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SIMON ESTES

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THE ENCORE SOCIETY

THE ENCORE SOCIETY

SINGING WITH HEART AND SOUL

One of today’s greatest artists, Iowa’s own Simon Estes, makes his long-awaited DMMO debut this summer

BY ROGER PINES

This summer, when DMMO presents its first production of Porgy and Bess, bass-baritone Simon Estes, a truly mighty figure among American singers, will debut at last with his home state’s opera company. His portrayal of Lawyer Frazier is the latest highlight of a stupendous career which has brought him to 84 major opera houses and 115 symphony orchestras around the world, surely a unique record for any singer. It will be his 103rd operatic role.

Two words Estes uses frequently in conversation are “heart” and “soul,” which anchor his artistry. He uses that incomparable voice—with its velvety timbre, sovereign technique and enormous range—to sing from the depths of his being. Estes possesses a passionate desire to share his love of great music, and he sings, above all, “because that’s what God wanted me to do.”

At age 84, Estes retains his extraordinary energy. He still teaches, he’s currently involved in filming a documentary about his life, and at the time of our talk, he was about to travel to New York to accept his 13th honorary doctorate—in this case from The Juilliard School, of which he is an alumnus.

Estes began our talk by recalling his youth in Centerville, where his father—a coal miner and the son of a former enslaved man—worked for low wages but supported a family of six. Unable to read or write, he told his son, “You must get an education. That’s something no one can take away from you.” The Estes household, while lacking material wealth, was rich in faith. With systemic racism confronting the family every day, their faith was constantly tested, “but my parents taught us that you must never hate another human being. I feel blessed that God gave me a good heart. I’ve cried because of racial discrimination, but I’ve never had any room for hatred or bitterness.”

Estes’s mother had a glorious singing voice and a lifelong love of music, both of which her son inherited. As a boy he performed in church, with no sense that his voice was special, but his elementary music teacher heard something exceptional. While still a boy soprano, he was invited into the high school choir. Performing a spiritual, “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” he reduced a schoolmate’s mother to tears. “I said to her, ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to make you cry!’ She replied, ‘No, Simon, they were happy tears.’”

When his voice changed, he abandoned the idea of a professional career and entered the University of Iowa to study pre-med. Once his adult voice finally settled, UI’s choir director wouldn’t take him as a member or give him lessons, claiming he wasn’t good enough. “‘I wouldn’t waste my time with you,’” Estes recalls him saying, “but there’s a young teacher coming here this fall. Maybe he’ll take you.’” That was Charles Kellis, of whom Estes says today, “I truly believe that God sent him to me. He really discovered me.” A life-changing mentor (and still with us at 95), Kellis remains the only voice teacher Estes has ever had. At the University of Iowa, Estes also became the first Black member of the Old Gold Singers and the elite Chamber Singers.

It was Kellis who told Estes he had a voice for opera. After Kellis played records of Callas, Price, Siepi and Hines, Estes decided he really liked opera. Kellis arranged an audition for Juilliard, his own alma mater, where Simon was awarded a full scholarship and received the coveted Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation Grant. At Juilliard, he spent two years learning arias and recital repertoire while also discovering an ability to learn music quickly and a gift for languages.

America’s lack of opportunities for Black male singers led Estes to Europe. After auditioning in early 1965 for the formidable Deutsche Oper Berlin, he received a contract for his professional debut there as Aïda‘s King of Egypt. Upon his arrival to rehearse, he was informed that he’d be singing the high priest Ramfis instead, a more prominent role. Estes learned the role in German in four days and sang it, having never met any of his colleagues or the conductor until the performance. That successful debut provided Estes’s launching pad, along with a bronze medal win in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition (1966).

News of Estes’s medal in Moscow reached the White House, where Estes was invited to perform. During his career he’s sung for seven American presidents, from Lyndon Johnson to Joseph Biden, as well as for countless other world leaders— among them Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu—and for the Nobel Prize Committee. These memorable experiences have never gone to the singer’s head: “My mother said, ‘Always remain humble in life. Don’t let anyone put you down, but don’t ever lose humility.’”

