7 minute read
BEL CANTO
Wellingtonian born and bred opera singer Jonathan Abernethy talks to us about touring Europe, surreptitiously hiding a coke on stage, and nipping down to buy a CGM off the shelf in a Paris pharmacy.
Pictured: Jonathan Abernethy in Pinchgut Opera's production of Orontea, Sydney 2022. Photo: Brett Boardman
Jonathan Abernethy is returning to Aotearoa New Zealand in June and July to perform with NZ Opera in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. This will be the second time he has sung the role of Ferrando, with the first time being with Opera Australia in 2015.
Based in Frankfurt, Jonathan has been singing professionally for 10 years. He has sung with opera companies in Australia, France, Switzerland, and Germany. Not bad for someone who was originally planning on working in business or IT. He was in his final year at Victoria University and taking on a music paper in order to earn some extra credits when his teacher suggested he audition for fulltime training to take his newly discovered talent further.
Jonathan’s upbringing taught him that routine is a good rule to live by. However, the life of a touring opera singer involves little routine, which he says is ‘sometimes great, and sometimes really not.
‘I’m always travelling, so I’ve always got a different doctor. The lack of consistency is a challenge in terms of having someone that’s keeping an eye on my diabetes and helping manage it.’
It can also be difficult to maintain an exercise regime when you finish work close to midnight and are physically and mentally drained. And at the other end of the day, Jonathan says if he were to exercise too hard before performing then his singing mechanism becomes impacted. But he knows he must keep his fitness up both for the monitoring of his diabetes and the upkeep of his personal fitness.
As a teen, Jonathan rowed for Wellington College, so his go- to exercise is still to jump on a rowing machine or go for a run as the Frankfurt seasons allow, but in winter the temperatures hover just above freezing. He says improved fitness makes a night and day difference to how he feels. ‘I could ignore it for 10 days, but then my diabetes says, “Hi!”’
TYPE 1 CAREER AND CONNECTION
Diagnosed at age nine, Jonathan found it difficult to make sense of the condition through his teenage years. ‘I was just riding that rollercoaster of being a teenager with diabetes.’ He met a few fellow students with type 1 at university, but then after that he says he was on his own and out in the world and missing the community support.
‘There are all these online groups that are hugely helpful. I wish I had known about them three years before I did. It makes you feel part of a bigger community of people who have this awful thing.’
In his career, Jonathan has only met two other singers with diabetes. But there is a pianist he sees semi-regularly in Frankfurt, and he says they always make a bee line for each other whenever they meet up, keen to discuss what has frustrated them in the last while with their diabetes. He says it is quite cool to have that connection with someone else in the same field, however tenuous, and be able to talk about it.
Photo: Brett Boardman
FIFTY-NINE EUROS
The first time Jonathan came to Europe, he started to notice CGMs becoming visible on people’s arms, and he was keen to try them out.
He says the first couple of CGMs he tried were a bit hit and miss, so he just stuck with his pump. But one Christmas he was in Paris when he found the sensor in his transmitter had died. He ran down to the chemist, thinking he needed to buy a testing kit, before realising what else was available in a typical French pharmacy. In a matter of minutes, he was connected to his first CGM. ‘That was my first CGM and that made a huge different in terms of how nonroutine my life is.’
Jonathan now runs the tandem pump and a CGM, and enjoys that it’s all connected to his pump. ‘I reckon it has taken 20% of the workload off my mind, in terms of thinking about going up or down, turning off or on. That’s been really nice.’
MUSICAL NERVES
Jonathan is adamant that his diabetes hasn’t held him back in his career. One reason for this is that he finds his hypo symptoms are clear and consistent. Emotional musical nerves are often added to the mix, but he’s used to that now and is prepared for it. On show days, he tries to keep things plain by not eating foods that will make him spike and go low later on. ‘All the things I do before the show starts help to make sure the show is a non-event, diabetes-wise. If anything, I run a little bit higher during a show, but that’s usually not significant, and then I feel safe.’
Opera isn’t famous for its brevity, so how does an onstage performer find time to mitigate a low and down some glucose without being noticed? ‘If I have a long show when I’m on stage a long time and I don’t come off, I’ll have a Coke stashed somewhere where it can’t be seen. So, if I need something, it’s there.’
But he says the close misses he’s had are the ones he’s had in his head. This is when Jonathan is on stage and he feels his pump enthusiastically sending him a warning that his battery has only three day’s life left. There are times when it’s useful to feel that alarm, and being busy on stage is one of those times when it’s not.
Opera is an extremely physical occupation, and that is before type 1 diabetes even sets foot on the stage as well. Performing with others close by, and needing to change costumes, Jonathan finds his pump site can sometimes get knocked and rubbed. This can be a challenge, he says, but it’s not the end of the world. ‘It just is what it is.’
PASSIONATE AND POSITIVE
Jonathan Abernethy, tenor, is an excellent example of someone keeping everything in control and being passionate and positive about what they’re doing.
His advice to anyone keen on following along his path: ‘You’ve just got to go for it. You’ve got to do what you love and what you want to do. Diabetes is one of those things and it’s always going to be there and it doesn’t matter what you do, so you might as well do something you love and enjoy. You’ll learn things along the way. And you’ll have some good times, and you’ll inevitably not have some great times. The healthier you are, with exercise and food, all totally helps.’
