By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Early in his career, Jason Budd got a bit of advice from his vocal coach.
“You can try to be a big leading baritone,” the coach said, “but you should be a buffo. You can work all the time, and you won’t have to worry about your voice all the time.”
Those comic roles also make use of Budd’s acting skills honed when he started in musical theater.
Budd followed the advice, and that’s helped him sustain his career over for more than 25 years.
So, when the Toledo Opera, which considers him a “consummate singer-actor” called about casting in him in Gioachino Rossini’s version of Cinderella, “La Cenerentola,” he assumed it was to play the part of the Don Magnifico, the title character’s blustering, bankrupt stepfather. It’s a role he’s performed before. Instead, it was for the role of Alidoro, the prince’s advisor.
In Rossini’s retelling of the fairy tale, this character fills the role of the fairy godmother making dreams come true for the opera’s Cinderella, known as Angelica.
The Toledo Opera will stage Rossini’s Cinderella (La Cenerentola)” on Friday, Oct. 6, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 8, at 2 p.m. at the Valentine Theatre, 400 North Superior, Toledo. To buy tickets, visit: toledoopera.org.
[RELATED: Toledo Opera brings Rossini’s twist on ‘Cinderella’ to the Valentine stage]
“This is divergent” from his usual roles, Budd said of Alidoro. “This is an actual singing role, and the aria is very difficult and extremely different than anything I’ve done before because of the vocal requirements.” He realized it was “a great opportunity.”
Not surprisingly, it was Toledo Opera that came knocking with this opportunity to divert from his usual casting.
“I consider Toledo to be my opera home now,” Budd said before a rehearsal in the opera’s offices. While he’s performed several roles in recent years with the company, his connections date back to 1997 when he came to continue his education at BGSU.
During those two years, he was a resident artist at Toledo Opera.
This was yet another stop on his discovery of his career as a singer.
Budd, 53, started singing in second grade when the children’s choir director at St. Patrick’ s School in Hubbard, near Youngstown, heard something in his voice and gave him a solo. His musical journey began with “Shaun the Leprechaun.”
He went on in his early teens to sing in the adult church choir. Then as a senior in high school ventured into theater and was cast in the lead male roles in “Carnival!” and “The Miracle Worker.”
But he didn’t pursue music in college. Budd was a competitive bowler and headed to Vincennes University in Indiana, to study bowling lanes management.
Soon after he started his studies “my wrist fell apart,” he said.
Unable to bowl, he lost interest in the program, and returned to the Youngstown area.
He got back into theater when he drove a friend to auditions for a musical version of “Canterbury Tales.” His friend hadn’t realized it was a musical, and she couldn’t sing. Budd recognized the people staging the show as the same people who’d put on the shows in high school. So, he auditioned and landed a part.
Budd was interested in musical theater, though his mother introduced him as her “opera-singing son.” He would contradict her but listening to a recording of “Tosca” that caught his eye at the local library, turned that around, and ignited a passion for opera. “That’s when I got hooked.”
Later at Youngstown, he served as a model student for a voice teacher seeking a position. The teacher, who was hired, liked what he heard. Budd was working in the music library. The teacher arranged for him to work for a patron of the arts who had thousands of records that needed to be organized. Then the teacher arranged for the man to sponsor Budd’s participation in the American Institute for Musical Studies in Austria. While there, Budd won a major competition.
In a chance encounter, Budd met a singer who suggested he study with his teacher at BGSU, Andreas Poulimenos. On the strength of that, Budd came to Bowling Green. During his time here the director of opera Eugene Dybdahl cast him as leads in Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi,” Blitch in Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah,” Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” and Verdi’s “Falstaff.”
“This was incredible training,” Budd said.
Budd never graduated though. He got a full-time position as a resident artist at Orlando Opera. Over the years, he’s found work in the United States and Europe, and recently in Brazil where he made his South American debut in “Falstaff.”
His career has had its up and downs as the arts rise and fall with the economic tides. As opera companies emerge from the pandemic, some companies are opting to use less expensive young singers or locals for those comic roles. That usually doesn’t work well, the veteran performer said. “It’s definitely a specific type of acting and skill set to really do these roles correctly.”
The Rossini “Cinderella” plays down the magical elements. Instead, the focus is on Cinderella’s goodness and how that is rewarded. Budd appreciates director Marc Verzatt’s approach to the opera. He wants all the characters, even the most comic, to be three-dimensional. He strives for emotional realism.
The orchestra is being conducted by Michelle Rofrano.
“Cinderella” stars mezzo-soprano Sarah Coit as Angelina, tenor David Walton as Prince Ramiro, and Bowling Green State University voice professor Keith Phares as Count Dandini.
Adelmo Guidarelli plays the Don Magnifico with resident artists Sara Mortensen and Imara Miles as the stepsisters.
Following “Cinderella,” Budd will head back to Youngstown where he will appear in “Carmen.”