Estes rapidly established himself in major European houses, among them the Opéra National de Paris (both the Palais Garnier and the Bastille), La Scala, London’s Royal Opera House, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, and the State Operas of Vienna, Hamburg and Bavaria. At the Zürich Opera House, general director Claus Helmut Drese learned early on that Estes truly knew his own mind. When Drese offered him the title role in a new Macbeth, he responded, “I can’t do it. My friend Norman Mittelmann [a favorite artist in Zürich] sings that role, and he has a great voice. His friendship means a lot to me.” When Drese then asked Estes to sing Porgy in a new production, Estes

‘Always remain humble in life. Don’t let anyone put you down, but don’t ever lose humility.’

hesitated for concern over being typecast. He eventually agreed to do the new Porgy for Drese who repaid the singer’s good will. Later the same year in Zürich a new Flying Dutchman was produced for Estes to sing the title role for the first time.

A second new Dutchman came Estes’s way in 1978, when he made history as the first Black male artist at Germany’s Bayreuth Festival. He returned there triumphantly every season through 1985, reprising his magnificent portrayal and adding another—Amfortas in Parsifal. Personal fortitude enabled him to triumph at Bayreuth, despite those in the press who announced, prior to the Dutchman premiere, “If that Black man opens the season at Bayreuth, we’re going to boo him off the stage.” Remembering that appalling statement today, Estes says only that “it never got in the way of my ability to concentrate.”

The first American company to welcome Estes, San Francisco Opera, presented him in several roles during the 1967-68 season: Colline in La Bohème, Carter Jones in Gunther Schuller’s The Visitation, and the four villains in The Tales of Hoffmann. General director Kurt Herbert Adler invited him back frequently for leading roles over the next 14 years. Estes cherishes his memories of SFO, especially Aïda. For one performance, leading lady Margaret Price was ill and was replaced by another Price —Leontyne! “The first time we rehearsed the Aïda/Amonasro duet, Leontyne said to me, ‘Simon, singing next to you is like singing next to a black god.’ That was truly humbling.”

In 1982 he finally performed with the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, singing the Landgrave in Tannhäuser. A conversation at the time with Leontyne Price was hugely significant for him: “She said, ‘Simon, it’s going to be more difficult for you [at the Met] than it was for me because you’re a Black man. You’re also independent, you have a beautiful voice and you have character.’” Estes made a successful debut, which led to return engagements in later seasons as the Walküre Wotan in the premiere of Otto Schenk’s celebrated production, Amfortas (shown left), Orest in Elektra, Amonasro (including Leontyne’s farewell performance), and Porgy in the company premiere of The Gershwins’ opera.

Estes always knew he was never paid fairly in comparison to his white colleagues. He also had to live with the harsh reality that the Black male was shockingly under-represented in classical music. It dismayed him that little had changed since the decades preceding him, “when the only roles Bill Warfield sang were Porgy and Joe [in Show Boat]. Paul Robeson was treated even worse.” In his own generation, Estes and tenor George Shirley were the only Black men triumphing at the most prestigious theaters internationally in roles not specifically designated for Black artists. Today the situation is slowly—very slowly—improving, but Estes can’t forget the many times he had to work very hard, one-on-one, to wake people up to the real story.

A particularly scarring experience occurred when Bayreuth was planning a new Ring cycle to be conducted by Sir Georg Solti. Festival director Wolfgang Wagner wanted Estes as Wotan. Although he’d sung widely in Europe (including Bayreuth), Solti insisted that he audition. Estes found this deeply humiliating, “but I swallowed my pride and my ego, and I auditioned.” Solti complimented his singing but preferred to avoid problems with the director, Sir Peter Hall, who didn’t want a Black Wotan. Some weeks later, upon encountering Solti in Italy, Estes revealed how distressed he’d been because Solti had rejected him due to his race. To his credit, Solti, then the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s music director, subsequently engaged Estes for acclaimed CSO performances of Simon Boccanegra and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. It was clearly Bayreuth’s loss: when Birgit Nilsson sang Brünnhilde at the Met opposite Estes (shown below), she told him that of all the Wotans she’d sung with, his was the greatest.

