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Jesper Tydén is a Swedish actor currently performing in Austria and Switzerland, after making a name for himself in Germany – which gives you an idea of the international flavour of so many modern European productions. At the moment he is playing the role of Crown Prince Rudolf in the new Vienna production of Elisabeth, a role he previously performed in the original cast in Essen, Germany. He is also working on a recording of original music, and playing the role of Chris in Miss Saigon in St. Gallen, Switzerland. I first became familiar with Jesper when I saw Elisabeth in Essen in 2001, and he was performing as der Tod. I was really moved by his performance, and have been following his work ever since. I had the chance to sit down with him in Vienna recently and talk about his career so far, and a few of his future plans. |
Could you tell me a bit about your background? You’re from Stockholm…
I’m from Stockholm, born there, and grew up there in the city, in the centre of Stockholm, and then moved out a bit outside of Stockholm
to a house with my parents. That’s when I started, I got accepted for this music school in the centre of Stockholm, it’s called Adolf Fredrik,
and that is kind of like, the music school for kids.
How old were you then?
I was 12, I think. But before that, I was singing in the children’s choir, in a boys’ choir. And we were like five guys, five small Rudolfs or something
singing in this choir there, in this suburb of Stockholm. So then I started going into the city, to go to this school, and there you basically learn choral
singing, it’s like traditional Swedish or Scandinavian choral singing. So it’s not like you learn how to play the electric bass or anything, you have a lot
of singing, and they do tons of concerts, and it’s sometimes a bit too precise. They’re so drilled, the youngsters there. But it’s okay. My first years there,
I hated it, because I was coming from playing football and ice hockey, and going more to town to this music school, and I was new there. I came in alone and
the other ones had already studied three years together, so it was hard for me. But I ended up loving it anyhow. And I continued the gymnasium there as well,
and I studied economics, of all things, together with singing. But that kind of ended after my grade.
After that it sort of took off – I started at the Royal
College of Music in Stockholm, and it’s a four-year education, and there I studied three years out of four, and alongside of that, I sang in all the choirs I
possibly could, and I travelled all over Europe, I’ve been almost everywhere, singing, and to weird places that you don’t go normally, which is nice. So I did
a lot of that, I also had some jobs at the Folkoperan in Stockholm, and then I ended up singing in this Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, and the Radio Choir, which
are the only two professional choirs in Sweden. Most people work with only that, you can actually make a living from that, so it’s cool, and we got to travel
a lot. We were in Vienna, Musikverein here with the Berlin Philharmonic, doing concerts and really cool classical stuff, of course with the choir, but I was young,
so it didn’t matter.
And actually, before that, I had my first musical contact, which kind of intrigued me, and that was to do Les Mis. And that was my first part, Jean Valjean,
and I was 18. That was the most fantastic thing. Javert was 14 years old, and I was 18, so I was the oldest, and the director was 15 years old. And she had a crush on
me when I was in that school, but that was a long time ago, when she was like 10, so now we were a bit more adult, so she cast me for that, and wanted me to do it.
So I said “okay, it’s a bunch of kids, but I’ll do it.” And it was the school that I went to before, so it was coming back to that and doing this production. And it was
fantastic, the ensemble was great, and it was something that school had never done before.
And it’s such a great part too!
Oh yeah, and the piece! It’s fantastic, it’s such an ensemble piece. So that was a fantastic experience, I think there were about 70 people involved, it was a cast of 50.
So a lot of people, and it was a really cool thing, it turned out to be a really nice experience, and everyone is still talking about it. A lot of actors were there, and
saw the show, and it was only coming from kids, no grown-ups involved, so that was cool.
But there I was at the school, I had singing as my main instrument, along with piano, and a bit of guitar, and you have to do a little of everything, you have a bass course
and a drum course. And of course, writing and arrangements and everything, and also some more deductif, pedagogique subjects, I’ve studied some of that stuff too.
And you were still performing in choirs as well?
I was very used to singing in choirs. And I’m a tenor, and they always need tenors in choir, so you’re like Mr. Popular when it comes to that. And in Stockholm it was at the
university that they have a special choir at the university, like smaller vocal ensembles. That’s what I like most, and then it just grew and grew, and you go from one to another,
and you become really a “choir hooker”. That’s what I was.
So how did you hear about Hunchback in Berlin?
Well, from Stockholm then, my three years out of four, I jumped off because I was accepted to this musical school in Gothenborg, and somehow I was fed up with what I was doing in
Stockholm, I think. I felt I’m not meant to be a music teacher, I want to do something else. And I had the need to…I don’t know what made me go there and do the auditions, but I
did. And it turned out to be okay. So, there I was in the same class as Alex Lycke, and his brother Frederick was the original Phoebus of Hunchback, so he was the Swedish connection to that.
How long were you in Gothenburg?
Two years out of three. I always ended a bit early, but actually I’ve got my diploma from there. They were very sweet to me – well, I don’t know how sweet they were, but I got to do Glöckner as
my practicum, and Elisabeth as my final exam. Because the last years anyhow are supposed to be very work-related, but that was a good deal.
So you came to Berlin, and how hard was it to start singing in German?
It was very hard. I mean, in my choir time, we did Deutches Requiem, we did Musikverein, so I’d worked with the language and I’ve also sung some classical stuff, Romanzen and so on, Schubert, Schumann stuff.
So I had a feeling for the language, and it’s not so different from Swedish, they’re both Germanic languages, so it worked better than I thought. But it was really scary there, because you have 1600 German people
sitting in the audience, and you’re supposed to do dialogues, theatre scenes, you know? And that’s totally scary in the beginning, when you have no idea what you’re saying, more or less.
What was it like the first time you went on as Phoebus?
That was a big thing. I remember, I looked at this huge house at the Potsdamer Platz, and thought, “Man, and we’re playing the lead part here!” I mean, that’s cool. I thought I’d come somewhere then. That was sweet, I guess.
How was performing in Glöckner there different from the shows you did in Gothenburg?
It’s so big, this German industry, what goes on with the musicals, it’s something amazing. And also, we had 16 different nationalities in Glöckner, out of 30 people. So that’s a lot. You know, if you start counting…Tonga, Hawaii,
New Zealand, Philippines, Sweden, Norway, the States, Germany, Austria…yeah, everywhere. Russia. That’s cool, you feel really international. And of course, performing eight times a week. I played all shows. And it’s also, I believe it’s
the highest ever written musical score, for Glöckner. It’s really high. If you listen…do you have the CD? The choirs are amazing. The sopranos have a high D for eight bars with a fermato, and the first tenors as well.
In the prologue. That’s some hard stuff to sing. And we had a fantastic cast, I must say.