This spring marks a (sort of) homecoming for internationally renowned tenor and Il Divo star David Miller, who returns to Boise by way of “Aria: The Film,” which premiered in April at the historic Egyptian Theatre.The project holds deep personal significance—not just for Miller, but also for filmmaker Karen Day, who hopes “Aria” will launch the film’s stars and inspire a new generation to discover opera’s power, particularly here in Idaho.
Miller is featured in the movie and has a history with Boise and with Day—Aria’s writer, director, and producer—who he’s known for 30 years.
“Karen reached out and was talking about creating ‘Aria.’ She asked if I wanted to comment on my performance with Boise Opera. I was on tour at the time, and my segment then turned into this side featurette piece that ended up making it into the film,” laughed Miller.
Miller’s road to international fame wasn’t always smooth. As a member of Il Divo—the full-throated operatic quartet known for giving timeless, familiar songs a grand, symphonic sound—he experienced both exhilarating highs and heartbreaking lows. In 2021, the group lost founding member Carlos Marín to COVID-19. When they resumed touring, his loss hit Miller hard.
“We get to opening night, backstage, we would all shake each other’s hands, ‘Have a good tour.’ We went to do that, but Carlos wasn’t there. That was the first moment we emotionally acknowledged everything that had happened—and we just fell apart. The curtain goes up, and we’re singing, ‘I’ll Be There,’ by Michael Jackson, and we couldn’t get through the song,” he said.
Long before Il Divo, Miller was a musical prodigy, though his journey began not with voice, but with trombone, inspired by a childhood trip to see John Williams conduct the score of “The Empire Strikes Back” with the Denver Symphony.
At age eight, Miller successfully played the challenging large brass wind instrument and began mastering advanced musical theory, which led him to singing. Eventually, he earned placement at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music. During his senior year in 1995, an audition notice from the Boise Opera, performing “La Traviata,” caught his eye.
“I submitted a VHS tape, and they hired me. It was one of my first professional gigs and the beginning of my opera career in my first leading tenor role,” Miller explained.
These days, opera is having a bit of a resurgence. Younger, more diverse audiences are discovering the timelessness and power of human stories told through song and performance. “Aria: The Film” highlights this shift by following rising stars soprano Cecilia Violetta Lopez, mezzo-soprano Tahanee Aluwihare, baritone Brian Major, and tenor Ben Gulley. Through Day’s lens, viewers witness their personal and professional journeys as they navigate an industry that is slowly—but not always willingly—embracing diversity. In three acts, the film explores the triumphs and frustrating realities of four people competing in an industry with fewer roles than stars as they redefine an artform.
For Miller, this changing landscape is long overdue. “Oftentimes, when new operas come out, they’re panned because people don’t get it because it’s different,” he said. “It has been the case in opera for hundreds of years. And with each generation, eventually, the general public catches up.”
Miller noted that the act of recording music—specifically opera—has helped and hurt the industry because of its ability to cement a single rendition as “the version” of a piece. “If you deviate from ‘the version,’ you’re not doing it right. Or if you have a different sound quality than Pavarotti, you’re not doing it right,” he explained.
But audiences, Miller believes, crave something deeper. “These things come in cycles,” he said. “Eventually, people become hungry for substance.”
Miller described opera’s subject matter as “exceedingly mature,” noting that it deals with complicated themes like love and loss, which might be experienced differently by younger audiences without some of the lived experience of opera’s more traditional, older audiences.
“Opera deals with these kinds of universal, heavy themes that if you don’t have your own personal experiential reference, it will just seem like music to you,” said Miller. “That’s my theory as to why eventually you listen to what’s new, you listen to what’s pop, you listen to even what’s retro. Eventually, you’ll get to jazz and these vocalisms with depth and soul. That bubble gum pop does not provide, and opera will touch you differently. You’ll ask yourself what else is out there, and that’s when you’ll discover classical music. Living your life prepares you for opera.”
In “Aria,” Day traverses these real, human struggles alongside four stars trying to make it in a cutthroat world, exploring the sacrifices one must make to pursue success at the highest levels—a sacrifice that is universal.
For Miller, “Aria” is more than a film; it’s a love letter to an art form that shaped him—and a chance to welcome the next generation into its world.
