Quattlebaum as Grigory Stepanovitch Smirnov and Ashley Dixon as Yelena Ivanovna Popova in the Merola Opera Program’s production of THE BEAR, 2017
He looks more like a rock star than an opera singer. He laughs easily, and one could mistake him for a much older, well seasoned singer. But the 24-year-old has a wealth of knowledge and enough charisma to disarm even the most cynical. A Maryland native, these days he’s enjoying success in Zurich, a move he felt he was ready for and the time was right to do. His route to success was relatively conventional—but, then again, he chose to take some chances that perhaps other young singers would not have.
“I started off as a kid in the choir and was part of the Peabody Children’s Chorus all throughout primary and secondary school,” he remembers. “In fourth grade I did my first musical, Annie, and played Daddy Warbucks. I actually shaved my head because I didn’t want to wear that bald cap! I was committed,” he laughs.
When he got to high school, he became more serious about his singing, participating in multiple choirs by his junior year. “My high school music teacher, Carol Shuster Yunkunis, encouraged me to take voice lessons with her,” he says. “She had had a really good career in Europe and studied with [Margaret] Harshaw and Nell Rankin.”
But despite the fact he was making good technical progress and “loving it,” he wasn’t sure what he should do once his senior year was upon him. It was Yunkunis who encouraged him to earn a degree in music. “Up until that point I hadn’t considered that,” he says. “I didn’t think that was something you could seriously do.”
He applied to several schools and settled on the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). He cringes when his mom makes him listen to his first initial audition tape. “It is like, no good,” he says. “I’m really lucky I got in!”
Still, Cincinnati proved to be the perfect fit when he started working with Kenneth Shaw. “It was an instantaneous click,” he recalls. “I absolutely knew I wanted to go there and study with him. While I got a very good base from Carol and she was convincing me to do opera, my true technique came from Ken.” But during his first semester, he was still having some doubt. “I was not super convinced that opera was a real thing you could do with your life or that it was ‘the coolest’ music to be singing,” he says.
By his second year, however, he asked himself, “Am I going to take this seriously or just get my degree and be done?” He committed “150 percent” and started attending countless recitals. He admits he probably practiced too much, shutting himself in a practice room “until I literally couldn’t [sing] anymore.”
He spent hours in the library reading biographies of composers and music that people weren’t performing. Admittedly not the greatest pianist, he would end up “sleeping overnight in a practice room trying to play, knowing there was a theory test at eight or nine the next morning.” Throughout the next three years, he admits, “I was constantly consuming art and knowledge of music. If you marry something like that, you have no choice but to love it and learn it. I had to be around music all the time.
“I would bring my ideas to Ken,” he continues, “and ask him, ‘Am I doing this right?’ That was the greatest part of our teaching relationship. He would let me say what I thought was wrong, and then he would give me that affirmation that what I was saying was either correct or that there was a better way to go about it.” Knowing the frustration of not always having a coach or teacher when on the road, Quattlebaum acknowledges the importance of having a solid technique to take with you. “It’s really good to go to a practice room and give yourself a lesson based on what you learned from your teacher,” he says.
Then, in his senior year, he was invited by Robin Guarino, professor of opera, to work with her program that was really meant for master’s level or artist diploma students. “I was having a lot more opportunities to perform onstage than a lot of undergrads,” he says. “In the end, it really helped with my confidence in auditioning.”
Then he took a political turn and joined the student senate. He successfully passed a bill to get collaboration between the undergrad opera program and the design school to produce all the sets and costumes for the opera productions. “Up until then,” he remembers, “Ken was building everything in his own garage. Now the operas are fully funded; it’s really exploding now.”
But finally, in his senior year, he started to apply to graduate programs, including Curtis Institute of Music, CCM, Juilliard, and Yale University. CCM made a tempting offer, but when Juilliard offered a full scholarship with plenty of opportunities for bass parts, “I thought, ‘I have to do this,’” he says. “I had done what I needed to do in the Midwest and was very grateful, but now I really needed to be in the metropolis of the East Coast. It gave me the access to Europe, and now I’m here in Zurich.”
Juilliard was no cake walk by any means. “I had to do basically all of the classes I had done as an undergrad all over,” he explains, “which was absurd and totally unnecessary. That was one of the negative aspects of having to go to a different school, and I was taking like 18, 20 credits every semester. It was nuts. I either performed or covered 13 roles in two years. A lot of my friends did two or three. I was busy.”
