Sometimes you just know…
When the guest tenor on Katherine Jenkins’ autumn tour walked on stage the audience had no idea who he was, or where he came from. All they saw was a
gorgeous young man, immaculately dressed, with a diffident smile. And then he sang with mesmerising power, grace and passion, reminiscent of the late
Pavarotti. Once he made ‘Nessun Dorma’ his own the audience knew they were in the presence of somebody special.
Gardar Thór Cortes is a unique talent from a unique land. His name may appear Spanish but he’s from Iceland, where his debut album was the fastest
selling release ever. Over in the UK, the album went straight to the No.1 spot of the classical charts, making Cortes the first ever Icelander to debut
in the UK at Number One. The debut album ‘Cortes’ stayed at the top spot for 3 weeks.
2008 looks set to be another exciting year for Cortes with his prestigious ‘Album of the Year’ award nomination for his debut album at the Classical Brit
Awards in May. Cortes is one of the favourites to win and if he does he could be placed in the hall of fame alongside previous winners of the award Sir
Paul McCartney, Katherine Jenkins and Andrea Bocelli. 2008 will also see the release of Cortes’ 2nd album ‘When You Say You Love Me’ which promises to be
as exceptional as the first.
The timbre of Cortes’ voice reminds some who know of Pavarotti in his prime but Luciano was never voted sexiest man in Iceland twice in one year. Gardar
prefers not to be reminded of this achievement, instead he looks at his feet and mumbles something about there being better looking cod where he comes
from.
Great tenors can bloom in strange places but Gardar was born to sing. Visiting the Cortes family must be like attending a masterclass. Music is bred
into their bones. His sister Nanna a soprano is a professional opera singer and younger brother Aron is currently studying to be a baritone. His English
mother Krystyna, a concert pianist, was a piano student at the Royal Academy of Music when she married Gardar Cortes senior and moved to the north
Atlantic.
In his prime Gardar père was a world class tenor. “He was in the same realm and ring as Pavarotti and Domingo,” says his son, “Once he was ill when he
was performing in Oslo and Domingo stepped in for him. But when he went abroad to sing he’d get so homesick that eventually he decided it wasn’t worth
it.” Instead he founded the Icelandic Opera, the Reykjavik Symphony Orchestra and The Reykjavik Academy of Singing. Commitments permitting whenever he
is conducting the opera all three kids will be in the chorus.
Gardar insists that there was never any pressure on him to become a singer. “At home, mum was always playing piano and dad was singing,” he says. “I’d
listen to dad’s records of other tenors and whole operas but I also had a huge pile of Bon Jovi, Queen and Shakin’ Stevens albums. I absolutely loved
Prince and when I was 10 I was convinced I wanted to be a pop star. Then I got bitten by the acting bug.”
Aged 13 he won the lead role in the TV series Nonni and Manni. “I got the part because I could speak English and ride horses bareback,” says Gardar, “it
was great fun we had all sorts of adventures with polar bears, an erupting volcano and getting lost at sea with whales tipping the rowing boat over. I’d
always loved movies but it didn’t ignite until then.” The series was filmed in Iceland, Norway and England and became a huge success all over Europe.
Einar Orn Einarsson who played Manni is still Gardar’s best friend.
Soon after he turned 18 Gardar decided he wanted to be a singer. “I loved acting but I realised I couldn’t live without music. What decided me was the
amount of times I have cried over a phrase in an opera or the piano. In opera you can combine the two and, apart from Domingo, there aren’t that many
singers who are good actors.”
“My dad warned me it would be very difficult. He asked me ‘do you know what you are getting into?’ Of course, I said but I didn’t realise how difficult
it would be. I spent the next 10 years training my voice.” He spent four years at his father’s school in Reykjavik and then won a scholarship to the
Hochschule in Vienna but left after six months to study privately with the controversial Pole, Andrei Orlowitz, in Copenhagen.
For the next five years Gardar spent two weeks in Denmark then flew home to earn enough to pay the tuition and the airfares. He sang at funerals and
weddings, appeared in West Side Story and for five summers worked with disabled people. At the opera he was the toilet cleaner, the usher and the
doorman.
