Pat and Alfie share a joke as he sings and plays for her. Laughter and song were the norm in the Boe family household

Alfie Boe, 36, the youngest of nine, who went from garage engineer to tenor at the English National Opera, and his mother, Pat, 77

Pat: There are worse things than having a lot of babies. Not having them, for a start. As each of my nine came they were welcomed and I thought they were magical. With every one we became a happier family. Alf is the youngest and he was very, very precious — they all are, but I knew he’d be my last because I was on the menopause when I had him. I just desperately wanted another boy, and I prayed for him. When I got pregnant I knew this was the lad I’d wanted and I knew I was going to call him Alf, after his dad, because I loved him that much.

When I was in the hospital, the doctor said: “You shouldn’t be having all these babies.” And I said: “On your bike!” When I was much younger they told me I shouldn’t have any children at all, because I’d had TB — but we trusted in the good Lord and we couldn’t have done better.

We went from a two-bedroom council house when I had Joseph, John and Anne, to a three-bedroom, where I had Terese, Pauline, Michael and Francis. Then we moved to a four-bed before Maria and Alfred came along. I’m still in that house now. The children are gone, but the love is still there. I feel it when I open the door.

I wasn’t over-strict — we spent more time laughing and singing than anything else ­— but I was organised and there were rules. If their dad came home from work and someone was sat in his chair, they’d jump up. Dad was master of the house and everyone respected that. He was very good to me. I had a washing machine — one of the very best, a Hotpoint top loader — and

I never had to economise on bread and milk. At teatime there was room for everybody — and extras — because as well as all mine we always had their friends. Oh, there were arguments. I can’t remember what they were about, but I didn’t ignore them. After a meal, the baby would be put down and we sorted out whatever problems there were round that table.

When your life is filled with noise and activity and excitement, as mine was, you never imagine the day will come when you’ll be alone. You think it’s going to last a lifetime. But it doesn’t. Even with nine of them, it’s fleeting and it’s gone.

He’s a lovely boy, is Alf. Whether it’s because he’s had so much love showered on him or whether it’s because he was born like that, I don’t know. But he knew he was loved and he’s always had so much to give back because of it.

I knew Alf had something special. I knew long before anyone else, but I didn’t know what would happen. Sometimes it takes time and you have to sit back and advise and love and care, and this is what I did. And this is what his dad did. Alfie hadn’t just talent, he had the willingness to work and keep at it, and that’s what singled him out. Because opera’s different to your run-of-the-mill music. It takes a heavy toll. You have to train, you have to keep fit.

He suffers terrible nerves before a performance, but it’s because he demands the best from himself that he never gives half measures. He puts every ounce of energy he has into everything he does.

He was forever singing and dancing on the back patio when he was a little boy, and I’d get the cine camera out and film him. At three years old he’d carry his sister’s tennis racket around. I’d say: “Sing Mull of Kintyre for me, Alf, while I’m cooking the dinner.” And he’d say, very solemnly: “I’m tuning my guitar.” He had us in stitches.

And he’s the same now — singing and laughing and joking. He loves company and he loves people. He likes things to go smoothly, he likes everyone to be happy, and he’ll go out of his way to make them happy. He’s like his dad in that way.

But life is a lot more complicated for him than it was for me. He’s working here and his wife and his baby are in the States, and it’s hard for him to be away from them. I see the strain in his face. But what can you do? It’s what he’s chosen and they’ll have to make it work.

We do a lot of chatting on the computer — the whole family keeps in contact that way. If it comes into my head to ring one of them, I will, and sometimes it’s just the right moment — one of us needs something from the other — and it’s beneficial to both of us.

I let all my children go a long time ago, and that’s the hardest part, especially with the boys, because they tend not to come back unless their wives bring them. But Alfie’s wife is beautiful. He’s chosen well. If you love your children, they’ll love you in return. Mine love me, I know they do, and because of that I’ve been able to send them on their way happily.

Alfie: Every Sunday when I was growing up, we’d all sit round the dinner table listening to my dad’s favourite tenor, Richard Tauber. But I couldn’t wait to leave the table.

It wasn’t until years later, when I started to study music, that all these memories came flooding back and I really connected with it. Both my grandmothers could sing and all my brothers and sisters have good voices. I used to sing along to my brother’s Maria Callas records when I was little, and then when my voice broke I’d impersonate Pavarotti in the front room when no one was in the house.

