just enough to be able to sing the role without effecting my voice, but still being fully emotionally engaged enough to be convincing.”
Since Burks is just coming to terms with his own relationship to opera as a career, he shares his newfound wisdom with his students.
“Commit for life, or get out now,” he said, laughing. “I make my students say the traditional ‘wedding vows’ to opera. If they can’t commit, I say come back when you are ready…The truest and most profound commitment has to be to excellence. Just be the greatest version of you that you can possibly be, an all things will follow. It takes time, dedication, and work, but you won’t regret any of that.”
Turandot will be performed on April 22 at 3 p.m. at the Bergen Performing Arts Center.
Tickets are on sale at bergenPAC’s box office, located at 30 North Van Brunt St., Englewood, New Jersey, or call (201) 227-1030 or toll-free at 1-888-PACSHOW. They may also be purchased online at www.bergenpac.org.

Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.