Garðar Thór Cortes

Garðar Thór Cortes, born in Reykjavík, is an Icelandic tenor of Icelandic and English parentage.

Early life

Cortes was born into a musical family. His father, Garðar Cortes Snr., was a world-class tenor who founded the Icelandic Opera, the Reykjavík School of Singing and the Reykjavík Symphony Orchestra. According to Cortes, his father had the same stature as as Pavarotti and Domingo, and once he was ill when he was performing in Oslo Domingo stepped in for him. "He sang the main spinto tenor roles, including Caravadossi [from Tosca], Otello, Alfredo [La Traviata] and Canio [Pagliacci]. He'd go away to sing Otello in Helsinki and he'd be there for several weeks, and he became so homesick he couldn't do it, so he didn't go as far as he should have and stopped."^[1] His English mother, Krystyna, was a concert pianist who studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. His sister Nanna is an operatic soprano, while his younger brother Aron is studying to become a baritone. When commitments permit, the Cortes children perform in the chorus when their father is conducting an opera.

Cortes spent six months at a Hertfordshire private school in England when he was aged nine and 11. He insists that there was never any pressure on him to become a singer. "At home, mum was always playing piano and dad was singing. 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."

At 13 he won the lead role in the Icelandic TV series Nonni and Manni, which was filmed in Iceland, Norway and England and was highly successful in Europe. Cortes got the part because he could speak English and ride horses bareback: "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." Actress Einar Orn Einarsson, who played Manni, remains Cortes's best friend.

Soon after he turned 18, Cortes 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." He spent four years at his father’s school in Reykjavík and then won a scholarship to the Hochschule, or University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, but left after six months to study privately with the controversial Pole, Andrei Orlowitz, in Copenhagen. For the next five years he 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.

In 1999, Cortes won the lead role of Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, in The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre in the London's West End. It was in this role that he discovered his ability to sing high notes. "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."

However, when invited to extend his contract, Cortes declined. "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 opera course at the Royal Academy of Music, where both his sister Nanna and mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins were at the time. After leaving the Academy, Cortes worked all over Europe playing lead tenor roles in operas by Verdi, Rossini and Donizetti in opera houses in Germany and Scandinavia,^[1] and singing Mendelssohn quartets with his sister at Carnegie Hall.

Professional singing career

Cortes was approached by Einar Bárðarson, manager of Icelandic girl band Nylon, who suggested that he make a record like Andrea Bocelli or Josh Groban. 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 Cortes, Bárðarson and Bo Halldorsson – the "Frank Sinatra of Iceland" – to best show off his voice. The record turned out to be the fastest-selling ever in Iceland, going double platinum in three months.

His debut concert in Reykjavík in 2002, where he was joined by Katherine Jenkins, was a triumph. Cortes returned the favour as a guest performer during Jenkins’ autumn tour in 2006. He was hailed for his commanding performances of Puccini's aria "Nessun Dorma" and widely admired for his brooding good looks. His single "Luna" reached number two on the Icelandic online music charts.

Cortes's ambition is to sing Otello at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.

Cortes's debut album, Cortes, is due to be released on 16 April 2007.

Discography

Albums

Cortes (2007).

Singles

Luna.

Personal life

Cortes loves to watch movies – "everything from slushy romantic comedies to shoot 'em up cop thrillers" – and to spend time with his actress fiancée.^[1]

Trivia

Cortes is one of the less than 5% of Icelanders who have surnames. Although his maternal grandfather was Polish and the family is a mix of Danish, English, Icelandic, Italian, Spanish and Swedish, they do not know how and where the family name "Cortes" comes from.^[2]

Cortes speaks fluent English, and at home members of his family converse in a mixture of Icelandic and English – often in the same sentence.^[2]

He was voted sexiest man in Iceland twice in one year.^[2]

Quotations

"The best piece of advice I was given was by my first teacher. 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."^[2]

"Even though he told me it was difficult. I still wanted to pursue this road. But looking back, you realise he was right, it is bloody difficult! Excuse the language." – on his father's advice about the pitfalls of a musical career.^[1]

"I don't want to go too far down the pop side because then I think I would lose credibility in the classical world. If the album [Cortes] does well, hopefully I could use that to my advantage, but I'm a classical opera singer – that's what I do, that's what I am."^[1]