But there was never any sense within the family that singing was something you could do for a living. Not because my mum didn’t believe in me — she loved to hear me sing — it was just that nobody knew how you went from singing in the front room, just because you loved it, to making a career out of it. There was absolutely no encouragement at school either — careers day consisted of the army, the fishing board and the local priest coming round.

I ended up working as a trainee engineer at the TVR garage in Blackpool. A customer came in one day and heard me singing along to West Side Story on the radio and he said: “The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in London is auditioning for new members. You should try.”

I didn’t give it a lot of thought. I’d only been to London once in my life on a school trip and I couldn’t imagine why they’d see anyone like me anyway. But that night I was sitting having my tea and reading the theatrical newspaper The Stage, and an advert for the D’Oyly Carte company jumped out at me.

I took the day off work, went down to London and walked into this audition full of women in ball gowns and guys in dark suits. I was dressed in jeans and my big boots — I looked like a lumberjack — and there was only one song I could sing, one of my dad’s favourites by Lehar called You Are My Heart’s Delight. But I got through and they took me on for a national tour. My mum was over the moon when she heard. My dad was in tears. It was a moment I’ll never forget because I felt I’d achieved it for them.

If you ask Mum, “How did you afford to keep nine kids?” I guarantee that she’ll say: “God provided.” But the reality is we lived a very, very simple life. She asked for nothing and she and my father went without themselves so we could have what we needed. Over Christmas our house always used to smell of paint because my dad used to make toys for us. He’d lock himself in the shed and build doll’s houses and trucks and bikes, and my mum would paint them. Farah trousers and Lacoste deck shoes were all the rage at school and

I didn’t have any of those. But my mum bought me an Adidas tracksuit, which was hideous, because she knew I wanted one so badly. She’d changed a lot by the time I came along. The house was a tightly run ship and she had more time to spend with me. But we were all given the same values — respect for older people, and treating each other well. And that’s something I’ve tried to stick to.

With every child people used to ask her: “When are you going to stop?” We’re strong Irish Catholics, but it had nothing to do with religion; she and my dad just wanted a huge family. What I remember most was laughter. Everyone was on a high.

In the holidays you’d come down in the morning and sit out in the garden and eat ice lollies my mum had made. I remember food being cooked all the time and dogs running around. It was a really happy household.

Mum’s changed a lot since my father died. Her world has been rocked. She likes simplicity now. She likes to be in the background. She was married to my dad for 47 years, and without him her confidence has gone. He was a simple guy: he worked at the ICI plant in Thornton in Lancashire for 30 years, retired at 55 with health problems, probably due to the chemicals, and died at 63.

My dad never complained, never came home and said: “I’ve had a hell of a day.” He was such a joyous guy, always full of fun, I don’t remember him ever starting an argument. I think because of him it was the norm in our house to give rather than to take.

I’d do anything for my brothers and sisters and I love them all to pieces, but I can’t deny there are things that drive me crazy, and I know they’d say the same about me. But that’s family. You accept each other’s failings. I’ve stayed closest to my eldest sister, Annie. She’s a darling. You can tell her anything and she’ll be there to give you a hug or sort it out. She practically raised me and she’s still like a second mother to me. Maybe since making records and doing the odd TV show, some of them might think I’m not the same. They don’t say anything, but I can tell.

My wife, Sarah, is American and America is my home now, but not all of them came over for my wedding, which upset me a lot and it upset my mum. Most of them still live around the Lancashire area where we were brought up, and I think change scares them. In some ways Mum has grown a heck of a lot more than they have. She’s moved with the times. She’s been to New York to see me on Broadway, in Baz Luhrmann’s La Bohème, and she’s been to Salt Lake City to stay with Sarah and me. And I make the effort to go home to Fleetwood to see her as often as I can. There’s such a competition to be my mother’s top dog. But there’s no top dog in the family, she treats us all the same.

I love to work, that’s the thing, and I’m just so grateful to have been given the chance. I get that from my dad. I knew if I wanted to be an opera singer I had to take it the whole way, learn the languages and get my voice trained. That was a long haul and it did separate me from my family — physically, emotionally, in every way possible. But I don’t have airs and graces. The truth is, when I get up on stage, I sing my heart out and I give everything I’ve got, but when I come off, I’m just plain Alfie Boe from Fleetwood.

