Singer pitted against Giovanni in beefy role

He’s a tall slim young man from Invercargill with a big bass baritone voice.

He’s playing a man twice his age and he gets to fight lothario Don Giovanni – and come back from the dead.

What more could a 22-year-old want? Not much, Robert Lindsay says. The Southlander plays The Commander in the Opera Otago’s upcoming production of Don Giovanni, which opens in Dunedin next Saturday.

In his last semester at the University of Otago where he is training to be teacher, Lindsay considers himself lucky to be playing opposite the infamous Don, played by baritone Robert Tucker.

The two Roberts and baritones in their respective characters go at it when Don Giovanni tries to seduce Donna Anna (played by Ingrid Fomison-Nurse) and is discovered by her father, played by Lindsay.

‘‘It’s great. We get to do a fight scene. Robert’s a good actor, and he’s done a lot of acting. We’ve done a choreography for this scene.’’

He has to wear elaborate makeup to age him into a fatherly figure, and to make him look as if he has come back from the dead.

Luckily he doesn’t have to fake the voice. The training of it began at Verdon College in Invercargill where he first sang with his school choir and played roles in three of the school’s musical productions.

In his final year of school he was selected for the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir where his passion for singing and performance began.

In 2014, the University of Otago music department put on Scenes from Mozart’s Magic Flute where Lindsay took on the role of Sarastro, which he also played in the Opera Otago 60th birthday showcase of

The Magic Flute.

‘‘My grandmother is German, so I think that’s why I have a feel for language and for the composers like Mozart and Brahms.’’

He studied classical performance voice with Judith Henley at Otago for four years.

‘‘Don Giovanni has definitely been a highlight so far. For the next few years I just want to keep singing, maybe go to Wellington and do some shows up there, and them maybe in my late 20s go to Europe and do a post graduate singing course and audition fro some shows.’’

Don Giovanni is on at the Mayfair Theatre, Dunedin August 18, 20, 22 and 25.