Eusebiu Huțan was born in Suceava, Romania, but at 6, he moved to Italy with his family, joining his father, who had already been working there for six years. He started school in Italy, but ever since his teenage years, he wanted to move back to Romania, curious about his nation and what it is like to live in the country where he was born. He is not part of a family of professional musicians, but he got in touch with music in the Neo-protestant Church where he grew up: “During my childhood, we were encouraged to worship God by singing in the church.”
At the age of 17, he started feeling sick. Initially, he and his family didn’t take the symptoms, the chest pain, seriously, thinking that it might have been just the flu. Later, he discovered he suffered from heart disease, pericarditis without knowing why. Because of this illness, he was hospitalized for almost a whole summer, during which he had the time to think, meditate and analyze his life. Even from such a young age, he managed to understand the importance of a strong and powerful relationship with God, an experience that he wanted to share with those around him. He decided to do this by singing a song in the church his family attended. Even though before this experience, his voice wasn’t very much appreciated by his brothers and sisters in Christ, after this event, everything changed. Everybody was shocked that his voice developed naturally, so they encouraged him to continue. Singing for a few months in the church gave him the courage to want to do more. This is how Eusebiu started taking singing lessons from a Conservatory student in Rome, but he was not thinking about approaching opera.
“I was singing very faintly because I had a wrong idea about singing and wanted to sing only Christian music. She (the Conservatory student) kept telling me that I must get more involved to sing louder and more powerfully. This is the moment when fooling around, I tried to imitate an opera singer, and naturally, it just came to me. I didn’t know what I was doing, but she was impressed. She advised me to study with a more experienced teacher and introduced me to maestro Fernando Pasqualetti, who has sung for a long period at Teatro all’Opera in Rome”.
Starting on his path with the only desire to improve his vocal skills to sing better in church, Eusebiu was now pushed by the trust his teacher had in him to a career in the opera. Still, in high school, Eusebiu was studying to become an architect. After graduation, he had to choose between continuing on this path or changing it completely by starting to study music.
“I knew that if I were to go to the Conservatory, I couldn’t do anything else because it takes lots of time to study singing. Trying to make this decision, I thought that maybe I couldn’t support myself financially from a career in music, so I applied for a major in Architecture at the University in Rome, the courses I attended for three years.”
He moved back to Romania, where he had a few friends already studying at the “Gheorghe Dima” Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, where he was also about to become a student. Meeting different local opera singers, he was introduced to the one to become his teacher, the tenor Marius Vlad Budoiu.
“When I started singing, the first tenor that impressed me, besides Pavarotti, was Giuseppe di Stefano. Maybe many won’t agree with me, but I like his voice and his interpretations. I also listen to a lot to Caruso, Del Monaco, Lauri-Volpi, Beniamino Gigli. My first teacher in Italy was one of Gigli’s former students. Out of the singers nowadays, I prefer Roberto Alagna”.
During his first year at the Conservatory, he did some small roles, such as Basilio and Don Cruzio (Le Nozze di Figaro), which allowed him to step on the stage of the Romanian National Opera House in Cluj-Napoca. The next year, he auditioned for the Opera House’s manager, who offered him the chance to debut in the role of Pong (Turandot).
“This was my first professional opera performance role with an orchestra. Camille, Count de Rosillon (The Merry Widow) came next, and then I became a collaborator singer of this institution for two years. After these two years, I was hired as a soloist ensemble member”.
From the beginning of his studies, he attended different Masterclasses and private lessons held by personalities such as Viorica Cortez, Teodor Ilincăi and Enza Ferrari. He collaborated with Italian conductors such as Giuseppe Sabbatini and David Crescenzi.
His first main role was Nemorino (L’Elisir d’amore by Gaetano Donizetti), in 2018 at the Romanian National Opera House in Cluj-Napoca.
“It was the first time I was nervous on stage. I had extremely powerful emotions that I had never felt before. This was the moment I realized how important the psychological aspect of our profession was. I realized that I had to stay positive and trust myself to manage to go on stage and do my best at that moment. This role taught me to trust myself no matter what. Of course, it is important to be humble, but when you step on stage, you must believe there is no way to fail. Our minds can be very tricky at these times. It gave me the impression that I didn’t feel well and couldn’t do it. It was also hard from the musical point of view. Imagine that I started studying music theory very late, at the same time as my voice lessons, and this issue brought up insecurities. It was very hard to catch up with my stage partners and colleagues from this point of view.”
Nemorino was followed by Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), at the National Opera House in Iași, in a production by Beatrice Rancea. Meeting Mozart, Eusebiu understood how it was not to have a big orchestra to support you and how important every detail of your vocality is in this kind of repertoire.
“Especially for my type of voice, you have to be very careful when you sing Mozart because you feel as if you were naked. A good technique is very important in this case, and not only that. You have to be 1,000% focused there on solving the difficulties in the score, and this is the basis of singing”.
His third important role as Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata is that he confesses to us that “it was a little too early for me, and I didn’t have the time to build the role as I should have done. This is why I had some difficulties during my debut. The important thing is to learn something from this experience, to admit your mistakes and move on, most of all, from the psychological point of view. They say that mistakes are never forgiven in our industry, but we must forgive ourselves because you are the most important person in your career. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will, and the more respect you have for yourself, the more you will be respected by others. No one wants a victim in their cast or their theatre. So it was an important step in my career that encouraged me to go on and always improve myself. I think that 50% of a singer’s success is due to self-esteem, and the other 50% is due to musicality, vocality, technique, etc. This is a battle of mine.”
“I considered myself blessed by God with a big voice with squillo. I mean that passing over the orchestra will never be a problem for me. Don’t get me wrong, self-esteem is not one of my main skills, but I have to be honest with myself and the public about the advantages and disadvantages. Having a big voice is hard to control, to understand. It’s difficult and sometimes frustrating because you wonder why others can accomplish certain technical skills faster than you. There is also this pattern that says that young singers should sing a more lyrical repertoire, but, in my opinion, it doesn’t work for everybody in this way. Sometimes, trying to follow this pattern against the nature of your voice can hurt you vocally and psychologically. I think I’ve already done my “lyrical” roles, and it’s time to focus on the repertoire that characterizes my voice and where I feel better. You have to be very conscious about the voice that you have. I’d say my voice has an interesting colour, a lirico-spinto tenor. At this moment, I’m studying the role of Mario Cavaradossi, and I have to say that my voice feels very comfortable in this kind of repertoire. Alongside my teacher, I decided to continue on this path. Speaking the Italian language just as well as my mother tongue is another huge advantage because I don’t have to translate everything I sing or think about the pronunciation, the double consonants and the accents. And, of course, it’s easier to memorize the piece.”
