We caught up with the brilliant and insightful opera singer Rafael Moras a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rafael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on what you do as a professional opera singer?

Hi everybody! My name is Rafael Moras and I am a professional opera singer based in Houston, Texas, originally from San Antonio. My life as a tenor (that’s the operatic voice type I belong to—lots of high notes!) means I’ve been fortunate to travel the world and work with giants of the musical world like Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, opera tenor legend Plácido Domingo, prolific conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and giant of the opera world (and now director too) soprano Denyce Graves. I love being on stage, not just for the singing and acting but also for the opportunity to chat and connect with an audience off-the-cuff and spontaneously. I’m a National YoungArts Competition Winner and United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts in Classical Voice, and I’ve sung in the Semi-Finals and Grand Finals of the Metropolitan Opera of New York’s National Council Auditions (now known as the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition), a major, nationwide competition for young opera singers. I’ve also been named an Operalia World Opera Competition Quarterfinalist, received the Richard Tucker Fund Award from the Santa Fe Opera after singing in their prestigious Apprentice Program for Singers for two summers, and I’ve been fortunate to sing with a number of other major opera houses including Utah Opera, Arizona Opera, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and (soon!) Seattle Opera. I got my undergraduate degree in voice from UTSA and completed my Master’s at Rice University’s prestigious Shepherd School of Music in Houston. I received an invitation to join the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at LA Opera right out of grad school, and it was near the end of two wonderful years there that I started my career as a freelance operatic tenor in earnest, going on my first tour with Chris Botti shortly thereafter and starting a career that I’m grateful to say has taken me all over the world as an opera singer. I’ve sung with opera companies all over the United States, and my touring with Chris and his band has also led me around the world to four different continents, including most recently Asia. I’ve sung many of the great operatic tenor roles that folks may know from their famous melodies being quoted in films and television: Alfredo in “La traviata,” the Duke in “Rigoletto,” Rodolfo in “La bohème,” Don José in “Carmen.” But I’ve also had a blast singing some entirely new roles in brand-new operas for the first time, including Father Matías in Houston Grand Opera’s “El milagro del recuerdo.” At the moment I’m making my Seattle Opera debut as Tariq in the world premiere of “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” a beautiful opera adaptation of best-selling author and humanitarian Khaled Hosseini’s beloved novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” I’ve sung with symphonies around the world including the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchstra of Venezuela, the LA Phil at the famous Hollywood Bowl, and the Houston Symphony on a number of occasions.

We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

My first exposure to opera (and a huge part of what eventually led me down the path as an opera singer) was through my parents, who are both originally from Mexico (my father is from Córdoba, Veracruz and my mother is from Monterrey, Nuevo León). They grew up loving zarzuela (the Spanish equivalent of opera or musical theater from Spain) and the giants of Mexican song, such as Agustín Lara and María Grever, and even though they never pressured me into a music career, their love for that music was infectious and I was really taken by it when I was little. My mother would listen to opera as she painted (she’s an award-winning painter with an international career), and my father (a celebrated professor of industrial engineering) would play melodies from famous zarzuelas on the piano and keyboard accordion. Those early experiences inspired me to sign up for middle school choir, and it wasn’t long before choir became the center of my life as a student, all the way through high school. I soon realized enjoyed singing a lot and I was blessed with wonderful music teachers from the time I started (and to this day). Wherever I could, I’d work hard to be a better performer, and that sort of led to my being named first chair in the super-competitive Texas All-State Choir competitions four years in a row and eventually singing Tony in my high school’s production of West Side Story. Those two experiences completely blew me away with how much fun I had, spending countless afternoons, evenings, and mornings training and rehearsing in the choir room and at home.

Around the same time I was also discovering that I loved the experience of being on stage in a concert as a soloist. I’d ask my Dad (way before I was even set on pursuing a life as an opera singer) if he would play with me on the accordion or piano as I sang songs like Agustín Lara’s “Granada” or the famous zarzuela aria “No puede ser,” and he and I would have a blast performing for family and friends and in my high school’s talent shows, chatting with the audience spontaneously throughout, and eventually giving full recitals together.

