Soloist took an unconventional path to success

Marcello Giordani will sing for the pope at Yankee Stadium today and in "Les Troyens" at Symphony Hall starting Tuesday. (Duane Morris)

Marcello Giordani hasn't had the swift rise to fame enjoyed by other singers of his generation. The tenor's ascent has been more deliberate, and it hasn't been without setbacks. Yet after 22 years, his rich, powerful voice, blazing high notes, and artistic versatility have landed him at the top of the operatic world. He has a prominent spot on the Metropolitan Opera's roster and the praise and confidence of its music director, James Levine.

"I'm at the peak, in the maturity of my vocality," says Giordani by phone from his New York home. His voice is warmly accented, his English fluent and peppered with a few idiosyncratic touches. "I started slowly, in the old-fashioned way, and grew to the point I am at now. I have everything I want to do in terms of repertoire and working with great conductors. I think I deserve it, after 22 years."

His level of success would probably allow Giordani - who sings the role of Aeneas in the Boston Symphony Orchestra's concert performances of Berlioz's "Les Troyens" beginning Tuesday - to play the part of the prima donna. Instead, he comes off as a serious artist, happy with his progress yet aware that new challenges always lie ahead. Words like "privilege" and "humility" crop up when he talks about his career. They're not words you immediately associate with most singers, but for Giordani they seem to fit.

That might have something to do with the untraditional path his career has taken. Born in Sicily, he went to work in a bank when he left school. The work bored him, and at 19 he decided that he wanted to be a singer. "I never studied in a conservatory," he says. "I studied with private teachers," first in Sicily and then in Milan. While he regrets never having learned an instrument, "in the matter of learning technique, I think I did it the right way."

He made his professional debut at Spoleto, in Verdi's "Rigoletto," and his American debut came two years later. His voice, with its gorgeous high register, seemed perfect for the bel canto repertoire. Yet for all Giordani's confidence that he'd been well trained, his career hit a roadblock in 1994 when he found himself in the midst of what he calls a "vocal crisis." "For the first 10 years, I always sing bel canto. The problem was, I was not technically ready." He was so focused on building and sustaining his career that he'd ended up pushing his voice too hard. Or, as he puts it, "I was considering the voice like it was my enemy."

Giordani is philosophical about the experience now, to the point of feeling lucky that it came so early in his career, before he was well known. "I kind of avoided making people say, 'Oh, his career is finished, it's over.' "

He and his family moved to New York so that Giordani could work with renowned vocal coach Bill Schuman, whom he credits with saving his career. They went back to basics and reconsidered every facet of his singing. "We worked six months, every single day," he says. "In each note, we tried to make the vocal cords function in a better way."

Now, he says, "I never fight with my voice. We wake up together, we walk together, we spend 24 hours together. The voice is my friend." And he's considerably more relaxed about his profession and future. "I changed the philosophy of life. After this crisis, I have different ideas of career, which is a blessing, a privilege that we have."

Since weathering the storm, Giordani has gradually branched out into the heavier spinto roles of Verdi and Puccini, yet he retains a bel canto approach to them. "I'm able to shape the voice in some passages, singing with open sound, open vowels, which is the bel canto way."

He has also become a regular at the Met, a place he now calls "my artistic home." He's developed a special bond with Levine, from whom he has learned a lot, musically and otherwise. "The first thing I learn is the humanity, the humility, and the anti-diva that maestro [Levine] is," Giordani says. "He never acts like he's the dictator in the pit. He's part of the evening. He wants success for everybody."

One of the pillars of their collaboration has been a wide-ranging exploration of Berlioz's music, which dates back to a 1999 performance of "La Damnation de Faust" in Munich. Giordani made his Tanglewood debut last summer in the same work, which he repeated on the orchestra's subsequent European tour. In 2003 he sang the title role in the Met's first production of the early opera "Benvenuto Cellini."

"He's one of my favorite composers," says the tenor. "The way he writes for the voice is unbelievably beautiful and unbelievably dramatic. When you approach the high tessitura, it's well written. It's not like Verdi, making it difficult [for you]." Such a sentiment might be considered heresy for a Sicilian tenor. But, says Giordani, "I really like to be a versatile artist. I don't want to be considered just an Italian tenor singing standard repertoire."

"Les Troyens," for its part, is anything but standard. Especially when the BSO performs both parts of the mammoth opera on May 4, Giordani will need to manage his voice judiciously. "The second part is the most difficult for the tenor, and I have to figure out my stamina. I know I have to be careful through the end of the score.

"But you know," he continues, "I feel very confident, very comfortable, because I know Jimmy Levine will be there. When you have a conductor like that, it makes 95 percent difference for what you're singing."

A little over a year ago, Giordani got an unexpected letter in the mail. It had been sent from the US Supreme Court. "I got a little nervous. I thought, 'Oh my, what I have done?' " It turns out that it was an invitation to perform there, extended by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the court's two big opera fans. (The other is her close friend and ideological opposite, Justice Antonin Scalia.)

It was a bit anxious at first, he says, seeing the nine justices in the front of the room and about 200 members of the court's staff behind them. "But after the first number I sort of relaxed, and I involved the audience to sing with me." He managed to get the members of the court to join him in the venerable "Funiculi, Funicula," which probably counts as a rare show of unity among the justices. "I think they had a great time."

A much higher-profile event is scheduled for today, when Giordani will perform during Pope Benedict XVI's Mass in Yankee Stadium. "For me, being Italian and Catholic, it is a sort of dream. Singing beside him with 60,000 people listening, I will feel so small."

And unlike most concerts, he's actually nervous about this one. "It's really easier singing 'Benvenuto Cellini' than singing in front of the pope, I tell you," he says with a laugh.