Joseph Calleja’s new solo album, The Maltese Tenor, has become the top vocal recording on the classical chart in Germany, a major market for opera.
The album, on the Decca record label, features the 33-year-old singing some of the best Italian and French arias in his repertoire.
They include E Lucevan Le Stelle from Tosca, the ballad of Kleinzach from The Tales of Hoffmann and arias from La Bohème, Simon Boccanegra, Faust, Manon and The Pearl Fishers.
He has sung many of these over the past year at The Metropolitan Opera in New York – where he performed three different roles in as many months – and at the Royal Opera House in London where he shared the stage with opera legend Placido Domingo.
North German broadcasting network NDR made the disc an album of the week, its critic praising the set’s “intelligence and taste” and the way Calleja’s “voice flows freely and easily as it climbs the highest heights”.
Calleja has been in London in recent days promoting the album in the UK. On Friday he treated critics from major media organisations to a 30-minute showcase, organised by Decca, at the Royal Opera House’s crush room.
Jessica Duchen from the UK Independent said on her blog: “The Maltese falcon is flying. I heard his first CD some years ago – bel canto arias in what seemed a pleasing, light, precise voice. So I wasn’t prepared for what hit us today…
“At (33), he’s not a slender, tender tenor type, but instead a big, bullish soundbox on tall frame and imbued with roaring charisma. By the time he’d finished his programme, mostly Verdi and Puccini, I reckon the entire gathering was head over heels in love.
“Afterwards the chat was mostly about how unbelievably lucky we all felt to be there to hear such an artist at all, let alone at such close quarters. And we all want to go and see him in Malta, his homeland...
“This is a major, major star in the making. If he’s coming to a stage near you soon, you don’t just want a ticket; you need one, fast.”
When contacted, Mr Calleja said he was overwhelmed by the reaction. “It’s very rewarding when you see hardened critics and people from the recording industry applauding and shouting ‘bravo’. Decca are also keen to discuss the next two albums so I’m pleased with how everything went.”
The Maltese audience will have the opportunity to see him in his annual concert on July 9, which will take place on the Granaries in Floriana and see him singing alongside Italian legend Lucio Dalla and New Zealand singing sensation Hayley Westenra.
Other performances in July are in the Bavarian city of Regensburg on July 20, a return appearance at the world-famous BBC Proms festival at London’s Royal Albert Hall to sing the Verdi Requiem on July 24, and a cinematic event with Renée Fleming, Zubin Mehta (who conducted The Three Tenors in 1990 and 1994) and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra titled ‘Live from Jerusalem’ on July 28, a concert that will be beamed to 480 theatres across the US.
Mr Calleja unfortunately had to pull out of the Met’s tour of Japan earlier this month over radiation fears, but will make a return to the famous opera house in New York this autumn.
On Friday the tenor, who was a guest at the newly opened Corinthia Hotel in the British capital, was also interviewed by the UK’s Sunday Times’ critic Hugh Canning – who last year described Mr Calleja’s Adorno in Simon Boccanegra as the “most glamorous tenor here since Domingo himself sang the part in 1997”.
This morning Mr Calleja will be a live guest on BBC 1’s flagship Andrew Marr show, where he will be interviewed as well as sing live on British terrestrial television.
Mr Marr’s past guests include Barack Obama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and singer Annie Lennox.
Tickets for the July 9 concert on the Granaries, organised by NNG Promotions, may be obtained from all Vodafone, Agenda and Exotique outlets or online at www.nngpromotions.com.