Michael Londra
Michael Londra never really had a chance. He grew up in Wexford, home of the Wexford Opera Festival and the Wexford Opera House. Singing was going to be his life whether he liked it or not.
“I kind of grew up singing,” says the tenor, who is bringing his Christmas show, “Celtic Yuletide,” along with his new holiday CD, “Beyond the Star,” to the Sellersville Theatre on December 15. “Wexford is such a big opera town that there’s now a culture of singing and I come from one of the singing families. I always sang, whether I wanted to or not. It was forced upon me.”
But he didn’t become a professional singer until he was 31, “after my friends staged an intervention,” he jokes, as we chat on the phone. “I never believed I could earn a living as a singer. Irish people tend not to believe in themselves so I needed the encouragement.”
His first career: a behavioral therapist, working with teens in trouble. He concedes that it might have been good training for show business. “Though you’re dealing with different types of behavior, equally socially unacceptable.”
Once you’ve heard him sing, you’ll wonder, as his friends likely did, why he was hiding that particular light; it shines so bright. One reviewer called him “one of the top Irish singers of our time.” Another, referring to counter-tenor Londra’s ability to hit notes so high he’d leave some mezzo-sopranos in the dust, wrote: “When he hits the high notes on ‘The Wexford Carol,’ make sure your good holiday champagne glasses don’t shatter, as he puts castrati to further shame.”
When “Riverdance” composer Bill Whelan heard Londra in a musical about John F. Kennedy (he played RFK and claims to do a more than passing “full-on posh” Boston accent), he offered him the lead role in the Broadway production of the “Riverdance,” the high-profile play that turned Irish music and dance into a modern-day phenomenon.
In 2005, Londra recorded his first CD, “Celt,” a five-star favorite on www.amazon.com. The first track—“Danny Boy”—was another of those things he had to be talked into. “I really didn’t want to record it,” he says. “It’s been done to death, murdered by bad cabaret singers all over the world. But it came out very nice.”
So nice that the Irish Emigrant newspaper called it “one of the best recordings of Danny Boy in history,” and two million people have listened to it on YouTube.
Like “Celt,” Londra’s Christmas recording combines old and traditional tunes with more contemporary and some original songs, like the eponymous “Beyond the Star.” It wasn’t something that had to be forced on him. “I love singing the old Christmas songs, though I recorded it in New York over the summer. You can’t imaging what it’s like singing Christmas carols in 100 degree weather in July,” he says laughing.
His producer is Steve Skinner, who co-produced the Grammy-nominated soundtrack for “Rent,” and works with Celine Dion and Bette Midler. “I’ve been very blessed to be able to work with him,” Londra says. “In 2001, I knocked on his door and said, ‘I’d like to work with you,’ and he laughed at me and told me to get in line. But I was persistent. He heard me sing and finally said, ‘OK.’ I sang at his wedding so I’m a part of the family whether he likes it or not.”
When you get Michael Londra you also get what he calls “the core of my being,” the Irish charity “Concern Worldwide.” Part of the proceeds from his Christmas album will go to helping the people of La Gonave, a small island off the coast of Haiti and an hour and a half away from Miami, where there is little vegetation, no electricity or clean water, and 100,000 people living in abject poverty. He’s been there five times and with the Christmas CD, there’s a DVD of one of his visits.
“I’m not Bono. I’m not going to raise millions,” he says. “But I have to do something. This is our next door neighbor, and it makes me so angry.”
When he says “our,” he’s referring to the US, where he now lives (in Chicago “which I absolutely love—when I’m there.”) It’s rare, he says, for Wexford people to emigrate. “I’m the only one of my family and school friends who has,” he notes. “I was talking to Larry Kirwan of Black 47 [a New York-based Irish hard rock band] who is also from Wexford and we decided we were the only two people from Wexford living in the States.”
Though they’re friendly, don’t expect Londra to be performing with Black 47 any time soon. You can imagine his blue eyes twinkling as he observes that it would be like “AC/DC and Clay Aiken singing together.”
You’d be better off catching Londra with the group of Irish musicians and dancers he’s bringing to the state in Sellersville on Tuesday, December 15. The show starts at 8 PM and tickets are $35 which you can order by calling 215-257-5808 or on the theater website.
And if you sign up for our weekly newsletter, Mick Mail, or pass your latest issue on to someone else, you’ll be entered in a contest to win two free tickets to Michael’s show.
You next chance to hear him is on Christmas Day on Fox 29–he’s heading down there on Monday to appear on a show called “Christmas Glee.”