• Alfie Boe’s CD of Franz Lehar songs, Love Was a Dream, is out now. He sings in Katya Kabanova (March), and in The Pearl Fishers (June/July), with ENO at the London Coliseum

Source: The Sunday Times (7th Feb 2010)

Hi Everyone, Alfie here in San Francisco – at the airport !

Its New Years Day and I played a concert here last night with San Francisco Symphony, to see The New Year in.

Everyone had a wonderful time and I enjoyed it so much – thank you to the people here, the company, the orchestra and Maestro Tovey for such a great evening.

I’m flying out today but wanted to wish you all a very healthy, prosperous and safe New Year.  Lets hope that the next decade brings peace and happiness to you all.

 See you in 2010 I hope,

 Lots of love

 Alfie x

Get closer to live recording with this insider look from singer Alfie Boe as he explains why this recording was so enjoyable to make.  Alfie’s new album ‘Franz Lehar: Love was a Dream’ was released this week…

  I have to say that recording my latest album ‘Franz Lehar: Love was a Dream’ was the most enjoyable recording sessions I have ever been involved in.

The studio was the stage of The Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. Normally when recording the voice you get separated from the orchestra but in this case I had the opportunity to stand and record my vocal in the middle of the string section. In my opinion this creates a solid connection with the players and forms a unity of sound. Also having the live connection with your conductor makes a huge difference. There were moments in the sessions when I really picked up on the melody of the instruments surrounding me and began to really understand their contribution to the score.

The Orchestra of Scottish Opera were amazing, the control they had with the delicate musical structures and simplicity of sound, for the Lehar score, was perfection. I really hope we can work together again in the future.

The side of recording that the listener tends to forget is the sound engineer, and what a guy we had at the helm, this is person that brings it together in the studio. They have to be able to pick out the slightest mistake, or if something doesn’t sound quite right, they also need to have great musicianship.

I hope you all enjoy the album and I am looking forward to performing this material in my concerts in the near future. Big thanks to all at Linn Records for giving me this opportunity to record such beautiful music. So here’s to my management team Neil and Jill Ferris, my agent Heulwen Keyte, my conductor Michael Rosewell, a superb engineer and producer, Philip Hobbs, the Leader Anthony Moffat and players of The Orchestra of Scottish Opera, the design team and photographers and all involved in the production of this album.

Last but not least many thanks to The City of Glasgow, hope to be back soon.

Alfie x  

Source: Linn Records

My taxi driver had it just right: “An international opera singer, here? Give it a rest.” We were in Fleetwood, Lancashire, in an estate of ordinary homes, inside one of which was Britain’s brightest operatic treasure waiting for the Sunday Express.

Even though his latest album of Franz Lehar’s melodies, Love Was A Dream, will soon be flying off the shelves, when he opened his front door tenor Alfi e Boe did nothing at all to show that he was a global star, in his well worn T-shirt and jeans. Only the trademark hairstyle, with its distinctive centre parting, hinted at his celebrity. We packed together in the small, cosy home, with Joey the budgie and blue and white Wedgwood in the back room, while the even smaller front dining room where we settled to talk, traditionally displayed the family glassware. It is also packed with artist’s gear, with Boe’s neat, Sunday painter’s abstracts scattered about. We cleared a couple of chairs and, mugs of tea in hand, settled down to talk about the family life which still draws him back to Fleetwood. “One Christmas,” said the youngest of nine children of Irish parents Patricia and Alfred, all packed into this three-bedroom semi, “we had 40 nephews and nieces and their friends for dinner. This room just wasn’t large enough,” he went on, ignoring my slack-jawed bemusement, “so my father knocked a hole in the wall and put a table right through to the back.

It was still a bit of a squeeze but we all managed to fit in.” What on earth was this to do with Lehar, Puccini and Verdi?

“Over there we still have dad’s record collection,” he points out. Boe senior, 63, a shop floor worker in the local ICI factory, died of cancer 12 years ago but like most working men, he had an eclectic taste in music.

It was slowly dawning on me that far from attempting to divert me from my specialist subject, the art of opera, Boe, with his enthusiastic rush of personal history of a no frills, overcrowded family community both intimate and loving, was graphically illustrating the base upon which his international stardom is built.

“It’s all still there,” he goes on, “Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller, Kathleen Ferrier, Richard Tauber, Mario Lanza and Gigli.” Franz Lehar was Dad’s particular favourite and though young Boe itched to get away to football practise, those boyhood years sitting round the family dining table soaking up songs from The Merry Widow and The Land Of Smiles resulted in Love Was A Dream.

