directory  |  sites  |  press        Submit Site  |  Submit Press Release

Romantic Lead
Vinson Cole Reflects on His Career So Far

By Hampton Smith

Vinson Cole Photo by David Hiller

Vinson Cole has led his successful career in much the same way as other black professionals in the U.S., by doing his best, keeping an eye out for the occasional racist, and proceeding with the understanding that the opera world, like the world in general, may not be a just place, but dedication and a love for singing usually win in the end. Mr. Cole has sung romantic lead roles in all the major opera houses including, most recently, Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata at the Met in December of last year. His long association with the archetypal romantic roles in Don Carlo, Faust, Werther, L'Elisir d'Amore, Manon and Traviata make him ideally suited to comment on one of the most persistent and ticklish questions facing black men in opera: Are audiences and impresarios still made squeamish by the sights and sounds of black men making love to white women or have they become color-blind towards interracial couples on the operatic stage? We spoke to him about these and other issues of race in opera. Race has not been inconsequential, but neither has it been his principal concern in pursuing his art and career.

"I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri in a fairly musical family.My great aunt - my grandmother's sister - studied music. My mother was a child performer in the early thirties. She sang and danced tap on radio programs. My grandmother led the children's choir at the church - it was a black church - and I sang with them. The woman who conducted the regular choir heard me sing and thought I had a good voice. She was getting a master's degree at the conservatory in Kansas City, so she took me to her voice teacher and I sang for him and that was the beginning of it.

"At the same time that I took voice lessons, I studied piano. For voice, I had a great teacher but for piano I had a terrible teacher. To this day I can remember her name. After a couple of years I said to myself 'I don't want to do this anymore,' and I stopped, which I regret because I wish I could play a lot better than I do. When I was ten I did Amahl and the Night Visitors. The next year I started to sing for the opera company there and decided this was the career I wanted.

"As far as my peers, some people were enthusiastic about my singing, but you know how kids are. I got used to it. Besides singing, I was an A student and on the honor roll, so those things set me apart. I never felt any direct racial hostility as I grew up. The schools I attended were very much integrated. From grade school through high school the student body was usually between 60 and 70 percent white and 30 and 40 percent black. It's strange, but I felt racial prejudice only when I got to college. I didn't necessarily see it myself; I would hear things through friends. But in terms of productions that I sang in school, I never felt anything from other singers or the audience.

"My parents were very supportive and enthusiastic about my singing. My mother took me to voice lessons every Saturday. In fact, my two older sisters started taking voice lessons at the same time; they had really wonderful voices but chose not to pursue singing. Although, I remember very distinctly my father turning to me and saying 'What are you going to do if you don't become an opera singer.' I told him that I was determined to be a singer, but that if by some happenstance I didn't sing, I would go back to school and get a degree in history. I never wanted to be involved in music other than as a performer.

"After high school, I went to the conservatory at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, then to Curtis Institute of Music. Although the University of Missouri prepared me for later on in my career, I wasn't vocally as far along as I felt I could have been, but I was also very young. I was at Curtis for two years. It was a really fantastic program. In those two years I learned six roles, including Tamino [in The Magic Flute], Rodolfo [in La Bohème], and Des Grieux [in Manon], and performed them in their original languages, completely staged. I really learned a lot. And the most important thing - something that I can't stress enough - is that I really learned how to sing from my teacher, Margaret Harshaw. She was the only teacher since Curtis I've ever had.

"After Curtis I did a two-year apprenticeship program at Santa Fe Opera which was great. Richard Gaddis and John Crosby were the first big supporters of my career. My second summer there I did leading roles in The Cunning Little Vixen and La Vida Breve. They were also doing the Verdi Requiem as a benefit and I was asked to sing the tenor part. That was the real beginning of my career. It happened very quickly. I got a manager and things started taking off. I learned that having a beautiful voice wasn't enough so I worked very hard to cultivate all aspects of my career.

Vinson Cole as Cavaradossi in Seattle Opera's 1991 Tosca. Photo by Gary Smith, courtesy of Seattle Opera.

