KEY POINTS:
Martin Snell and Margaret Medlyn last sang together in 2006 as that duo of lip-smacking malevolence, Klingsor and Kundry, in Wellington's Parsifal.
Tomorrow, in the role of Jokanaan, his character will lose his head to Medlyn's evil princess in the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's concert performance of Richard Strauss' Salome.
Based in Lucerne and spending a third of his year travelling the European circuit, Snell has not forgotten his New Zealand roots.
His big break was as one of 22 singers chosen from more than 1000 to join the Bayreuth chorus, which put him in the great Harry Kupfer/Daniel Barenboim Ring cycle.
"These people are so down-to-earth," says Snell.
"I'm particularly in awe of Barenboim's work with the West/Eastern Divan Orchestra. I have always talked of a United Nations of music as every cast I've been in has as many nationalities as there are singers on stage. We don't make enough of that."
More than once Snell describes himself as having been the right person at the right time - he went to Switzerland on the basis of another singer's agent accidentally catching his audition for the Cardiff Singer of the World.
Snell's most recent role was a well-received Kaspar in Graz Opera's Der Freischutz, but his CV has more than its share of the offbeat. Scott Joplin's ragtime opera Treemonisha was done "with not one black singer among us and it took ages to cover me up in cafe latte-type makeup", he laughs, while Per Norgaard's multimedia extravaganza Det Guddommelige Tivoli "might have been described as a civil defence exercise in how to empty a theatre quickly".
Salome is comparatively mainstream.
"The appeal lies in its story, with those wonderful biblical quotations and use of Oscar Wilde's play text."
He feels the all-Kiwi cast is "bang-on". "I also admire the way in which Strauss catches his characters. These must have been based on people that Strauss knew in real life."
While one ponders the thought of Strauss meeting a nascent Salome in his neighbourhood Munich coffee shop, Snell enthuses about conductor Eckehard Stier.
"He knows the score very well and that's a gift for me singing Jokanaan for the first time. He is in control without being overbearing and precise with music that sometimes changes tempo from bar to bar."
As for his character, Snell identifies a certain fanaticism in "someone who is going to preach the word of God whether people agree with it or not", but also points to "the tranquillity in the way he does this. There is nothing that can shake him even if it leads to his death".
Snell's faith in the music world is not so secure. He worries about crass commercialisation, "the blurring of classical music and pop genres. CDs are now a marketing tool rather than preserving you for posterity or recognising the quality of the music making."
Incidentally, the bass can be heard in fine voice on a Naxos Mozart Requiem, a Sony collection of Kittel arias and cantatas, working alongside Bernarda Fink under Rene Jacobs and, most recently, on the German Carus label, a fascinating reconstruction of Schubert's Indian opera Sakontala.
He muses on the golden era of the 60s and 70s.
"It's a regrettable thing that we are told that today's singers are as good. You hear people saying Netrebko is the new Callas. Well, there is Callas and then there is Netrebko. It's apples and oranges and often these comparisons are being made by people who have no expertise, knowledge or love for the subject."
Being an artist is an instant reality check. Talking to some students recently, Snell set off by asking them why they were studying.
He quickly told them: "You are training for a job, a demanding job that will put a roof over your head and food on your table. Students often have some idea that they are going to be swept off their feet, travelling on jets and in limousines.
"I can say from experience that living out of a suitcase can be a drag."
PERFORMANCE
What: Salome, with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, tomorrow at 8pm
On disc: Schubert, Sakontala (Carus 83.218)
