Saturday 23 June 2001

Operaman at home on the Fringe

BILL BROWNSTEIN
The Gazette

He calls himself the Kevin Armstrong Band. Granted, he's a big fella, but a
band is generally composed of more than just one member.

Even in this eclectic day and age, Kevin Armstrong stands out. By day, he
studies and performs opera at McGill University. By night, he is a one-man
folk-rock band making the rounds of city clubs and street corners. All the
time, Armstrong is a marketing machine on overdrive.

The setting is the Fringe fest's outdoor stage on the corner of the Main and
Rachel St. Armstrong is set to perform in a few minutes, but business
comes first. He's pushing his disc Untitled One and Second Album. And
he's pushing his official, large and definitely non-designer Kevin Armstrong
underwear. "There's a picture of me where you'll always remember me,"
explains Armstrong, 26. That would be on the crotch of the undies. On the
butt end is Armstrong's Web site address.

This has been a wacky Armstrong week. Along with the opera classes and
the Fringe performances - he can be caught again this afternoon at 2 on
the outdoor stage - Armstrong will be donning his fanciest duds and
singing gospel tomorrow at St. Andrew's-Dominion-Douglas United Church.

"I guess I am different," he declares, while putting his official undies away
and picking up his guitar. "I don't really fit the mold of your typical opera
singer, nor do I fit the mold of your typical rock singer. I don't even fit the
mold of your typical young person. Who else would order spinach pizza?"

He has a point - about the pizza.

But Armstrong's luck could soon change. He just auditioned for a role in
Baz (Moulin Rouge) Luhrman's operatic update of La Boheme, slated to go
to Broadway next year. "That's a long way from Kelowna," says Armstrong,
referring to his hometown roots in B.C.

He moved to Montreal five years ago "to expand my small-town horizons."
It also afforded him the opportunity to earn his bachelor's degree in music
at McGill. He's now pursuing his master's degree in opera performance.

Over the past few years, he's landed roles in such Opera McGill productions
as Les Contes d'Hoffman, L'Enfant et les Sortileges, the world premiere of
John Beckwith's Taptoo!! and The Crucible. He has also performed as a
soloist in works by Stravinsky, Dvorak, Schubert and Mozart.

In the fall, he will be featured in Opera McGill's L'Elisir d'Amore, and then
he'll head to Toronto to perform in Rossini's La Gazza Ladra with the Opera
in Concert company.

So how does Operaman end up at the Fringe? "This is where I feel most at
home," Armstrong states. "Anything goes here. I can do anything I want."
Short of giving away the official Kevin Armstrong underwear.

Before Armstrong hits the stage, he offers a free pair of undies to the first
person in the audience who'll buy his disc. He has offers for the disc, but
no takers for the underwear. "Ah, you're all just scared I've already worn
them, but I haven't - really," he says.

I'm a little concerned. I ask Armstrong if this is how Pavarotti started,
shilling official underwear. "He probably would have, except they don't
make underwear that large," he shoots back.

The show begins. Armstrong's first tune is a raunchy folk offering,
apparently about the alphabet. He follows with a confessional about his
first nude-beach experience.

The small crowd applauds respectfully when Armstrong completes the
second tune. But not good enough for this performer. Time for Armstrong
to morph into Operaman and shake the crowd up. He puts the guitar down,
turns off the microphone and, in his booming baritone, belts a Verdi aria.

The crowd goes wild. A couple of punkers at one table start hollering:
"Ver-di! Ver-di! Ver-di!"

Operaman comes back at them with a smashing Puccini aria, in Italian no
less. The punkers now scream: "Puc-cini! Puc-ci-ni! Puc-ci-ni!"

"OK then, now I've got a real treat for you all," Armstrong tells the
enthusiastic crowd. "I'm going to do the Bugs Bunny aria." (Note to purists:
that's from the Barber of Seville.)

The whole place erupts. What a sight to behold. Punkers singing along:
"Figaro, Fi-garo, Fiiii-gar-oooooo!"

Operaman gets a standing O."Ros-si-ni! Ros-si-ni! Ros-si-ni!," they shriek.

"Opera rocks!" comments the mountainous Steph Herman, who handles
Fringe security - a polite way of saying that he chucks drunks out.

An alternative combo is set to take the stage next, but one of the punkers
confides that Operaman will be awfully hard to top. Or bottom, for that
matter, what with the undies giveaway.

- Bill Brownstein's E-mail address is bbrownst@thegazette.southam.ca