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I met Angel Marchese while traveling by bus from Baltimore, where I had just viewed Salome, performed by the Baltimore Opera Company. It’s a long trip, and after a brief stopover in New York to changed buses, a young man boarded, sat across the aisle, and like me, occupied his time reading. About an hour out of New York, he leaned forward slightly and said: “Excuse me, but are you from the opera company?’ As he spoke he pointed toward the bag on the seat next to me. The blue press kit from the Baltimore Opera Company sat atop my carry-on bag; I placed it there because I was gathering notes for the review I was formulating in my mind. “No,” I answered, “I just attended to review it." One thing led to another and we talked for the remainder of the trip about opera and our mutual interest in it. He handed me his business card. It read: “Angel Marchese, tenor". As we spoke, I thought about how much Angel reminded me of other young people I had met, each trying to carve out a niche for themselves in the business, each eager to make acquaintances, each searching and hoping for that lucky break. I told Angel that I published the Internet Magazine, OperaOnline.us, and that if he was willing I’d like to do a brief interview with him about his hopes and aspirations. He agreed, and after a couple e-mail exchanges, the following is what emerged.

It was in January of 2002, while attending the Florida Music Educator’s Conference in Tampa, that 30-yr old tenor, Angel Marchese, says he knew he wanted to be an opera singer. “I was sitting at the opening with my fellow teacher friends when a guest singer opened the convention with a song. I felt so enraptured by her performance that my insides were knotted up. . . I nudged my friend Cynthia Kohanek, sitting next to me, and told her that I would finish up school and move to New York to sing.”

For Marchese, it was a defining moment, even though he knew from an early age that he had a talent and interest in music. Indeed, years earlier, as he recalls, a member of his church congregation noticed something special too, and after service told him how his singing brought tears to hear eyes. “She told me that every time she hears me cantor or sing solo, it made her want to be a better person. I never realized,” he says, recalling that conversation, “that my singing affected people like that.”

After high school and while attending Miami-Dade Community College, and later the University of Miami, where he earned a scholarship in music, he dabbled in singing opera; he sang the baritone role of De Bretigny in Manon, and sang in both the Florida Grand Opera Chorus and the Florida Philharmonic Choir. “I always had a wide range” he says, explaining of how a lyric tenor gets to sing baritone and bass, and “was often asked to sing bass or alto.” But in those days teaching was his goal, he says, and singing professionally was more an illusive afterthought. Upon graduation, he did what he trained for: he taught music at the elementary and middle school level for six years. Teaching, however, didn;t do it for him. “I felt I was missing something,” he says.

That “something” was what caused him to nudge his friend at the January 2002 conference and say singing professionally is what he was determined to do. “I wanted to do what she was doing,” he says. “I knew I could do just as well.”

Born in Madrid, Spain, in 1974 Angel lived in Venezuela with his parents until age three when his family moved to Florida, where has he remained until his move to New York. After the conference, he knew that if he ever wanted to sing opera, he would have to go where opera was best known – New York. “I needed to get out of my comfort zone.,” he says, “and immerse myself in my training and musical pursuit. I gave myself a timeline. I would be in New York before Christmas.” He made the move on November 22, 2002.

Undecided at first about whether to attend a conservatory or study voice privately, he opted in favor of private voice lessons. It worked well in college, he figured, where he gained immeasurably from his personal interaction with his music teacher Eileen Duffy-Brown. “She was the first person whom I began to explore my voice with,” he says. “Through Eileen, I performed my first college opera roles such as Tamino and Einstein in the ‘opera scenes’ program.” It was during this period also that he began singing with the Greater Miami Chorus, later to be named the Florida Grand Opera Chorus. In New York his first formal exposure to music came from James Archie Worley, who was recommended by one of his music contractors, Martin Doner, who just happened to be a close friend of his old music teacher, Eileen Duffy-Brown. “He and I got along great and became good friends.” Marchese now studies with Maitland Peters from the Manhattan School of Music. “I was referred to Peters,” Marchese says, “by several people, but decided to give him a try after speaking with my friend, soprano, Sandra Lopez, who spoke to me about how he teaches. If I revert to a bad habit, we stop what we’re doing and go back to a basic vocallise.”

Since his move, the breaks have not been many, and in some cases, because of the competing needs to work and earn a living, or sing and starve, the choices have been difficult. “I got accepted into one summer program at Ash Lawn Opera Company in Virginia, but didn’t take it for financial reasons, and I was accepted into the DiCapo opera but had to decline as well there due to scheduling conflicts.” DiCapo, he says, lacked the one-on-one instruction and learning experience he prefers at this stage in his developing career. Ash Lawn, on the other hand, wanted him to sing musicals, and he wanted opera. “I would have probably taken them up on the offer and sublet my room if I had been offered a role in their opera production.”

“At this point,” he says, he believes it’s in his best interest to be careful. “I’m more interested in solidifying my vocal training. I could take small singing jobs here and there just to pay my rent, but kill my voice,” a grind he says he wants to avoid. “I am in no rush.”

Marchese who works for Court TV when not looking for singing jobs says he eventually would like to be able to support himself through his singing because it’s what he loves doing most. “I love becoming the character I am portraying, thinking his thoughts, feeling what he feels, loving what he loves, hating what he hates, and fearing what he fears.”

When asked what he, fears most, he answers: “I fear being lied to or taken on a ride. As in life there are things I can control and things out of my control. There are people out there who will do anything to get to the top. I prefer to struggle a bit and keep my dignity.”

As with most singers starting out, Marchese is trying to balance competing interests that tug in opposite directions, at least for the time being. He works to eat, but lives to sing. At some point the roads will undoubtedly cross and that illusive “lucky break” in the nature of unexpected opportunity will come knocking. OperaOnline.us will check in with Angel Marchese from time to time to see how things are going, and we’ll report his progress as a “next generation” aspiring opera singer, on the road to fulfilling his dream, though not quite there yet.