It’s not the usual programme note structure that baritone Huw Montague Rendall’s debut Erato album, Contemplation, greets us with. A technical survey of the works sung is, perhaps, not the priority for this young singer. Montague Rendall instead greets his audience with an introductory piece of deep reckoning: ‘Who are we, what is our purpose and what is left of us when we are gone? We are but stardust, beings of cosmic origin, suspended in the vast expanse of the universe.’

‘I wanted it to be a door to who I am as a performer, but also as a person,’ Montague Rendall tells me when I ask why he chose for the album to have this existential, philosophical leaning. We meet in Oliver Mears’ office at the Royal Ballet and Opera in Covent Garden, Montague Rendall in his lunch break from rehearsals. He’s playing the Count in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro – a role that has accompanied much of his younger life and one that forms part of the album.

‘The Count is on the longer side of the repertoire that I do,’ he says when I ask how it’s going. ‘It’s tiring, but I feel very comfortable when I am doing it in the right production, like this one.’

Montague Rendall, at only 30 years of age, already has scores of main-stage, international debuts to his name. His operatic education moved through the Royal College of Music to the young artist programme at Glyndebourne, then to Zurich where he spent two years singing alongside the likes of Ramón Vargas and René Pape.

‘I would watch them in rehearsals and see how they would work. There was a difference between me and them in a rehearsal room. They were conserving their energy, then on stage they were really pushing. That taught me a lot.’

Huw Montague Rendall grew up in Brockenhurst in Hampshire and is the son of two well-known opera singers Diana Montague and David Rendall. He describes his childhood as ‘coming to the theatre, Covent Garden, and sitting in the back of the house trying to make as little noise as possible.’

Opera soon emerged alongside rock music and playing the drums as his main interest and Montague Rendall moved into vocal training via musical theatre.

‘I had a wonderful teacher at the Brockenhurst College where I studied musical theatre. I had a good classical teacher there who studied at the Academy – a young guy called Will Peter. He sadly died a few years ago from cancer, he was amazing. He taught me very well from the beginning and I didn’t have to mess around in college with undoing habits. He had a very natural, lovely way of singing.’

It’s clear that Montague Rendall has been through a lot in his life. The depth with which he’s willing to go and encourage others through this album feels profound: ‘I wanted the album to open people’s eyes to being able to reflect inwards instead of trying to feel like we have to conform to things that people expect of us.’

It certainly isn’t what we might expect for a debut album and Montague Rendall isn’t shy to explain that empathy was an important concept, regardless of the morals of some of the characters on the album: ‘Every track on the album is reflecting. Even if it’s a horrible character like the Count – he’s still in a panic. He’s still in a spiral of anxiety. Then Hamlet – when I was thinking of doing the album, I hadn’t done the role yet – he’s completely lost in a completely tumultuous world that he can’t have control over. I think we’ve all felt that at some point in our lives.’

When I press to ask about specifics of Montague Rendall’s experience, he replies with a profound, emotional look: ‘It’s music I’ve chosen that has got me through very difficult times in my life. Without going into too much detail, without it my life would be vastly different, I’m sure.’

It’s rare to feel as though an interview has the licence to go into the deep and painful like this one has. We go on to discuss Hamlet and experiencing dark, existential or even suicidal thoughts.

‘So many people I know have had those thoughts before. We all have wondered, “Why the hell are we here? What are we made of you? Or why do we exist? What’s beyond?” And that is a scary thought. I used to meditate on it for hours just thinking, “What are we here for?”’

How does Montague Rendall feel he has changed since he was a young singer at the Royal College? ‘I think I’m more stable and also more unstable, in a way. I know what I want to achieve but I don’t have, let’s say, the arrogance or the barrier as you do as a younger person of thinking, “When I do this, everyone’s gonna bloody love it”. Because I’ve been broken down – I’ve had that taken away from me.

‘You need to be confident enough to keep walking that tightrope. But accept that people are going to throw things at you, trying to knock you off. It’s about not letting yourself throw things at yourself – not predicting what people are going to think before they say it or think it.’

We move on to discuss the psychology of characters and Montague Rendall is honest that some of his experiences learning roles have lead him to a deep emotional experience.

‘When I’m doing Pelléas, for example, I feel like I’m haunted by this black cloud above my head. But Hamlet was worse. I find Pelléas more cathartic because you get to die at the end – you get to break away from it and that’s your story, finished. There’s a finality to it.

‘With Hamlet, it haunts my sleep, I hear the music when I’m dreaming. I feel connected to the character afterwards. I find I’m quicker to being angry and I have less patience.’

Montague Rendall says he loved every second of recording the album. ‘I was lucky enough to work with Ben Glassberg, who’s a very good friend of mine. I feel so connected with him that we could be as authentic as we needed to be. Ben and I did our first opera together ever in Chiswick when I was 19!

‘And the orchestra was so wonderful,’ Montague Rendall continues. ‘They were listening to things that we were trying to give them and responding so well to the immediate, tiny micro-changes.’

Next, Montague Rendall looks ahead to his role debut as Billy Budd in Vienna, another feature of the album. ‘With Britten, the music is so difficult to learn. You need you keep that distance immediately so that you can learn the part. But then when you know it, you really know it!’

‘I present this to you,’ finishes Montague Rendall’s album note, ‘imbued with the sincerity of my emotion, and extend an invitation for you to accompany me on this journey.’ It’s a brave journey to embark on, and an unprecedented welcoming of our darker emotion. 

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Opera Now. Never miss an issue – subscribe today