Everything changed in 1999 when Gardar won the lead role of Raoul in Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre in the West End. It was a career
changing decision – though not the way he first imagined.
“It was in Phantom I discovered my high notes,” he says. “I’d been having a bad evening and I was miserable, felt I wasn’t even good enough to be in the
chorus. Then in my next scene I went up to the C sharp and it just stayed there. Christine, the soprano, was walking towards me and her mouth fell open
and she whispered to me ‘wow is that really you.’ I’ve had those notes ever since.
“It was huge experience I learned how professional work should be done. It was like a machine, take one step too far to the right and I’d get a note from
the Assistant Director. Singing eight shows a week makes your voice stronger and it’s like a drug. I loved it but for the first three months I was
exhausted and every Sunday I’d take myself off to the cinema to be alone.”
Most young singers would find it hard to turn down a grand a week and a starring role in one of the great musicals but when Gardar was asked to extend
his contract he said no. “I took a couple of days to think it over but it wasn’t a difficult decision. I knew I wanted to move on. It was one of the
things I had to do on my journey but I loved opera more.”
He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music opera course. His sister Nanna was also at the Academy as was Katherine Jenkins. “I wasn’t surprised
by her success,” says Gardar, “she always had that something. You just have to look at her smile.” After leaving the academy Gardar worked all over
Europe playing lead tenor roles, in operas singing Mendelssohn quartets with his sister at Carnegie Hall. But no matter how good a singer you are opera’s
a hard world to break into.
“The best piece of advice I was given was by my first teacher,” he says, “she told me to make myself a little cocoon because when you are singing it gets
so personal. If somebody says it’s not very good it hurts. You audition 50 times and maybe get one part. That is a lot of nos but if you take it
personally it will break you. I took a while to build that hard shell and it did sometimes get to me.”
The musical community in Iceland is small. Everybody knows everybody whether you’re a member of Sigur Ros or an opera tenor. Perhaps it wasn’t
surprising when Einar Bardarson, manager of local pop sensations Nylon, suggested making a record like Andrea Bocelli or Josh Groban. “He told me I was
an untapped natural resource,” says Gardar. “I’ve always been good at singing jazz me and my dad love to sing numbers like ‘My Curly Headed Baby’,
‘Autumn Leaves' and 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’.”
The songs – including Luco Dalla’s “Caruso” and “Nella Fantasia”, Malavasi’s “Romanza”, David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager’s “The Prayer” and some
Icelandic numbers - were chosen by Gardar, Einar and Bo Halldorsson – ‘the Frank Sinatra of Iceland” to show off his voice. “I loved doing it,” recalls
Gardar, “but I always thought ‘it’s not going to go anywhere’.”
He was wrong. It was the fastest selling record ever in Iceland, going double platinum in three months. His debut concert in Reykjavik, where he was
joined by Katherine Jenkins, was another triumph. For the UK release of the album he has recorded five new songs – “Where The Lost Ones Go”, a duet
with Katherine, “Hunting High and Low by Aha”, Luna, “Nessun Dorma” and the bravura “Granada” that ends on a high C
Success and sexiest man awards not withstanding Gardar insists his life back home has not changed. He loves to watch movies -‘everything from slushy
romantic comedies to shoot ‘em up cop thrillers”- and to spend time with his actress fiancée. He is however marked out by his name. Less than 5% of
Icelanders have surnames and despite his polyglot ancestry - “my mother’s father was Polish and we’re a mix of Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Danish,
Icelandic and English” – nobody knows how and where the name Cortes comes from.
At home his family talk a mixture of Icelandic and English – often in the same sentence- and his English is fluent, if occasionally a little old
fashioned, the legacy of spending six months at a Hertfordshire private school when he was 9 and 11. He loves England but like his father before him his
heart is, and always will be in Iceland. There is something about the country that always drags you back. “When we see Bork in the streets we always say
she’s come home,” says Gardar.
One day the tenor from Reykjavik will fulfil his ambition to sing Otello at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Perhaps 2008 will see Cortes becoming
closer to fulfil this ambition.
Catch Cortes while you can….
Cortes’ second album “When You Say You Love Me”
Cortes’ first single from the second album “When You Say You Love Me”
Cortes Fan Pages: http://www.gardarthorcortes.me.uk/
