Hello again, dear readers! When I published my last post here at the beginning of June, I hadn’t counted on taking an extended summer hiatus, but for various reasons (including an ascent of Mt. St. Helens in late August), that’s precisely what happened. However, with the opera season starting up again shortly, I should have plenty more grist for the mill.

So now that I’m tanned, rested, and ready, let the fun begin!

Standing on the summit of Mt. St. Helens

James King (1925-2005)

On May 22, 1813, Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany, an event that, for good or ill, forever changed the way we think about and listen to opera. Exactly 112 years later, James King, whose reputation as America’s leading Wagnerian tenor was established during the 1960s and 1970s primarily through his performances of such roles as Siegmund, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, and Parsifal, was born about 5,000 miles away, in the small southwestern Kansas town of Dodge City.

King began his vocal studies at Louisiana State University, where he took on baritone parts in school productions. Upon graduating in 1949, he came back to his home state and taught singing at the University of Kansas City until 1958. During this time, he started to suspect that he might be a tenor, and an intense period of retraining in New York with the famed French baritone confirmed this fact. After winning the American Opera Auditions in 1961, King was cast as Don Jose at San Francisco Opera; later that same year, he traveled to Italy, and made what he always considered to be his professional debut in Florence as Cavaradossi in Tosca. Engagements in Berlin, Salzburg, and Vienna soon followed, and in 1965, he sang Siegmund at Bayreuth, thus initiating a decade-long relationship with the house that Wagner built. In January, 1966, he made his first Met appearance as Florestan; in October, he returned to the company–now in its new location at Lincoln Center–as the Emperor in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, with Leonie Rysanek, Christa Ludwig, Walter Berry, and Karl Böhm. 1968 marked King’s debut at La Scala, reprising the role of Siegmund, and Covent Garden, in what some critics thought was a rather lackluster production of Frau.

King’s career continued apace throughout the 1970s, 1980s ,and even into the early 1990s. In 1984, he joined the faculty at Indiana University, where he taught music and voice until 2002. He died of a heart attack on November 20, 2005.

The first three clips below are taken from a 1967 studio recital album which, to my knowledge, has never been released on CD in the United States. (I picked up my copy in London 10 years ago.) The last selection comes from the live 1967 Bayreuth Walküre conducted by Karl Böhm, which is available individually (Philips 464 751) or in a boxed set of all four Ring operas (Philips 723 802). King also recorded the work with Solti in 1965 (Decca 455 559), but I actually prefer him here. (And who can resist Leonie Rysanek’s blood-curdling scream when Siegmund pulls the sword out of that tree?)

“In Mahler we have lost a man of genius, a man who brought important ideas to the artistic life of our times, a seething, driving force, a great agitator and a great educator, and a master of his art. How do those lines run in his beautiful poem, Urlicht? ‘I am from God and would go back to God.’ And in the symphony’s final chorus, the words thunder forth: ‘Rise again, you shall rise again from the dead!’. What Gustav Mahler achieved can never be lost.”

Conclusion of Julius Korngold’s obituary article on Gustav Mahler, published in the Neue Freie Presse, 19 May, 1911

Winners will be announced on June 1. Wish me luck!

If you look over to the left side of the screen just under my most recent posts, you’ll notice that I’ve embedded a chat box. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about ways of expanding the means of communicating with readers, and this is one option that really intrigues me. (I use chat every day at work, so it’s not an entirely foreign concept.)

I’d like to try it out and see if it’s worth keeping. You’ll know I’m available at that moment to chat when my status reads “Bob K. is online.” Even if I’m not around, you can still message me.

So, come on and chat with me!

American composer Peter Lieberson died in Israel while undergoing treatment for lymphoma. He was 64.

Lieberson is perhaps best known for the 2005 cycle of five songs on Neruda poems dedicated to and premiered by his wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who passed away in 2006 after a long battle with breast cancer. Her recording of the set with the Boston Symphony won a Grammy in 2008 for Best Classical Vocal Performance.