In 1961, George Shirley, (b.1934) became the first African-American tenor to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. With an operatic repertoire of more than fifty roles, Mr. Shirley has sung in most of the big opera houses in the United States and Europe. Equally at home with recital and concert literature, he has been accompanied by some of the finest pianists and orchestras of the world. Currently, Mr. Shirley is a Professor of Voice at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
How did you become interested in singing opera?
I began singing in the church. My parents, untrained musicians, would give recitals quite often, including me in the program. I probably gave my first recital when I was about eight years old; it consisted of art songs and spirituals. At first I wasn’t really interested in opera. Recitals, choral music and symphonic literature were the forms that I enjoyed the most. When I was a senior at Wayne State University in Detroit, the director of the Glee Club, Harry Langsford, asked if I would be interested in singing the leading role in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. What did I know? I looked at the music and it appeared to be quite a challenge. They loaned me a recording with Peter Pears as Oedipus and I agreed to do three or four performances. It remains the one performance which was true to the score.
I enjoyed the experience but it did not sway me from completing my major, which was in Music Education, and beginning a career as a Detroit music teacher in the public school system. That’s what I did for one year and a half before being drafted into the Army. While in the Army, I auditioned for the United States Army Chorus in Washington, D.C. When I was accepted, I found myself surrounded by men who were either planning on having [musical] careers or their musical careers had been interrupted by the draft. As I neared the end of my second year and was preparing to go back into civilian life, a colleague of mine named Jack Gillespie, who went on to have a career in Germany as John Gilles and has for many years taught in Lubbock at Texas Tech, suggested that I go and sing for his voice teacher, Thelmy S. Georgi, a tenor who sang in the 1920s in Germany and the United States. One day, to get him off of my back, I went to sing for his teacher. I sang for Thelmy and he said, much to my surprise, that if I studied with him for one year he could guarantee that I would have a career. Well, no one had ever said anything to me about having a career as an opera singer. I hadn’t even considered it. So, I signed on for another year with the Army Chorus and began studying with Mr. Georgi.
Out of the blue, I got a call from a woman who ran a small opera company called the Turnau Opera Players in Woodstock, New York. She got my name from a bass in the Detroit area who was contracted to sing with them. He knew me from the Army Chorus. It turned out that one of their tenors canceled. It was a company of six singers and two pianists and they played to a house of 250 seats. Well, I had to tell her that I had just signed up for another year with Army. Let’s face it, New York City is a long ways from Detroit! You have to remember that there were practically no black men having operatic careers. There was Roland Hayes, Paul Robeson, Kenneth Spencer in Europe singing recitals and Lawrence Winters.
So most African-Americans at that time were concert singers?
Well those who wanted to sing classical music, yes, because there were no opera companies in the United States that would hire black singers. Anyway, she advised me to come to New York in January for an audition. I did exactly as she had asked and they signed me to a contract for the Summer of 1959. It was an affirmation from above.
Before I left Washington, I entered the Met Auditions and made it to the Mid-Atlantic regionals. Unfortunately, I didn’t advance to the next round, but two gentlemen found it necessary to give me words of encouragement. John Gutman, the assistant to Rudolph Bing, and Howard Hook, the chairman of the National Council Auditions, came up to me at the reception to inform me that I was on the right track and to hang in there. They said that I was still young and inexperienced. Having received this advice, I left Washington feeling as if I had won the competition.
That summer, I performed with the Turnau Players in Woodstock some five different roles: Belmonte in Abduction from the Seraglio , Mozart; Harun in Bizet’s first opera Gamile; Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, Strauss; Rodolfo in La Bohême, Puccini; and Torchemara in L’heure Espagnol, Ravel. Everything was in English so I didn’t have to hassle with languages. I had only studied French in high school and my other languages were not something I wanted to be recorded and played back to me later. After the summer season, we toured Abduction. That’s basically how I became involved in opera.
Having completed that summer of performing, I prepared myself for the Met competition again. This time I made it to the finals. Prior to the finals, John Gutman approached me to inquire about the selection which I was going to offer. I told him that it would either be ’Nessun dorma’ or ’O Paradiso’. He suggested the ’Nessun dorma’ and said, “If this goes as well as your first offering, then we may have something here.”
Taking his advice, I sang ’Nessun dorma’. I was absolutely stunned when they announced that I had won a contract with the Met. I felt like someone had hit me over the head with a baseball bat. As a matter of fact, there was a photograph in the Saturday Review which showed me looking like a zombie as I received the award.
From the time I entered the profession, the summer of 1959, to the spring of 1961 when I won the contract, things went almost too fast. It was as if I had stepped onto a slide and whoosh… there I was standing onstage with some of the world’s most seasoned opera singers. Everything I did at the Met, save for La Bohême–and mind you, I performed 27 roles there–was a debut performance. I don’t mean a first time performance for the Met; I mean the first time anywhere. That was not the way to debut a role at the Metropolitan Opera. I cannot begin to tell why I was given this opportunity. I have met tenors, both black and white, whose voices were far greater than mine. I have been absolutely flabbergasted at the way some of them sing; they have had phenomenal voices. The only explanation I can offer for my having accomplished this in less than two years would be that it was the will of the Almighty. So I’m sure we all have our role to play.
