He tries, when he can, to perform in his hometown, but heavy commitments mean that any such performance is a rare once-every-couple-of-years treat. “Boris Gudunov is one of the great parts for a bass singer,” he says. “It’s a very dramatic, dark piece about a king who destroys himself through guilt. The real heir to the throne, Dmitri, was murdered which allowed Boris to become king. It is unknown whether Boris ordered the murder, and Mussorgsky’s opera purposefully leaves it unclear whether or not this is the case or whether the murder was committed on his behalf by his henchmen, rather like that of Thomas a Becket. Whatever the case, the king became obsessed with the crime that led to his accession to the throne, and eventually died of guilt.”

The three excerpts Tomlinson that will be singing, in English rather than Russian, come from different periods in the king’s reign. “The first,” he says, “is from his coronation, a grandiose, spectacular scene. The second is from a period three or four years into his reign when signs of remorse are setting in. The third comes from later on when he is completely guilt-ridden.”

Being a bass, Tomlinson tends to get the ‘baddie’ roles. “The depth of voice suggests authority, so I am usually a villain, or a priest, or an assassin, or a king, or a god, or a czar,” he says. “They say the tenor always gets the girl, because his range suggests youth and romanticism. While this isn’t always true, I like to think that the devil always has the best tunes. Being the ‘baddie’ is a great vehicle for performing, and displaying the whole range of emotions, from anger to guilt to ecstasy.”