Finally connected with Boe’s thinking, I pursued the family theme and told Boe of a friend’s young children who were captivated by a track from the album played on breakfast radio. “You can’t engineer that sort of reaction,” he observes, “it either happens or it doesn’t.

“It’s nice to know that something in my voice makes people happy. Thank God it’s working. Perhaps your friend’s family could sense my own roots are part of me whether I’m at New York’s Lincoln Center, the Royal Albert Hall or on the radio. I’m still Alfie Boe from Fleetwood, you see what you pay for.”

He may have convinced me but I could hear the sniggers of scorn if the West End opera art tarts, who make a career out of snobbery, read these words.

“There’s a lot of protection in the classical music world,” is Boe’s diplomatic way of putting it. “It’s like a kid with a bag of sweets, people don’t want to share but classical music is for everyone. The only thing I know about opera is that I can understand and sing it.

“I’m trying to train myself to be the best I can and educate a new audience to enjoy my music.”

Such a pioneering path is often called crossover, lucratively trodden by, among others, Russell Watson and Kathryn Jenkins but sternly rejected by Boe. “I am not a crossover artist,” he insists. “It’s not good for the voice for an opera singer to break suddenly into a pop song.

“When I did the Pearl Fishers duet with Michael Ball at the Proms last year I said to him sing it in your own voice, don’t pretend you are an opera singer as it sounds terrible.” I was there that night and I can confi rm Ball did as he was told. Boe still wiped the fl oor with him. Nevertheless a number of critics dismiss Boe’s voice as too light and transparent to make an international impact. Michael Rosewell, director of opera at Boe’s alma mater, the Royal College of Music, and conductor on the
new album disagrees. “Boe’s voice is just getting into its stride,” he says. “At 36 years old it’s now starting to work properly.”

Boe agreed: “The older you get the harder you work to hone the technique and refi ne the tone. I’m only just starting on my real voice. “I can’t deny I’m now in a different world but it was really hard at first when I left home at 19 and joined the D’Oyley Carte Opera Company.

I spent a lot of time in London sleeping at other people’s houses and on a Hyde Park bench but I was determined not to be forced to go back home.

“I’ve left Fleetwood behind but I cannot stay away.” Central to Boe’s new life is a family of his own. He met his American wife, actress Sarah, in San Francisco in 2001. “We were both rehearsing in the same building and I saw her sitting in the coffee bar,” he remembers. “It was just like a corny song, I was totally smitten and knew instantly she was the woman I was going to marry.”

They tied the knot in 2004 and four years later produced baby Grace, now seven months old. “We have a house in
Salt Lake City, Utah but we’re looking for a home in London,” he says.

Her husband soon put Sarah through the Boe experience. “I brought her here for a weekend with the whole family. It was a shock at first but Sarah can give as much as she gets. Sadly, dad wasn’t around but Sarah and my mother hit it off at once.

“I want to be recognised as someone who changed people’s view of classical music. I love bringing people here to
my home so that when people hear me sing they know where my roots are.”

He is living proof that wherever you start in the social pecking order talent, hard work and discipline can produce
job satisfaction and food for the soul. If anyone in the world possesses it, Alfie Boe has the real X factor.

Alfie Boe’s album Franz Lehar: Love Was A Dream is released tomorrow on Linn Records. ‘I want to be the best I can be and educate a new audience’

Source: Sunday Express

Linn’s chief producer and audio consultant Philip Hobbs shares a unique insight into the making of “Franz Lehár: Love was a Dream”, the new album by Britain’s number one tenor, Alfie Boe.  The album was recorded at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in May 2009 and features The Orchestra of Scottish Opera directed by Michael Rosewell.   As producer and engineer on this recording, Philip is able to give a first-hand account of the recording process…

“Part of the challenge of making albums like the Lehár album is that there is so much going on in every bar and so little time to get everything right. If you listen, for instance, to the violin solo line in many of the tracks, there is something approaching a concerto going most of the time, with fiendishly difficult high writing where the smallest blemish of intonation will be immediately obvious.  And of course   the times when the solo violin has his most difficult corners are also the points when Alfie is going full throttle.