It’s impossible for Estes to pick a favorite among the more than 100 operatic characters he’s portrayed (they include 17 title roles). Some, of course, stand out for him: John the Baptist in Salome (“Because I’m a deeply spiritual person”), King Philip II in Don Carlo, the Walküre Wotan and the Dutchman.

Estes’s insatiable musical curiosity has led him to take on several rarities, from Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto to Verdi’s Oberto and Falla’s Atlantida. Many characters were wildly different from Estes’s own personality, including Méphistophélès, Attila, and Boris Godunov, “But when I sang a role, I became that person onstage. I’ve never studied acting, but God gave me a talent to act.”

Estes’s hugely successful concert career has encompassed the gamut of repertoire and collaborations with nearly 100 celebrated conductors, among them Ormandy, Giulini, Muti, Maazel and Bernstein. With them he’s amassed a large discography encompassing major works of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi, and Fauré, plus Wagner arias, Mahler’s Symphony 8, Negro spirituals, and songs from Broadway (the latter with Willie Anthony Waters, the only Black conductor with whom Estes has ever recorded).

Estes’s essential generosity of spirit has led him to make his mark as a revered teacher. A faculty member at Iowa State for the past 23 years, he’s also taught at Wartburg College, Boston University, and the DMACC Ankeny Campus, while also giving lectures and master classes across America and internationally. “I always tell my students, ‘Sing from your heart and from your soul.’ I talk about humanity and the importance of ridding the world of racism. There’s only one race—the human race.” The breadth of Estes’s activities as a humanitarian is extraordinary. For example, he gives extensive time and resources to the fight against HIV/AIDS and has done so for years. Children desperately needing assistance are cared for through the Simon Estes Educational

Foundation and the Simon Estes International Foundation for Children. In South Africa performing for the 2010 World Cup grand finale, Estes was horrified to hear that a Black child in sub-Sahara Africa was dying of malaria every minute. “I really felt the Lord was laying this on my heart,” he recalls. After returning to America, “we did a big Christmas concert with 1,000 high school kids on the Iowa State University campus, raising $100,000.” Estes later brought 50 high school choirs together from 50 different counties in Iowa for concerts, raising an additional $432,000. Every penny of that total of $532,000 went to the United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets project.

Along with faith, family remains the center of Estes’s life: his daughters, Jennifer, Lynne, and Tiffany (“my three precious gifts from God”), and his second wife, Ovida. Whether at home with those he loves or away on his travels, Estes embraces life and will never ever rest on his laurels. And he will surely never retire from performing; as long as he has his voice, he’ll continue to bring it to a grateful public.

That brings us to his DMMO debut. General Director Michael Egel contacted Estes some time ago to seek his involvement in the company’s 50th anniversary season. “I said, ‘Michael, Porgy and Bess is a great idea. This is one of the greatest operas ever composed.’” Having previously been a much-acclaimed Porgy, Estes was now ready to pass that role to another artist. However, he recalled a dear friend, baritone Arthur Woodley (1949-2020), making an indelible impression as Frazier at the Met. When Egel asked if Estes would appear in the production, he agreed to sing Frazier, honoring Woodley’s memory.

At each Porgy and Bess performance, before Estes goes onstage, he’ll do as he’s always done—he’ll offer a prayer: “Dear Lord, thank You for giving me this talent to sing. I pray that the hearts of those in this audience will be touched to love You and to love one another.” As long as he continues singing—which we can hope he’ll do for many more years—Simon Estes will sing with gratitude, humility, and love.

“I always tell my students, ‘Sing from your heart and from your soul.’”

ROGER PINES, who recently concluded a 23-year tenure as dramaturg of Lyric Opera of Chicago, is a contributing writer to Opera News, Opera (U.K.), and programs of opera companies and recordings internationally. He has been on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music for the past three years.

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