Name: Pene Pati: An opera star from Samoa
Uploaded: 2025-11-30T07:57:17.537Z
Duration: 4 min 39 s
Description: Samoan Pene Pati has been singing all his life, but wasn’t exposed to opera early on. Today, he’s a lyrical tenor performing at the most renowned opera houses in the world. He’s just released his third album.

Samoan Pene Pati has been singing all his life, but wasn’t exposed to opera early on. Today, he’s a lyrical tenor performing at the most renowned opera houses in the world. He’s just released his third album.

Pene Pati, a tenor born in Samoa and raised in New Zealand, discovered opera in his late teens after joining a community choir. Initially aspiring to careers outside of music, he was introduced to singing through a high school requirement for rugby players, which eventually led him to pursue formal music education.

Since 2017, Pati has gained international acclaim, performing in major opera houses and recording albums. His third album, 'Serenata Anapoli,' features Neapolitan songs performed with an authentic accent, earning recognition from Italian audiences for his respect for their language and culture.

Pene Pati: An opera star from Samoa

He's barely stepped out of one role, and the next one is waiting in the wings. Ever on the move between opera stage and airport gate, it's a life he once couldn't have dreamed of. I only realized what opera was when I was close to 20, and that was by singing in community choir. And I thought, what are these languages? Funnily enough, my first ever foreign language that I sang in was German. And I will never forget that. He's currently in rehearsals for La Traviata, and will play the lead role in Tales of Hoffman in November. And then I got curious because someone said, you should be an opera singer or classical singer. I thought, no, that's ridiculous. No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to be a chef, chef or rugby or a computer science person. Never in my years did I think singing was it. As a child, Penepati and his family moved from Samoa to New Zealand. Traditional music was a part of his daily life, but what he really wanted to do was play rugby. His high school had a rule, though. If you wanted to play, you had to join the choir. The idea is that the discipline is exactly the same. To play rugby, you have to be committed, you have to be a team player. But ultimately, it was so that the boys, the strong boys, could show their sensitive side and artistic side. The entire rugby team, these big boys, we're singing all these hymns and everything. We loved it. At first, he watched Pavarotti YouTube videos, then found a tutor and enrolled in music schools. Since 2017, the tenor has built an international career and is in great demand. His love for Samoan music remains. None of the hymns or the myths are written down at all, sung to the next generation. So it's absolutely part of the culture, so it's embedded in my DNA. Hawaiian music, Samoan music, it's very high, too, it sits high. Like... I guess that's probably why I sing tenor quite well, because my voice sits there naturally. Now, 38, you won't hear him only in the world's leading opera houses. He's just recorded his third album. Serenata Anapoli is a collection of Neapolitan songs from 1880 to 1920, pop songs of the gramophone days. Upon listening to all of these Neapolitan songs, I realized that they became so commercialized. I wonder how many of these songs are actually intended differently. He's recorded pieces that had almost been forgotten, as well as classics like O Sole always with the authentic Neapolitan accent. I think the Italians are just as surprised that a Samoan boy is singing their songs, or who learnt their dialect, that even the Italians didn't do it right. Pavarotti didn't do the Neapolitan accent, so it's not O Sole Mio, it's like O Sola Mia. If you really break it down, it's like O Sola Mia. Someone from Napoli can pick it up and say, someone has shown the respect to my dialect or language, you know?

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