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Singers who prove to be men of many parts
Excessive amounts of money and spare time often proves a potent combination for the nation's footballers.
Once training is out of the way, they often have only one performance a week to concern themselves with, and so spend their large amount of free time getting ridiculous haircuts, buying large cars and forgetting to take drugs tests.
Opera singers, surprisingly, share a parallel with the football stars.
They also find their performances sporadically spaced, and have oodles of spare time to fill.
Given the corpulence for which opera singers are historically recognised, one might imagine that this time is filled with little other than eating.
Adam Green and James Laing buck this trend and then some.
Between them the Opera North singers run marathons, practise martial arts, take part in triathlons, climb mountains, collect Star Wars figures, play Dungeons and Dragons on the internet and run a paintballing site. Though not all at the same time.
Green, 33, and Laing, 28, are touring with Opera North's production of Dido and Aeneas. Given that this means one, sometimes two performances each week and with the rehearsal period long since finished, the pair find themselves in the position of having plenty of time on their hands.
Laing, who lives in Ripon, admits that it can sometimes feel like the life of Riley. "My wife despairs of me. She wonders what I do all day," says Laing, who claims from the above list the collection of Star Wars figures, the running of his own paintball site in Cambridge and playing Dungeons and Dragons.
"When we are working, we really are working. It's a hard slog and you are often in from Monday to Saturday, all day and evening and rehearsals are very hard work. But, once the show is up and running you do one show a week and the rest of the time is yours."
Laing, justifying the excessive free time he has, says: "The technique for opera singers means that you can't really perform more than a few times each week."
He joined Leeds-based Opera North in January this year and is performing as Spirit in Dido and Aeneas. His hobbies and youth make him unusual in the world of opera singers, something which he doesn't entirely agree with. When it is put to him that collecting Star Wars figures (he has more than 300) is probably not a hobby he can spend much time discussing with other singers in the opera world, he still finds it difficult to accept there is anything unusual about him in his chosen profession.
Another remarkable achievement of the young singer is that in 2003 he was chosen to sing the National Anthem before each England game during the Rugby World Cup in Australia - which meant he sang before the final when Martin Johnson's men beat Australia to win the world cup – and then went on to sing in the closing ceremony.
"That was such an amazing, awesome experience," he says.
"I remember going out on to the pitch to sing before the final and the atmosphere, with 90,000 fans singing along so loudly I couldn't hear myself, was electric. Then I got to watch the game and then had to gather myself to sing in the closing ceremony. As someone who has grown up loving rugby it was such an incredible thing to get to do."
Laing is also the owner of one of only four remaining original cars used as Kit in the Eighties television series Knight Rider.
"Yes, that is pretty cool. I was looking on the internet one day and saw that Magnum PI's Ferrari was up for auction, but it was too expensive for me to even think about it. Then I noticed that Kit was also up for auction, was half the price and just much cooler.
Singing for Opera North is one of a number of ambitions that Laing has fulfilled in coming to Leeds. He is also delighted to be singing alongside Adam Green, who was at Uppingham boarding school with Laing.
"He was in the same house as me – he was the head of house and the head of the choir, really excelled at all sports and was this cool older boy that I really looked up to. I became his fag and even though I'm sure he thought I was just some young kid, he was really nice to me and we became good friends," says Laing.
Green, who grew up in Markington, near Harrogate, was head chorister at the Ripon Choir School. Laing says he remembers him excelling at hockey, rugby and cricket at school and when he was 16 played in Barbados in the Garfield Sobers International Cricket Competition.
Singing Aeneas with the company is the first time Green has performed with Opera North.
While he has less spare time than Laing, performing with two other companies, he is still finding time to train for a triathlon which he will take part in next month.
"I did a marathon a little while ago and the training was a good way to stay in shape," says Green.
Clearly someone else who does not enjoy wasting his time, Green became a black belt in Tae Kwando five years ago and then went on to win a bronze medal in the UK championships.
Green's greatest joy at working with Opera North is something very simple.
"I used to get the number 36 bus to Ripon when I was going to choir practice. When I was rehearsing for the role I was catching it the other way, into Leeds, so that felt quite nice - the familiarity of it being here and it being home."
Opera North, Sheffield Lyceum: Dido and Aeneas, Jun 30, Rigoletto, Jun 26 and 28, The Magic Flute, Jun 27 and 29.
Bradford Alhambra: Dido and Aeneas, Jul 7, Rigoletto, Jul 4 and 6, The Magic Flute, Jul 3 and 5.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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