"I started winning competitions and grants such as the WGN competition in Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera auditions, a grant from the National Opera Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation. I then made my San Francisco Opera debut with Leona Mitchell in L' Amico Fritz. I've been fortunate to return to San Francisco throughout my career. My career has taken me all over the world from Australia, to Europe and Asia and, of course, all over America. Returning to Sydney for the past six years has been a particular joy. It has become a second home.

"I got my start in Sydney through serendipity. My former manager had a tenor who was supposed to sing Don Jose in Carmen. He became ill and my manager recommended me. They had been interested in me before, so it all worked out time-wise. I've sung Werther, Don Carlos, Faust, The Tales of Hoffman, and I've sung with the symphony, with Edo De Waart conducting. He is someone who has been involved with my career from my Santa Fe days. Unfortunately the Sydney Opera House doesn't have great acoustics, but if the set you're singing on happens to be enclosed it helps matters a great deal. I know they want to close the house and, hopefully, fix not only the acoustics but also the orchestra pit. I really enjoy Sydney because I have so many friends there and the people are really nice. I also love going to Vienna, where I did my first recording with Herbert von Karajan at the Musikverein - one of my favorite halls to sing in. I've also been fortunate to give recitals in the smaller Brahms Salle - a jewel for recitals.

"I've never gotten the sense that race has been an issue with any of the audiences for whom I've sung. The weird thing is that when I've felt anything concerning race its always been from people that run the company. I have no personal, direct experience, but my manager did tell me once that an individual at a certain house objected to a black man and a white woman singing together. It came from the management not the public. This was not that many years ago. My manager was incensed and he wanted to do something, but I didn't want to go someplace where I wasn't wanted.

"The music business is totally subjective and the people who run the companies have their likes and dislikes. You don't always know for certain why someone doesn't want you. If someone doesn't want to engage me, for whatever reason, that's fine. Someone else will come along who does like me. Yes, I think people are prejudiced. We all have some form of prejudice. I think in the past an audience might have been upset by an interracial couple. But it's far less likely today.

"I've sung in a lot of different places and I've always played the romantic lead. People have said it's easier for me to get past racial barriers and type-casting because I'm light. This has come from black people basically. I can't really say whether that is a factor or not. I've had dark-skinned tenor friends whose careers have maybe not been as successful as they would have liked. But I can't say that the way I look has helped me.

"As to the reaction I have received from black nonclassical performers, no one has ever questioned my choice of music. I think times are different. You find out early where your voice is headed and which music speaks to you, whether its popular, classical, gospel, etc. The whole field of opera has been made more accessible to so many people via television. People have become aware that it is possible to enjoy opera as a form of entertainment. I am reminded of the incredible singers that didn't have operatic careers but had great concert careers, like Dorothy Maynor and others. As with anything, it takes a long time for change to come, but eventually it happens.

"Everyone's voice is different. I used to listen to the Met broadcasts as a child. I didn't know that Martina Arroyo was black until many years after I first heard her on radio. I was 18 or so and I was at a record store and saw her in an issue of Opera News. Later, when I won the Met auditions, part of the prize was a concert and she was the featured soloist. She's a fantastic lady, full of life and fun. I told her that story and she just thought it was hysterical.

"You come into this world like a blank page. You don't know what you like or don't like. You don't come into the world with prejudices. They depend on what you're taught and brought up with. That's where it comes from.

"Some people have said that Europeans have an easier time setting aside race when they go to the opera. I think their prejudices are just different. I remember once somebody asked about me singing Tamino and one of their colleagues responded, "Vinson can't do that; he isn't blond and blue-eyed." It wasn't because I was black per se that I couldn't sing the role; it was because I wasn't blond and blue-eyed. They wouldn't have objected to me singing Alfredo but this was Tamino. I mentioned that Francisco Araiza is darker than I am and sings Tamino. They didn't quite know what to say. I really do believe they weren't saying that I couldn't sing it because I was black; it was just that I wasn't their concept. I wouldn't call it racism. It was their subjective decision."

Were you ever cast in a particular production specifically because you were black? "The only time that ever became an issue was at the Salzburg Festival when they wanted to do an all-black Rake's Progress to include a white devil."

In honor of Malcolm X? "I'm not sure what that was all about. They approached me about doing it but it never happened."