As a result it is traditional to do this sort of record in two stages: the first stage is to get the orchestra’s ‘backing’ right, with the singer in a separate room singing along, but without the orchestra being able to hear him.  This orchestral track is then edited to remove any orchestral imperfections and then the singer is brought back into the studio and made to sing along to his own backing track.  The results can be very effective and it is certainly a much less risky way to work, but there is a real danger that the results can be a bit soulless, since the orchestra doesn’t get the chance to react to the singer, and the singer in the end has to match his performance to the existing backing track. 

So with Alfie’s Lehár album we decided to take the big risk and work ‘as live’. Rather than in a separate room, Alfie stood right in the middle of the orchestra between the second violins and the violas, a few feet in front of the conductor.  The risk is simple: if Alfie goes for his big note at the end of a phrase and the orchestra is out of tune or not quite together, then there’s no option but to do it again.  So everyone has to be completely on their mettle, fully concentrated and focussed not only on their own performance but  of everyone round about them. 

I had never worked with Alfie and so for me this was a huge leap in the dark, but I have to say the risk was well worth taking. Alfie is, of course, one of the most fantastically reliable singers I have ever had the pleasure to work with  – an utterly bullet-proof technique, so on the few occasions where we did need to cover the same section a few times, there was never any doubt that he would nail it every time until the band got it right.  But the orchestra was superb:  people assume that orchestras are all sort of the same, but good opera orchestras have a different  skill: the ability to with a singer through all the minor points of flexibility of rhythm that makes the difference between a really musical interpretation and something that could have been generated by a machine. With a brilliant conductor in Michael Rosewell, who understands this repertoire from the ground up and who has  known  Alfie’s voice from his early days at college, what we ended up with was something which sounds completely alive.”

About Philip Hobbs…

Philip Hobbs travels the world regularly, making world-class recordings for Linn as well as other labels.  He is our chief producer, audio consultant and top acoustician.

Recently described in a Japanese Magazine as “the man with the golden ears”, he certainly does have a lot of special tricks and skills in the recording world that James Bond would be proud of!

Philip first started at Linn over 27 years ago and has been one of Linn Records’ top engineers since the label began.

Source: Linn Records

It was as near a homecoming as the Fylde’s local hero Alfie Boe was going to get, singing the part of Alfredo Germont in the latest Welsh National Opera staging of La Traviata.

I doubt if the Alfie Boe fan club went home disappointed. The legend has it (quite rightly) that he started his life as a motor mechanic, but do not forget that since then he has been through the mill at the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio.

Boe and his agents may have promoted him as a crossover singer equally at home in popular music, but he can deliver when it counts on the operatic stage in full measure.

As for the opera itself, the name La Traviata might imply that there is only one main character, Violetta Valery, the lost woman of the translated title.

In truth, though, a triangular relationship lies at the opera’s heart, that between Alfredo and the courtesan Violetta, and also between him and his father Giorgio. Plus, to some degree, that between Giorgio and Violetta.

It all sounds a bit complicated and it is, as the older Germont tries to extract his son from the arms of Violetta.

WNO’s production had three super singers in the main roles: Alfie Boe, plus the Greek soprano Myrto Papatanasiu as Violetta.

She has sung the part several times in Italy, but this was her British debut, and an encouraging one it was too: a tall and willowy figure creating a capricious Violetta.

The South American baritone Dario Solari was Giorgio, again sung with ease and security.

Yet, for all that, I missed that vital spark between the three that could have lifted a good production to the ranks of true excellence. One might ask why WNO decided to ditch its fairly recent 1930s-set Traviata, but there is no doubt that the new version, which first saw the light with Scottish Opera last year, is a visual feast to be treasured.

Source: Liverpool Daily Post

Tenor Alfie Boe can’t wait to get back to Liverpool to appear in the Welsh National Opera’s new production of La Traviata. 

Because not only is the singing star a big fan of the city (he told me if he moved back to the north west it would be to Liverpool), but he’s a big BIG fan of LFC too.

Apparently it all started when he was a young boy in Fleetwood in the late 1970s and all his friends turned up to school PE lessons in Manchester United kits.

He told me: “My mum made me a sports bag to take my PE kit in, and I remember the first game I watched it was Liverpool v Man United, and Liverpool thrashed them.

“So I decided that was the team I wanted to support and so she bought me a red bag and painted in white letters ‘Liverpool FC’ on it. Because we couldn’t afford a proper kitbag.

“And so that was how I started supporting Liverpool. I’ve stood firm. You can’t go off and change you’re allegiance, you’ve got to stick with your team.”

