<<  -- 5 --  Roderic Dunnett    LIFE IN THE OLD TIGER

Invitations for Muntean to sing at Moscow's Bolshoi soon followed, and much later came trips further afield to Bulgaria (as Lensky) and, spasmodically, to Western Europe. 'Yet for six years I couldn't even cross the Romanian border to sing in Iasi, just a few miles across the border! I ask you. It was ridiculous. And if you did get to sing abroad -- say in Aida [listen -- 'Se quel guerrier io fossi'] in Budapest -- you'd leave half your earnings behind in the embassy rather than take them home, if you had any sense!'

As a teacher, Muntean devotedly seeks to transmit to his pupils the time-hallowed method he inherited from Diduchenko, and which has served him so well. Technically, breathing and voice production come first : 'Otherwise, as Caruso said, it's like having a trumpet and not being able to blow on it!'

One great pleasure he gets from teaching, he says, is that 'you learn as much as they do. It's vital for young singers', he says, 'to learn to stand aside and observe themselves as if from the outside; a good teacher performs exactly this kind of role for his pupil; you become the pupil's eyes and ears. What each one needs of a teacher is a clear questioner, an alter ego as it were : someone who will test their arguments and coax out the answers from them.'

Now in his fifties, and looking forward to spending some time in America with his family (and possibly being invited to perform there), Muntean freely admits the roles of his Milan days -- Cavaradossi, Calaf, Manrico -- come harder as age creeps up. 'But while they're still within range, why not?' There may be a time to give up on them, he says, but not until he can't benefit any more by doing them. Listen to his Pollione in Norma and you hear, arguably, a great voice just over the ridge. Yet Muntean can still rise to a top note like a young lion. In the meantime, echoing Domingo in tackling demanding new roles back home in Chisinau like Otello and Samson has given him a new lease of life. There's life in the old tiger yet [listen -- Chiara: 'La Spagnola'].