One fan on the Kowarskys' website simply labels it "chick-magnet potential."
Yes, the crossover musical genre that sees handsome, suit-clad singers combine opera arias with pop sensibilities has hit Canada in the form of RyanDan, Destino and the Canadian Tenors.
And some observers say it's about time.
"People for a long time have said that classical music should be more concerned about marketing and building audiences, and somehow the voice is turning out to be the vehicle," says Charles Daellenbach, co-founder of the classical Canadian Brass quintet.
"I think it's pretty much survival, in a way, survival for classical music as we've known it."
The Kowarsky identical twins, who grew up in Thornhill, Ont., and recently released their debut album "RyanDan," began their careers as spiky-haired pop stars in the boy band B4-4 in 1999.
Despite huge sales in Canada and Germany, the brothers who are now based in London, England - were unhappy and switched to the classical music they learned from their opera-singing father, Paul Kowarsky.
"It started to become very frustrating to us because we were playing toward a very young audience and they were very focused on image and style," Ryan Kowarsky, 27, said in a recent interview in Toronto.
"Just to be known for your hair?" said Dan. "We weren't really happy about it."
"We wanted to be appreciated for the lyrics and for voice," added Ryan. "That's why with what we're doing right now, getting up on stage with a big 60-piece orchestra and choirs, you really get the feeling that our fans appreciate vocals and orchestration."
Daellenbach, co-founder of the record label Opening Day Entertainment Group, says that's why the pop-opera crossover works.
"If you're listening to Il Divo, these songs are very emotional. They touch you, they take you some place you don't normally get," he said, adding he's excited about the "popera" trend.
"We think that these two worlds should be merged much more so that kids in general would find a lot more interest in what we consider more traditional music programs."
Like Il Divo, the Kowarsky twins don suits on stage while singing adult contemporary power ballads and originals with classical arrangements. While they have wide-ranging vocal abilities and can sing in several languages, they aren't classically trained.
The Canadian Tenors quartet and Destino threesome from the West Coast, on the other hand, are classically trained tenors who belt out mostly French, Spanish and Italian arias, as well as contemporary tracks, with pop productions.
With their new "Christmas With Destino" out and a debut CD set for release next year, Destino members say this so-called "tenor craze" (think the Three Tenors, the Irish Tenors, the Ten Tenors, etc.) rivals the boy band trend of the 1990s as audience members, mostly ladies , swoon and pick a favourite group member.
"It is like a classical boy band pretty much," Destino member Leon Leontaridis said in a recent interview with his group mates Paul Ouellette and Joey Niceforo.
"That's what we've started, that's what Il Divo is. It's just not maybe the 13-, 14-year-old girls, it's more of the 30-year-old women, business types."
Of course, they do have critics, but Destino points out that Luciano Pavarotti was also panned for collaborating with pop artists in an effort to bring classical music to a wider audience.
"Really there's no hugely successful international pop-opera group in Canada yet, and I think that's what we're all striving for," said Ouellette.
"Now, I think we're starting to realize, 'Hey, we can play this game as well. We're just as good and we can also be part of this as well,"' added Leontaridis.
"We're kind of like trailblazers in a way. Not just us specifically, but RyanDan and Canadian Tenors and all these crossover artists that are trying to do the same thing - just get this music out there and let people know that, 'Hey, we're also part of this big world of music as well.' "
Source: Canadian Press
