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Ben Heppner has been called the finest dramatic tenor of our time. He's acclaimed in music capitals around the world for his beautiful voice, intelligent musicianship, and sparkling, dramatic sense. Last year, his recording of Berlioz's Les Troyens won the Grammy Award for both Best Opera Recording and Best Overall Classical Recording.

In addition to his professional accomplishments, he's also committed to his family and a devoted follower of Jesus. He's also very interested in the integration of faith and art. Last year, after winning the Chalmers Award (given to Canadians who make outstanding contributions to the arts), he donated the entire $25,000 prize to Brookstone Performing Arts, a Toronto-based theater troupe that connects performing arts with spiritual issues. Heppner's latest CD, Airs Français, was released late last year by Deutsche Grammophon.

How does a kid decide that he's going to be an opera singer when he grows up?

When I went off and left the farm …

Were you really raised on a farm?

Well, for the first eight years.

Milking cows and that kind of stuff?

Well, yeah, when they let me. I really wasn't trained well enough.

I think probably what happened was I don't actually have any marketable skills so, I figured why don't I just be a singer? But I went off to university thinking I could be a music teacher. I somehow wanted to spend my life with music in some way. And the idea of being a performer was the farthest thing from my mind. But when I went there I got sidetracked into the performance program.

And you had already been singing in high school choirs?

Not so much choirs. Where I grew up, singing is something that could get you beat up, not a great acclaim. So I was in the band. I did some singing, mostly through church.

So where did you go to Bible college?

Canadian Bible College in Regina, Saskatchewan.

When did you begin to realize this may be a career?

It wasn't really until after I graduated. I didn't like opera at all. I did a little bit in university.

Had you heard it as a kid?

When I did it was on the TV, and I couldn't believe that people were singing that loud. It seemed so ridiculous. It wasn't until two years later, when there was no money coming in that I realized maybe I should take a look at opera. I was living in Montreal at the time, and went off to Toronto to enter opera school. It was pragmatic, if anything can be pragmatic about opera.

It sounds like you think about opera the way mere mortals do. It's hard to understand.

It took me awhile. It took me awhile to start to understand the whole idea of what it is about. What is opera to a novice? I would say it's a story told through music. Even the dialogue is sung. That's something that they have to get over. They have to understand that we sing the dialogue, not just speak it like in musical theater, for example. So you just have to get used to that convention and the emotions. The reason that you sing these intimate things at great volume levels is that the passion is so great.

Do you like to listen to your own CDs?

No. Why would I when I've got so many other people I can listen to?

In January, you got laryngitis. What happens when an opera singer gets laryngitis?

Sometimes laryngitis lasts two or three days, so it's just a swelling in your vocal chords. This time I ended up having to take three months off.

January 17 was my Waterloo. I had been struggling throughout the fall, and wasn't singing to my satisfaction. I came to Toronto, my hometown, and about two-thirds of the way through my voice gave out. The audience didn't hear it for a while, but then it became very obvious, and I just eventually had to stop right in the middle of it. And that threw me for a loop.

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August (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46