Everton-supporting opera lovers shouldn’t hold this allegiance against Alfie though when he arrives in the city later this month with the WNO which presents La Traviata and Madam Butterfly in tandem at the Empire.

Source: Liverpool Echo

Many thanks for the Birthday Greetings,  didn’t get to party as I performed on stage that night in La Traviata but it’s nice to be able to sing for an audience on my birthday. 

Thanks for all your support and I hope you like the new album, which is out in November. 

Much Love Alfie x

If you hear a touch of Verdi or Wagner on the production line at Halewood or Ellesmere Port don’t ignore it – you could be working next to the new Alfie Boe

The Fleetwood-born tenor’s musical talents were first spotted when he was heard singing arias while working as an apprentice at the TVR factory near Blackpool.

More than a decade later, and a classical artist with several albums and a Tony award to his name, Alfie is returning to the north west this month with the Welsh National Opera, singing his first Alfredo in the acclaimed David McVicar version of La Traviata.

And it appears the 36-year-old can’t wait to make his first appearance on the Empire stage.

“I’ve never performed at the Empire before but I’ve been at the Phil many times,” he says. “In fact I recorded my second album at the Phil with the RLPO.

“I have a huge connection with Liverpool. It’s a great place, and if I ever moved back to the north west it would be to Merseyside.”

Alfie also admits to being a Liverpool fan – a football allegiance first forged at school in Fleetwood when all his classmates were cheering on rivals Man Utd.

But for now it’s opera which is bringing him to the city.

La Traviata, which also stars Greek soprano Myrto Papatanasiu as Violetta and Dario Solari as Germont, comes to the Empire from October 21-24 in tandem with Puccini’s Madam Butterfly.

“I’m loving it,” says Alfie. “The WNO is a wonderful company and I’ve made some lovely friends – and if I say this they’ll employ me again!

“It’s my fifth production with David (McVicar) and it’s wonderful being involved in his shows. He brings new life to it and makes the story very clear.”

Added to which, the WNO’s pricing structure means some audience members will only have to part with £5 to see some top opera.

Meanwhile it’s a busy time for the tenor. As well as La Traviata next month he releases his new album, Love Was A Dream, recorded with the Royal Scottish Opera and paying tribute to Viennese composer Franz Lehar.

“He wrote so many famous numbers,” says Alfie. “People may not know him but they will recognise the music.”

Source: Liverpool Echo

Opera tenor Alfie Boe is finally realising his dream of singing on the Liverpool Empire stage.

The Fleetwood-born star, who is playing Alfredo in the Welsh National Opera’s La Traviata this autumn, has long held an ambition to perform at the theatre.

He says: “One place in particular that I’ve wanted to play for a long time is the Liverpool Empire.

“I’ve never had the chance – I’ve been inside and seen a few shows myself and I’ve always wanted to play on that stage.

“My heart still lies in the North of England. I’m a Liverpool fan so I like the city a lot – I’m going to stick around for that week.”

This is Boe’s WNO debut as well as the first time he has sung the role of Alfredo.

His musical talent was discovered while he was singing arias at the same time as working as an apprentice car mechanic.

After a spell touring with opera company D’Oyly Carte, he trained at the Royal College of Music.

He then joined the Royal Opera House Young Artists programme and won a Tony Award for his performance in Baz Luhrmann’s La Boheme on Broadway.

Verdi’s three-act opera is being directed by David McVicar, with whom Boe has worked with in the past.

He says: “He’s a great director who really tries to pull the reality out of the piece.
“As a singer you have to be prepared to open yourself up fully to his direction and be willing to try things out that he wants to put across – you really have to throw yourself into it 100%.”

Based on the novel La dame aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas fils, La Traviata tells the story of doomed courtesan Violetta (sung by Greek sophrano Myrto Papatanasiu) and her young lover Alfredo.

Boe says the encouragement of his colleagues at TVR, the factory he worked in as a mechanic, helped him take the leap into the world of singing and he would encourage anyone with a similar dream to do the same.

“One piece of advice I would give to any budding singer is to get your voice properly trained make sure your technique is solid,” he says.

“To have the opportunity to go on the road and do something you love and make your hobby your career is fantastic – do it.”

LA TRAVIATA is at the Empire Theatre on October 21 and 23. WNO is also bringing Madam Butterfly to the theatre on October 22 and 24.

Source: Liverpool Daily Post