The Italian Girl in Algiers marks North Texas debut of bass Paolo Pecchioli

by Arnold Wayne Jones of of Dallas Voice

It’s one of the frustrating conventions about opera that, in the end, the tenor almost always gets to be the romantic lead while the bass-baritone gets to have a spear through the heart. Like old Westerns with black hats and white hats, you can always tell the bad guys — they are the ones with the deepest voices.

Which is just fine with Paolo Pecchioli.

While the tenor may get the girl, Pecchioli — who’s gay anyway, so what does he care about the girl? — gets the juicy roles: The villains. The comic relief. And sometimes — as with Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers, the final show of the Dallas Opera’s 52nd season — both.

Pecchioli plays the sultan Mustafa, one of opera’s most memorable comic antagonists. Dissatisfied with his harem, Mustafa sends his slave out to woo a spirited woman … only to have his slave fall for her instead.

“This role is one of the most difficult” in all of Rossini says Pecchioli. “Mustafa has the most musical numbers in the opera, even more than the title role. You need to sing a lot of Rossini to work your way up to it.”

Pecchioli has certainly done that. In a career approaching two decades, he has performed more than 40 roles — a sizable repertoire.

“I’ve done so many roles because I’m looking for variety all the time,” says the Tuscan-born opera singer in an engaging Italian accent. But he’s also a specialist in the bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, exemplified by Rossini and Donizetti. That term, as well as the related coloratura, is popularly associated with women’s roles more than men’s — a misconception Pecchioli says has resulted in an undervaluing of Rossini’s bass parts.

“I respect Rossini — I love his music and I want to sing it as he wrote it,” Pecchioli says. “There is lots of coloratura for bass [in Italian Girl] but many basses prefer to play with the character.” He does both, mugging it up with the brio of Roberto Benigni but also with a serious attention to the beauty of the music.

“I can be comic because I know about drama — a good way to get along in life, too,” he says.

Pecchioli picked an opportune time to premier in Dallas. Italian Girl was the first full production staged by the Dallas Opera at Fair Park Music Hall in 1957, and will also be the last — the company moves to its new digs at the Winspear Opera House in the fall. Pecchioli himself will continue on with the show, however, performing in the same production in Pittsburgh later this spring. In the meantime, he’s enjoying his stay here in the Oak Lawn area.

He has had to do so, however, without his partner of 10 years, a Canadian who is also an opera singer and preparing for his own production of La Cenerentola. How does the itinerant life of opera affect his relationship?

“It can be very difficult but there are two good things about it,” he says. “First, being with a person who knows about the business makes it easier — you need someone who understands why you go to bed early and the tension of opening night. Second, there is more of a possibility to see each other between performances. You don’t have an office to be in every morning, and this business gives you periods where you’re not working.”

It helps soften the blow during their downtime that the couple lives in a stone house in Tuscany. That’s what’s known in Pecchioli’s country — and ours — as la dolce vita.