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Cecile Cooper newspaper clippings, 1966-1987

1982-01-15 ""Simon Estes: I have been ready for the Met since 1974"" Page 1

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Simon Estes: I have been ready for the Met since 1974 DES MOINES TRIBUNE Friday, January 15, 1982 By Theodore W. Libby Jr. [[copyright]]1992 New York Times When Simon Estes made his Metropolitan Opera debut Jan. 4 as the Landgrave in "Tannhauser," his American career finally caught up with his European reputation. Such lags are not unusual for a singer, particularly an American singer. Many have had to earn recognition on foreign stages before being given opportunities to sing at home. But the wait has been an especially poignant one for Estes. He is black, the son of a Centerville, Ia., coal miner who was himself the son of a slave. For Estes, who at 43 came to the Met in his physical and vocal prime, the opportunity to sing in his country's most important house elicited a bittersweet mixture of satisfaction and regret. "I wish I had been making my debut in a role other than the Landgrave," he said. "I would much rather have done 'The Flying Dutchman,' for example, or the four villains in 'Tales of Hoffmann,' or King Philip, or Wotan, complete. "But at least I feel that I'm going in the front door, and not the back door, to make my entrance." For another singer, perhaps, any entrance at the Met would be an entrance worth making. But Estes has been singing lead roles in such cities as Milan, Hamburg, London, Berlin and Munich for the past several years. His reputation in Europe reached a lofty plateau in 1978 when he was chosen by Wolfgang Wagner to sing the title role in "Der Fliegende Hollander" ("The Flying Dutchman") at Bayreuth. He has repeated that role the last three seasons and will sing Amfortas there in the new production of "Parsifal" scheduled for 1983, to be conducted by the Metropolitan Opera's music director, James Levine. Since his Bayreuth breakthrough he has also sung the Dutchman at the Vienna Staatsoper and the Paris Opera. "I have been ready to sing leading roles at the Met since 1974 at least," Estes insisted. "That's eight years ago. I could have sung comprimario roles before then." While the Landgrave is a leading bass role, "in Wagnerian repertory it's not the same as doing the Dutchman or Wotan or Amfortas," he continued. "In a way I conceded in accepting this role in order to let the Met know that I do want to sing there." The reason Estes thought that message was an important one to get across and had more to do with what he feels other black male singers are going through than with an inflated sense of his own worth. "I feel I needed to accept the role so that some of my other black, male colleagues will feel a little more -- very little -- but a little more secure about trying to pursue an operatic career, because right now, they're all terribly defeated. "The young black men say to me, 'They're still not giving you what you deserve -- why should I beat my head against a wall?' I say to them, 'You must. You must be strong, you have to endure. We have suffered all our lives; we cannot let another barrier prevent us from sharing our gift with people who really want to hear it.' "The people in the audience," Estes emphasized, "don't care whether you're black or white. They want to hear good singing and they want to see good acting." Still, the singer feels that being a black man has made a career in opera more difficult for him, In particular, he believes it has affected the attitudes of individuals in policy-making positions. "I'm a singer first," he declared. "But because of society, because of weaknesses in people's character in the administrative positions of opera companies and symphonic orchestras in t he United States today, I'm aware that I'm Negro. Not because I chose it -- they made me aware of it. "Facts speak louder than just words," Estes continued. "How many black men are singing leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera today, or at the other leading houses in the United States or the world, other than Simon Estes? My colleagues, who are of course 99 percent white, are not at all against my singing with them. The public, also, does not care -- when I have sung opera in this country, the audience response has been incredibly beautiful. "But when I tell people about this problem, they say, 'Look, we have Leontyne Price, Shirley Verrett, Grace Bumbry, Martina Arroyo....' And I say, 'Yes, but how many black men?' 'Well, there's um... uh... um, um... gee, I never thought of that.' They can't think of another black man singing major roles in opera. Yet there are probably eight black men who are qualified to do it right now." Of this group, Estes identified several who, like himself, have had to establish their reputations in European houses: The tenor Howard Haskins, the baritones Daniel Washington, Eugene Holmes and Allen Evans, and the bass-baritone Arthur Woodley. "Not all tenors can, or ought to, sound like Domingo, any more than all baritones or bass-baritones ought to sound like Plishka or Estes," Estes cautioned, "but these singers all have voices that are really beautiful, and as far as I'm concerned, they're capable of singing lead roles at the Met or anywhere else." He added that Washington is active with the Hamburg Opera, that Holmes recently sang Amonasro in Dusseldorf, and that Evans has sung in Hamburg and Basel. Another singer he mentioned, Colenton Freeman, sang with him recently in San Francisco. But none of the singers Estes named is particularly well-know in this country, which absolves the Met, to a degree, of standing in their way. It may well be, as Estes suggests, that administrators of some companies have resisted the hiring of black males for lead roles. But the prevalent view in the music world today is that first-class opera singers, of whatever color, are so rare that discrimination because of race has largely disappeared. "If a black tenor with a voice like Corelli were to appear suddenly," one opera authority commented recently, "he would have no trouble singing anywhere." Where black make singers have to run into resistance, this observer suggested, has been in playing romantic leads opposite white females. Naturally, this has hurt high-voiced black males -- the preponderance of romantic leads in opera are tenor voice -- more than it has their lower-voiced colleagues. p. 1 (of 3)
 
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