<<  -- 4 --  Tess Crebbin and Sissy von Kotzebue    BEN HEPPNER

MV: You were invited to Australia after you won that competition?

BH: Yes, there were a number of important people there. It is a place to view new talent and it was the Spoleto Festival coming up. It is what they call the Festival of three worlds, which is Spoleto/Italy, Spoleto/South Carolina and then Melbourne in Australia and they needed a Bacchus. I guess they don't grow on trees ...

MV: So many different roles? Isn't that a bit overwhelming for a young singer?

BH: Yes. It actually was. I don't actually remember how many I did that year but I think it must have been seven that I had never sung before. In the following year, I probably did about the same. And now, I do one in a year, I don't do two or three.

MV: Well, you've done them all ...

BH: I have lots to do still. But it is the nature of the career. You have to rise to the occasion. If you're gonna make it happen you gotta do the difficult things.

MV: How does it feel singing Lohengrin now, in Munich, when you compare it to your first time in Sweden?

BH: I think I've a much better feeling for the role. I know the pacing much better, more intimately than I did when I started. And also, I sing quite differently through maturity. You learn quite a few things in sixteen years.

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