My senior year in high school I was named a National Winner and United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts in Classical Voice in the YoungArts organization’s national talent search and arts competition (which led to my meeting Plácido Domingo for the first time), and it was this sort of confluence of different experiences that really convinced me to pursue a vocation in music seriously.

I distinctly remember thinking, at two key moments (once after singing a performance as Tony in “West Side Story” in full costume and beneath the lights alongside the roar of the orchestra, and the other after telling a story to the audience about a song I was about to perform and responding to their laughter and applause and conversation): “I’m here with the audience, and with all my friends in the show with me, and every performance is different and anything can happen—this is a BLAST!” I had never dreamed of being an opera singer as a little kid (I wanted more than anything to be a comic book artist), but by this point I had decided this was what I wanted to pursue in life.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As an opera singer, I love being able to pour out my heart within the context of a playing a character in the story of an opera, but, as I previously mentioned, I also absolutely love to “break the fourth wall” and chat with an audience during performances. Jokes, anecdotes, stories about the music I’m singing (especially if they’re in a language many in the audience may not speak) and what they mean to me personally—I love speaking with the public off-the-cuff and spontaneously, and it’s something I’ve grown to enjoy more and more after observing over the years firsthand how Chris Botti does it so beautifully in each of his concerts. Because while there’s nothing quite like the thrill of the costumes, glowing lights, beautifully designed sets, and singing with the grandeur of a full orchestra without a microphone, I also really love being able to just chat with the audience and hear about what they thought of a show. I love hearing people laugh and gasp and clap in real time, and I love being aware of that and responding to it in real time.

The other thing I love most about being an opera singer is the collaborative aspect, because it’s just so incredibly fun and exhilarating to make music and art with your friends. A good stage partner and collaborator is always “in the moment” with you, so that if you try something a little different one night (within reason, of course!), you both have the trust in each other that you’ll really be able to respond to one another’s energy. And oftentimes that’s when the most memorable and exciting performances happen.

As I mentioned before, I’m just a few weeks out from singing the role of Tariq in the first ever opera adaptation of best-selling author and humanitarian Khaled Hosseini (“The Kite Runner”)’s beloved novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns” at Seattle Opera. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, to help bring to life a character (the young love interest Tariq) that originated in another story-telling medium, and my hope is that the audience can come away affected and touched in a way that does justice to how deeply loved this story is by the legions of fans who have read it.

But every night that we perform, the experience will be different, despite the story we’re telling being based on a hugely successful and beloved novel. And that’s what I love about live performances—it’s never the same! And I really cherish that.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

A big part of what sets opera and any live musical performance apart from a recorded concert or show is that for all the spinning plates going on at a given moment (the singers and/or band on stage, the orchestra, the conductor, the backstage crew, the costumes and artists who are coordinating them, and much, much more), the audience itself is 100% a participant in the action! Your energy as an audience feeds us, and we in turn are able to pour out our hearts even more to share in something that will hopefully be memorable and powerful for everyone present.

And I because of all this, I personally *love* it when I hear someone go beyond just clapping during the applause of a show! Thank *goodness* if someone is moved cry or shout with joy after a particular moment’s moved them in a show!
I think sometimes, certain audiences (and in particular classical audiences) get unfairly pegged as being cold or relatively reserved, and I’m here to tell you, that has not been my universal experience, and we performers love it when a show is packed with audience members that can barely contain their joy and excitement for what they’re experiencing.

The goal of opera and any live performance (as I see it) is to move the audience and stir people’s hearts, so I say, have a great time and don’t be afraid to express when you’ve enjoyed something! We work really hard to put on a good performance and we feed off an audience’s energy, so it’s always wonderful to have that energy returned so we can send it right back with full hearts as performers.

Opera and live music concerts are for everybody, so don’t let preconceived notions keep you away!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rafaelmorastenor.com
• Instagram: @rafaelmorastenor
• Facebook: @rafaelmorastenor
• Youtube: @rafaelmorastenor

Image Credits
Dana Sohm Photography Lynn Lane Photography Bobby Gutierrez Photography Chris Gillett Photography Melissa Taylor Photography Cory Weaver Photography Michael Halbig Photography Diana Dumbadse Photography