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It’s a long way from Dawson Creek, BC to the opera stages of the world. But Ben Heppner, opera’s newest and brightest world-class tenor, has made the trek from small-town farm boy to illustrious opera star with humility and grace. An imposing figure on stage with a voice to match, Heppner has wowed audiences the world over. In 1998, the opera world buzzed with excitement after Heppner’s portrayal of Tristan in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. “A real Tristan has arrived,” heralded the New York Times. “There are two categories of tenors today: Ben Heppner, and everybody else,” The Globe and Mail wrote in 1999. Heppner’s most recent production was a moving rendering of Verdi’s Ottello in Chicago, in the fall of 2001. So how did Heppner come to choose opera? “It sort of found me more than me looking for it,” Heppner laughs. “Music was a big part of my upbringing,” the tenor says. His family often gathered to sing together. Heppner also frequently sang solos or played the trumpet for his Christian and Missionary Alliance church. In high school a drama teacher took note of the young singer at a community event and convinced him to perform for his peers at a school Christmas program. “Which is one of the scariest things you can possibly imagine!” Heppner admits. “I was a bit reticent to sing for people my own age because they listened to the first version of Santana and things like that.” Heppner was unprepared for their reaction. “They rose to their feet with big applause, and I just had no idea what to do with it.” A few years later Heppner arrived at the University of British Columbia’s School of Music, intent on becoming a music teacher. But with tenors being scarce, one of his professors asked him to help out the university’s opera program. Heppner agreed, but he only lasted one semester. He helped out with another opera production in his third year. “But I still wasn’t hip on it,” he divulges. It wasn’t until after Heppner won the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Talent Festival in 1979, that he started seriously considering opera as a profession. He eventually was part of the training ensemble with the Canadian Opera Company. Unfortunately, a bad falling out between Heppner and the Canadian Opera Company caused him to leave. “I was hurt quite badly,” he comments, “and in a sense I ran from it.” He describes the following years as his “desert years.” “I identified with the children of Israel, who were not allowed right away into their Promised Land,” he explains. A Christian since the age of nine, Heppner turned to God. He and his wife Karen served as music directors of the Rexdale Alliance Church in Toronto and also taught music lessons on the side. These were lean times for the Heppner family, that now included three children. While maintaining that this period was difficult, they were also years of growth. “I think they’re the most important years of my life,” Heppner says, “because they prepared me for the intensity of what was about to happen.” In 1988, Heppner was among 12 winners of the New York’s Metropolitan Opera Competition. Heppner was further singled out, winning the Brigit Nilsson Prize, a special award named after a famous Swedish soprano. “The prize was a small monetary stipend and a debut with the Royal Opera Stockholm,” explains Heppner. International fame soon followed. Humbly, Heppner credits timing as a factor for his success. “The world was ready for a new German tenor and away I went.” But he was also convinced his success was God’s will. Since then, Heppner’s list of accomplishments is long and impressive. A member of the Order of Canada since 1999, he was promoted to the level of “Officer” in 2001. He’s accumulated numerous Juno Awards and Grammys for Classical Voice recordings and bookings are made five years in advance. The singer has proven he’s got a big heart, too. When Heppner won the Jean A. Chalmer’s National Music Award in 2001, he forwarded the $25,000 purse to the Brookstone Theatre Company in Toronto. “I didn’t need the money to live,” Heppner explains. Heppner has also worked with MEDA, the Mennonite Economic Development Association, and will perform a benefit concert for the Canadian Lung Association on January 23, 2002 at the Winspear Centre, with the Edmonton Youth Symphony. His performance will mostly include selections from his album My Secret Heart. “I love the disk,” he enthuses. My Secret Heart includes parlour songs from the first half of the 20th century, as well as songs from stage and screen. “Everybody will enjoy it,” he says. The concert will also feature solos, accompanied only by his pianist. The singer recently added another disk to his long list of recordings. Last November Heppner released Airs Francais on the Deutsche Grammophon label. The album features the London Voices and the London Symphony Orchestra. Heppner says he stays grounded by “knowing who I am and in Whom I believe.” He also says that his faith in Christ has given him “the sense of assurance and stability during the times of crisis that we have all felt recently.” He adds, “Having a faith in God gives you a perspective that others don’t have. A hope that is outside of yourself.” [LLN-Online] [Adopt-a-Block] [Newsbriefs]
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