Michael Fabiano

Scofield: You are a very hard driving individual, Michael.

Fabiano: I am.

Scofield: And as a matter of fact, remember there’s a quote from one of the judges at a competition you entered who said, “he’s either going to be fantastic, or dead.”

Fabiano: In five years! And that was when I was age 22.

Scofield: But fortunately, you turned out to be fantastic.

Fabiano: Well, that’s the reality. People that diversify their lives and have many things with which to live for, allow them that freedom to chart an incredible path forward. And you know what? It’s scary to some people in the business. I have to admit, certain people in my world get scared by my personality. It scares them, worries them, not just artists, casting directors or whoever they are. They get nervous or they don’t like it, or it’s intimidating to them. Well, too bad for them. I’m sorry that they’re nervous. I don’t really care. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

Scofield: I mean you are obviously a risk taker; I can tell that. You were quoted by the New York Times as saying “Safe never wins. I take prepared gambles.” I believe that’s your singing style too, am I right?

Fabiano: Sure, absolutely. “Safe never wins” and “prepared gambles” are the lines the two things that I always talk about, and I firmly believe that. Because if I just carried out a safe life, okay, there’s a case to be made for some great singers that only did the safe path and had a wonderful career and ended on top. And I’m not going to name them specifically, but if your listeners out there have the history of singers, they’ll know which singers they really love, and which ones were really particular about protecting themselves.

One I can talk about directly is Alfredo Kraus. Alfredo Kraus was a tenor who would never sing within a performance that didn’t have two days off. He didn’t do anything except focus on singing and ate healthily, and that’s about it, and he was devoted to singing, and he sang until, basically, he died. And that was his life, and that was also his choice, and that’s the joy of the free world that we live in. Largely free, depending on where we are in the world. America specifically free, Australia specifically free, and other less free countries in Europe. The point that I always like to say is that that’s his option. He activated that option to live that life like a priest, in honor of his craft, and I respect that immensely. That’s not my choice.

My option is something else. And does it mean that it costs me a little bit at the fringe sometimes? Does it mean that I’m a little more tired than some others? Could be. And then when I realize that I’m a little more exhausted sometimes, I pull back the valve on one or two of the events that I’m working on, one of the two projects I’m working on. And I say, okay, I’m going to take a small hiatus in something, and regenerate the engine a little bit, because I know that an individual can only do so much in a day. That’s the one thing that I have to recalibrate sometimes. I have to constantly recalibrate the quantity of work that I do with everything. But I want to swing back to the “safe never wins” analysis is that, even Alfredo Kraus, I wouldn’t argue that he was a safe singer. Alfredo Kraus sang some very difficult roles, even for the voice type that he’s singing. He was a famous Werther. Werther is a very heavy opera. It’s not some light pastoral opera. The second and third acts, highly intense. And yet, Alfredo Kraus was a magnificent Werther, and it was a safe risk for him. It was safe, but it was a big risk. It was safe because he had a good technique and could manage it, but it was risky because people might think otherwise of it. There are many examples that I could give you, but I always come back to Kraus, because he’s someone that’s on the other end of the pendulum that I respect a lot. And as you said, I take prepared and calculated by risk. I think that the smartest thing a young person can do is be willing to jump into the fire and do their best not to get burned. And jumping into the fire means that they go full-throated for it, but go for it in advance knowing what they’re doing.