Profile: Baritone Phillip Addis, Barber of Seville (Edmonton)

Catching up with Phillip Addis
Figaro in Edmonton Opera's Barber of Seville
by Sable Chan
@MissSable
(reprinted from The Choir Girl)

Metallic shelving units line the perimeter of the Jubilee Auditorium rehearsal hall. They are laden with props. A quick glance around the room reveals a barber’s chair in one corner. There is a side cart decorated with razors, combs, and a tall glass jar ready to disinfect any used combs. The stage manager helps me to clear a spot on the wooden prop vanity to interview Edmonton Opera’s leading man, Phillip Addis, playing Figaro in the Barber of Seville. Addis relaxes back in his seat with a sense of calm. He is no stranger to Principal roles having sung the title role in Pelléas et Mélisande with the Opéra Comique in Paris and Il Conte Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro with Pacific Opera Victoria earlier this year; however, this is Addis’ Figaro debut.

Sunday Feature: First-Person - Baritone Phillip Addis on performing two roles (La Bohème)

(photo by Kristin Hoebermann)

Parallel Existence

by Phillip Addis

A rising star on the international stage, Canadian baritone Phillip Addis has performed in opera, concerts and recitals throughout Canada, the United States, Europe and Japan. He’s been called “a star in the making” (MusicOMH) and praised for his creamy, bright, smooth voice as much as for his spell-binding, daring, yet sensitive interpretations.  He makes his Canadian Opera Company debut in the company’s production of La Bohème this October, singing the role of the musician Schaunard and the  painter Marcello.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I can only really be in one place at a time, both physically and mentally.  While I have different roles to play in life I can only really be in one of those roles in a given moment. Normally this would be true of the roles that I play on stage as well, but I have been working with a curious predicament these past few weeks in preparation for the Canadian Opera Company's production of La Bohème.  I have had the great fortune to be given two roles to prepare; that of Marcello, the painter and of Schaunard, the musician.