Teachers, Role Models and Mentors 

I won the Metropolitan Opera auditions at the district level in 1974 but failed to take the regionals. The next year I won at the district level, the Midwestern Regionals, the National Semi-Finals at the Met, and was one of the ten National winners. Many of you know that my voice was God-given. It didn't come after long years of voice study. It was given. But I did have many teachers and coaches who contributed to my understanding of how to use the voice and what singing meant. I would like to publicly express my gratitude to them.

I began my love of music in High School We had a dynamic, dedicated man named John Mitchell for choral director.  We all called him Mitch from the "Sing along with Mich" show. For a high school choir I was a pretty good bass at the age of 17. Mitch filled us all with his love of music. We did challenging things like Elijah and Handel's Messiah, even James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones. Mitch was everything to us. We would have elected him dictator for life if we could. We sang all over Missouri and won prizes. This is where the music bug hit me, and the fact that Mitch was such a great teacher, model and mentor made it even more impacting. But I had no talent to sing opera at The Metropolitan OPera! I was just a kid from Carthage who loved singing in the choir and loved Mitch. Mitch was probably the most instrumental teacher in my life. He loved me and he had faith in me. I am sure that his faith in me was instrumental in my taking voice lessons in college.

Southwest Baptist University was a beautiful place, situated in rural Missouri near rivers and lakes, in a small town. I liked it right away. I had this funny idea that I wanted to take voice lessons as well as study theology. After all, I had always sung in choirs and it had been a great joy in High School. I drew a voice teacher who was a bear with a very little brain, a Baptist church choir leader with a voice that sounded just right for the job. He heard me sing in the first lesson and announced that I had no talent. Instead of assigning me the standard early Italian songs that all singers cut their teeth on, he let it be known that I was not even ready for them. He assigned instead, "Standin' on the corner watchin all the girls go by." After one semester I decided voice lessons were not for me.

I still had music in my life even though I had given up on voice lessons. I had been accepted into the choir. I was happy but a bit timid because there were a lot of music majors in it with "real" talent. To make matters more intimidating, the director, Dr. Cowan, was a star. He had sung with the famous Robert Shaw Chorale. He let us hear his rich, bass-baritone voice from time to time and we were all convinced that only Ted Harris had a better voice in all of Missouri. Ted Harris was a Professor of Voice who had sung with Jerome Hines of the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Harris commanded respect and more than a little awe. The year that I arrived at SBU, Mr. Harris was preparing a role in Jerome Hines' sacred opera on the life of Jesus called I Am The Way, which was going to be performed in Los Angeles. I sat outside Mr. Harris' door listening to the indescribable sounds coming out of his office as he rehearsed. I had never heard anything like those sounds. I just wanted to sit there on the floor and listen, and hope he would continue to sing. Later Jerome Hines himself told me that Ted's voice was tremendous at Los Angeles, sounding, in Hines' words, "like a canon." No small praise coming from Hines! Dr. Cowan and Mr. Harris made quite an impact on me.

When I won the Met auditions in Tulsa, representatives from Tulsa Opera Inc. offered me not only small roles with them but a scholarship to do masters work in voice at Tulsa University. Tulsa became a new home filled with supportive people who would become almost like a family. A voice professor from TU came back stage at the auditions and recruited me right then and there for his studio. I did not know at the time that he was trying to cabbage onto me to aggrandize his flagging studio. I found that out later as representatives from Tulsa Opera said, "Oh dear. You're going to study with HIM? You need to study with Laven Sowell!" I had one or two lessons with the first teacher but I found them odd. He didn't seem to have anything to say. I delicately changed teachers to Laven Sowell. Laven was chorus master at Tulsa Opera as well as Professor of Voice. He had his hand in all the vocal pies of Tulsa and everyone who was anyone studied with him. He was a large man with a jolly disposition and a big belly laugh. Everywhere he went he left a little of himself behind. His beautiful home displayed a love-affair with elephants. It was a fitting love affair for a large man with a large impact on life. Elephants of jade, stone, wood, all shapes and sizes claimed his home as theirs. Students would bring him new elephants from all over the world when they sang in some far off place. Laven's share of their spoils was a new elephant and pride in their accomplishments.  He had heard me sing at the Met auditions so he knew my voice and was only too happy to get me into his studio. Laven said things to me that EVERY teacher thereafter would say. "I don't want to touch your voice. I just want to help you use it." My voice came already to go. What Laven Sowell gave me I have tried to give to all of my students since. He gave me love! He will probably be a little embarrassed to read this, but it is true. He gave me a lot of good musical and vocal knowledge as well, much of which I use to this day. Laven had studied voice with some very interesting characters and he therefore brought a very rich experience to the studio. As a young lyric baritone with a nice sporty instrument he had toured with the Charles Wagner Opera Company. His voice still served him well and I wished he had used it more when I studied with him. He had sung small roles with Tulsa Opera alongside great singers from the Met before becoming chorus master and had a lot of stories to tell. Stories are important. They humanize an otherwise clinical study of voice.  Even though I came into the profession of singing with a technique given by God, I had a lot of wonderfully influential coaches and teachers who passed on their experience of singing. In assessing the things that Laven Sowell gave to me, I could describe many musical items and vocal tidbits. I don't mean to say that they weren't important. They were. But I am looking back now at the truly wonderful things given, and they are not a relaxed jaw or five and nine tone scales. Laven Sowell cared about me and he shared himself with me. I will always carry something of him within me.  I have tried to be as good to my students as he was with me.

At Santa Fe there was Andy Field who taught voice to the apprentices. Andy as teacher was a sweet, supportive man. He liked my voice very much and compared it to the great bass-baritones he had known in his youth, Covent Garden stars like baritone Paolo Silveri and bass Boris Christoff. Like Laven Sowell, he said, "I don't want to change your voice. I just want to help you use it better." Also like Sowell, the main thing that Andy Field gave me was love and encouragement.  Andy professed amazement that I had only just started singing. I sounded, he professed, as though I had been singing leading bass-baritone roles for years in the world's great opera houses!

When I got to New York, I coached with most of the leading coaches in the City. The ones who really made an impact on me were Alberta Masiello and Cesare Bardelli. Masiello was the best coach in the city and Bardelli was probably the best teacher. Miss Masiello would refer none of her singers to any other teacher in New York but Bardelli. Bardellli also said, "I don't want to change your voice. I just want to help you use it." I learned all my Verdi baritone roles with him. He was a great help to me and I will always love him. I have more Bardelli stories than paper to print them on. But here are some of his colorful quotes to me:

1. "Giuseppe, if I have your voice I be the greatest tenor in the world."

2. "Giuseppe, I speak to you now frankly. If I have your voice I would become a tenor because you make more money."

3. "Giuseppe, if only I had your high si bemolle."

Cesare had taken off a year from singing to try to restudy and become a tenor. He couldn't quite do it. So that is why he was so full of praise for my high B flats.

His teaching was historic Appoggio from the International School of Singing. When he retired at the age of 70 I gave him his farewell party at the Asti restaurant in Greenwich Village.

Then there was Jerome Hines who became my mentor in opera. I owe so much to him. Look at my tribute to him on this web site to get a full picture of his influence on my life, and what an influence it was.

Even if God gives an instrument to us, we all need teachers, role models and mentors. I am thankful for the ones He gave me.