Did you have a hard time finding an agent ?
No, I did not. My first agent was a German Jew by the name of Hans Hoffmann. I had been told by a friend of mine who was a client of his not to sign a contract with him until he had done some work for me. Well, I went and I sang for him. By the time he finished showering me with compliments and filling my eyes with dreams, I signed that contract. It was a big mistake. In his office he had pictures of a lot of successful singers, but as it turned out Hans would sign on singers and not do anything for them. He was not aggressive. He would simply take credit for what they had done for themselves.
A year went by and I had not heard anything from my manager. The phone rang one day, and it was someone from the Spoleto Festival calling to invite me to audition for them. Someone had heard me singing somewhere and had recommended me. This took place before the Met auditions. So I accepted. I arrived at the Carnegie recital hall and guess who was sitting there? My manager, Hans Hoffman, who had brought some of his other clients to audition. Now to let you know that God arranges things, there was an empty seat next to him. I sat in the seat next to him. When he turned around he said in a startled voice, “Oh, hello, George!” I said, “Hello, Mr. Hoffmann.” I didn’t say anything else. He just sat there and started to sweat. Something inside of me said, “Get this job!” So I began my audition with the old standby, ’Nessun dorma’. I sang the pants off of it. Tommy Schippers, who happened to be in charge of the opera, asked, “Well now, what do you do for an encore?” At that moment I heard Hoffmann in the back of the theater exclaiming, “He is my client! He is my client! George, call me tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. He is my client! He is my client!” So I went home and told my wife what had happened. I then proceeded to make a list of all of the promises which Hans Hoffmann had made to me when I signed with him. It was quite a long list. Eleven o’clock rolled around and I didn’t call. At about 11.02 am, the phone rang. It was Hoffmann. “George, they want you! They want you for this coming summer!” I didn’t say anything until he sort of wound down. Then I said, “Mr. Hoffmann, it’s been one year since I signed the contract for you to be my manager and you haven’t gotten me one audition.” I then read the list of unfulfilled promises. When I got to the end of the list, I requested to be released from the contract. Mr. Hoffmann said that he would not because he wanted to help me. I responded by slamming the phone onto the receiver. The next day, I went to the call-backs for Spoleto. That’s all I ever wanted—the opportunity to audition. I got the gig.
Some time passed, and I went to talk with Mr. Hoffmann. I said, “You know all I ever wanted was a chance to audition.” To which he replied, “It is very difficult here…” “Did you hold back because I’m black?,” I asked. “Yes,” he said. I said, “Mr. Hoffmann, I’ve been living as a black person for 25 years: I can deal with that. Don’t you worry about trying to protect me from somebody else’s attitude. All I want, all I need is an opportunity. If somebody wants to close off because I’m black, that’s their problem. Not mine! So don’t you try to make that decision for me.”
That whole experience was a real eye-opener for me. My next agent was Anne Summers, a Canadian. She was a nice person, but very aggressive; she got things done. Although Hans and I maintained a friendly relationship, he was just too lazy for me. I had considered Columbia Artists Management, but I thought they were too big. They’ve always had a huge list of singers and I thought I might wind up being shelved or pigeonholed.
No, I don’t think I ever had a hard time finding an agent.
Have you ever had any negative reactions, in connection to a performance, to your being African-American?
If you look in the materials that have been written about me, you won’t find a lot of negative stuff because there wasn’t. However, one could speculate that my skin coloring is light enough so that if I wear make-up people would be comfortable with what they were seeing on stage. The darker brothers (men) always have a more difficult time. A young baritone whom I met at the Aspen Music Festival said that an agent approached him and remarked that he would have an easier time of it because he was light-skinned. They were just straightforward with him. Though I do not recall any gasps from the audience upon my entrance onstage, I do recall a couple of dropped jaws. You see, at the old Met, it was the tradition to have the photographs of the performers displayed out front. Sometimes people would notice them and sometimes they wouldn’t. In performing, I’ve always used make-up, not to hide who I am, but because that is the tradition of theater. I reserve the right as an artist to look as stupid as everybody else walking around wearing wigs and make-up. So when people would come back stage and knock on my door (people who didn’t know me), quite often I would be greeted by a look of amazement accompanied by the slowly dropped jaw. They would then try to see if Mr. Shirley was behind me or over my shoulder somewhere. Unfortunately, race does play a part in everything. It is sad, but true. It is a problem that I fear will never go away. People will always find it hard to see a black man together with a white woman, onstage or in real life. Brothers who are in the business now are not finding it any easier than when I began my career. It is an unfortunate loss to the art form.
What would you suggest as a possible step toward ridding the world of this problem?
When we all begin to believe in the universal truths, then this problem will cease to exist. The universal truths are that in science all of mankind can be traced back to one Mother and in religion we all have the same Father. No matter which you decide to believe, we all have a common bond which links us. If we all would educate ourselves, instead of allowing fear to control us, we would not have these problems. Knowledge is power.
