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Issue: Vol 1, No 1, Fall 2001

UK Opera: Looking for An Angel

Opera in Lexington is poised on the verge of greatness thanks to the University of Kentucky Opera Program and its Director, Dr. Everett McCorvey. The opera program at UK is one component of the overall voice program which also includes the choral and music education programs. "The reason we have an opera program," says McCorvey, "is because most of your major league voices want to go into opera. You can't have a very successful recital career without having some sort of opera – most of your recitalists are opera singers who do recitals." UK offers undergraduate and graduate degrees that are performance or music education oriented.

Even though the singing business is, in the words of McCorvey, "unfortunately over-saturated," singers sing because they have to, because, he believes, they have a calling. For those who choose the performance degrees, there is little guarantee that they will find jobs as singers. However, for those who enter the music education programs there is almost 100% placement as there is a national need for music teachers.

Over the past ten years the program has gone from being less than a blip on the music school map to one of the most sought after programs in the country. The presence of Noemi Lugo, Everett McCorvey and Cliff Jackson started the ball rolling, along with the addition of Stephen King and Jefferson Johnson. As McCorvey believes, this planted the seeds for the future. In 1994 Marlena Malas, the American voice coach for Luciano Pavarotti, spent a week teaching a Master Class at UK and returned to New York extolling the quality she discovered here.

Then along came Gregory Turay, a home grown product who won the Metropolitan Opera Young Artist Competition in 1995 and this past year received the prestigious Richard Tucker Award. His voice teacher is Everett McCorvey and his vocal coach and frequent accompanist is Cliff Jackson.

Then there was the funding for an endowed chair – and Gail Robinson took up residence. "We had a really strong voice faculty but we had to have a mechanism to get the word out on the national scale," explains the opera director. "Gail was probably the most powerful person in terms of young artists' careers in the country – she was head of the Young Artists Program at the Metropolitan Opera and that's where everyone wants to go. She was also head of the Metropolitan auditions." It has paid off and the word is out that this year the program boasts the best crop of singers coming in to the program that it has ever seen.

According to McCorvey the students historically coming into the program were what he refers to as "diamonds in the rough", students who required 3-5 years of work and voice development to get them to a particular quality. Now, he says, "they're already coming in with that quality and that's what is stunning." The average age in the doctoral music program at UK is early 30's. "A voice at 18 or 20 can't do the same thing that a voice at 30 can do," explains McCorvey.

"When I came here we couldn't even approximate doing a production like Don Giovanni. I mean it wasn't even on the horizon – we didn't have voices that could do that." He is excited about the cast for this production of the Mozart opera and says it is in the league of a major regional opera, not a college cast.

So where does the program need to go from here? To become a world class opera department there is a tremendous need for additional funding for facilities and faculty. An additional vocal coach is high on the list of faculty needs. Currently, Cliff Jackson serves as the departments only vocal coach and every student must pass through Jackson.

Voice teachers concentrate on teaching technique. Explains McCorvey, "We teach them to make beautiful tone, to hit the high notes and the low notes. Then we send them to Cliff and he teaches them the languages, the style and performance practices." With 80 students currently enrolled in the vocal program, one can easily see where another vocal coach is badly needed. When compared to schools with international reputations such as Juliard, Florida State, and Indiana to name a few, McCorvey feels that UK has equal or better talent. There would also be no problem in attracting top notch voice teachers and vocal coaches if the funding were available.

When one compares the budgets of these institutions the gap widens significantly. Indiana University's budget is $100,000 per opera, and they produce 8 operas per year. In contrast, UK Opera receives approximately $25,000 a year from the University. The recent announcement of the $500,000 Lindemann challenge fund (see page 6) provides a means for moving UK to the forefront of university opera programs in the country.

Clearly, opera in Lexington is on the verge of international notoriety. Perhaps there is an angel out there who will step forward and help make the dream a reality.

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