By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
Il Divo has won over the hearts of millions of fans around the world with their beautiful voices and handsome looks. Now, La Speranza, a group of good-looking Korean male vocalists, is giving the international superstars a good run for their money.
La Speranza calls itself Korea's first all-male popera group. Formed in December 2005, the group is composed of baritone Yang Jeong-yeol, bass Shin Sang-jin and tenors Chang Jin-ho and Chung Hyun-chul. Even without releasing a debut album, La Speranza is slowly gaining fans for their strong vocals and unique music style.
Inevitably, La Speranza is always likened to Il Divo, which is also a four-member, all-male pop operatic vocal group. The group's name itself is taken from the Italian word for ``hope,'' another similarity with Il Divo, whose name means ``divine male performer'' in Italian.
Yang, La Speranza's leader, said the group wants to differentiate itself from Il Divo. ``There are similarities and differences between La Speranza and Il Divo, but the main difference is that we do a wider range of music. We do church music, Christian music and other genres. We also add elements of Korean traditional music in our performances because we are a Korean group,'' Yang told The Korea Times.
While it may seem La Speranza is merely following in the footsteps of Il Divo who released an album in late 2004, Yang said he and some friends already had an idea for a male popera group even before Il Divo made its debut. However, the idea failed to get off the ground.
When Il Divo gained popularity around the world, Yang said he revived the idea and held auditions for other members. All the members of La Speranza are classically trained singers and musical actors.
The 37-year old Yang studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Russia and the Rome A.I.D.M. Academy in Italy. He has performed in musicals such as ``Phantom of the Opera,'' ``Singing in the Rain'' and ``Jekyll and Hyde.''
Chung, who studied film at Seoul Arts University and music at Dankook University, has had roles in movies, TV dramas and musicals. Shin graduated from Chugye Arts University, while Chang studied vocals at Myongji University.
Yang said there are different ways of interpreting popera music, but La Speranza has its own style. ``Popera is a combination of pop and classical music. You can take pop songs and sing them in a classical way, or you can do it the other way round. With La Speranza, we want to take classical music and songs and make it more pop,'' he said.
Their repertoire consists of songs from musicals, popera, TV and movies. They perform songs like Frank Sinatra's ``My Way,'' Josh Groban's ``You Raise Me Up,'' Andrea Bocelli's ``Time to Say Goodbye,'' ``A Whole New World'' from the Disney film Aladdin and the theme song from the MBC drama ``Daejanggeum.''
While La Speranza has not yet released a debut album, the group is gaining fans through their performances in various shows and concerts. Last year, they performed with renowned electronic violinist Eugene Park, jazz pianist Gene Bora and K-pop singer Eru on several different occasions.
Yang said he is happy the group has received positive reaction from the audience. ``The audience responded well to us because we give them something new and they have never heard anything like this before. But we always worry about what the other professionals would think about our performance,'' he said.
Right now, La Speranza is focused on preparing their debut album, which they hope to release later this year. Yang said the album would be mostly made up of cover versions to familiarize the audience with their kind of music.