Milnes Is Magnificent, Part 1
Who’s your favorite American baritone? Sherrill Milnes? Me, too!
In fact, Milnes is one of the main reasons I love opera the way I do. His Decca recording of Lucia di Lammermoor changed my life, and since then I have been collecting as much of his discography as I can get my hands on.
When my fanship began, almost ten years ago, I thought my chances of ever hearing him sing were nil; after all, he was the world’s leading operatic baritone for nearly three decades, and had sung in almost every significant opera house on earth with the best singers and most important conductors, from Böhm and Bernstein to Leinsdorf, Levine, Giulini, Kleiber, Solti, Abbado and on and on. Under what circumstances might I encounter him in person? Breaking into his apartment, perhaps?
Well, as it happened, on Easter Sunday 2001, my grandmother alerted me to a feature in the St. Petersburg Times describing an upcoming master class in–of all places–Tarpon Springs. As I soon learned, he and his wife lived in Palm Harbor, my home town! She is of Greek ancestry, and has family in the area. Stunned to find out that one of my musical idols had been residing in my former zip code, I eagerly drove four hundred miles round-trip on a work night to attend his master class. It was a great experience, watching him work with voice students, giving them advice, and seeing them take that advice and improve substantially.
Fast forward to last Tuesday when I biked to work as usual, expecting a typical pledge drive day. Richard Drake was in the studio talking to a man I didn’t recognize, but he was introduced to me as Anthony Offerle, a voice teacher at the University. Dr. Offerle mentioned that Sherrill Milnes would be giving a master class the following Saturday at the University Auditorium, followed by a reception at the president’s mansion. Dang! I would be in Orlando having fun at Disney World for my birthday. But plans were changed, and we decided to skip Magic Kingdom so I could attend said master class.
It was even better than the one six years ago: the students were more experienced; the musical selections were superior; the audience was more enthusiastic; and Maestro Milnes was even more engaged. As I expected, several of the singers–all grad students–sang Mozart. Milnes sang Don Giovanni at the 1977 Salzburg Festival, so he could easily coach that music. And though he never sang Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas or Moore’s Ballad of Baby Doe, he knew the music well. His sight-reading skills are superb, and his fluency in French, Italian and German and immense stage experience seemed to make his instruction effortless. But it was obviously much appreciated by the singers, who appeared delighted at the genuine improvement in their performances.
Following the master class I drove over to the president’s mansion for the reception held by the Friends of Music. Though I didn’t really know many people there, I nevertheless chatted for a while with Sherrill Milnes to whom I was introduced by Dr. Offerle. It was actually a reintroduction, since I had met him on that spring day in 2001, but, of course, he’d never remember that. Apparently Dr. Offerle had told Milnes about me in advance, since he began, “this is the fellow I’ve been telling you about”. Milnes had noticed me earlier at the University Auditorium from my “Milnes Is Magnificent” button, where he called out to me from the stage, saying, “that’s older than you!” I didn’t stay terribly long at the reception, since I am not really fond of social interaction in that format.
I might have stayed all night, though, had I not been asked to conduct an interview with Mr. Milnes the next morning at the station. That was today, and it went exceptionally well. I’ll write more about that soon, and post audio.
I don't like going places, doing things or seeing people.