But he acknowledges that being at Juilliard provided a lot of opportunity, in part because “I was prepared. They trusted me.” And the summer before his second year, he was accepted into San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program, where he sang Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. “I also did the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition in Oakland,” he remembers, “and won both top prize as well as the audience favorite.”
Quattlebaum is quick to admit that was a definite boost to his confidence. “When I came back to New York,” he says, “I started to experience lots of success with other vocal competitions. I did the George London [Competition] and the Metropolitan Opera [National Council Auditions] during 2016–17 and was a finalist in the Richard Tucker [Foundation] competition.” He received the Sara Tucker Study Grant for his participation.
“I had literally sang for every person in New York, which really helped to get my name out there in America and outside America,” he says. “It put my name in the stratosphere; someone would know my name somewhere. People on these panels are the people who cast.”
And in New York, a place he’d always dreamed to be, he credits Juilliard for consistently bringing in other folks to audition for. “Being in New York was awesome,” he says. “It made my dream a little more real living in a city that I loved since I was a kid. That’s where Zurich and Frankfurt heard me. It pushed me into a position where I could leave the States if I felt I was ready for that, which I did.”
But there was also an adjustment period to packing up and living in Europe. “Being part of a German-speaking area of Europe is harder,” he says. “It’s less of that relaxed feeling and less of that Euro vibe; everyone is just focused and working. It’s grey skies and snowy and rainy. As far as living the Swiss lifestyle, it’s been a huge challenge for me. I’m not a buttoned-up, double-Windsor kind of guy, I’m more a vagabond,” he laughs.
“But getting into Zurich was a huge step in my career, and the program has been awesome,” he continues. “The opera house is exquisite, with a lot of amazing people who work here. It’s known that Zurich is, if not the best, one of the best Young Artist Programs in Europe. I knew I wanted to be in and work in Europe while I was younger.
“That’s the most successful way of having a career internationally,” he says, “and it’s a good window into doing major roles—to come to Europe and learn languages and experience the world in travel and do these roles. You don’t have that opportunity in America. You can’t walk into the Met and be like, ‘I’m going to sing Don Giovanni, or even Masetto,’ whereas here you might have opportunity to do that. I’ve been receiving a lot of guest offers to come and do major roles in opera houses here.”
And, not surprisingly, Quattlebaum has his opinions about the YAPs in America as well as leaving the States to work in Europe. “Is it a necessity to go abroad?” he asks. “Off the record, maybe. But I would like to think no. Is it definitely a better way? I think so.
“A young singer that isn’t having success in the YAP scene in America should definitely go to Europe. And if you’re not getting into one of the four or five major YAPs in America, just go to Europe. There are more opera houses in Germany than all of North America! There’s no opportunity, really, to do this many roles and this many shows within one or two years in a YAP in America.
“The problem with America,” he continues, “is that most (not all) YAPs, even after you finish—if you go right out of college or you’re my age, 24—you can’t go to work at one of the major opera houses in America. You’re not going to do the stuff that you would have done at a YAP in Europe. In my opinion, the reason why I’m having success in places like Zurich, Glyndebourne, general European countries, and Great Britain, is because I’m not coming here pretending I can sing Verdi or pretending I should go into Wagner roles.
“Why would Figaro have to be older than 25?” he asks. “Why would Don Giovanni have to be older than 28? Of course, you can have a star come and sing it to sell tickets, but that’s just not the problem here in Europe.
“In America you have to sell tickets. But in general, the houses out here are not worried about the citizens of their cities coming to see the opera; they’re going to come,” he says. “In fact, they like to see some new talent once in a while. I would rather be singing appropriate, awesome roles than sing like the ‘third tree from the left’ in some Wagner opera in a YAP until I’m 30. I’m not talking badly about those programs, but the truth is I was willing to take the risk and come to Europe for the sheer fact I would be working on a new language every day of my life. I’m doing rehearsals in German, all of them, until I can’t understand, and then I get some English help.”
Still, to young singers like himself who may not be getting the work in America, he offers some interesting observations. “You’ve got like 186 different opera houses in Germany. How many in America? For young singers, I’d say go on Operabase and look at the house, see what they are doing.
“Just go,” he advises. “Pack up and audition for like two and a half weeks. You’re going to get a job. You don’t make a lot of money as a young artist in Europe as compared to America but, in reality, it pays off.”
Even though Quattlebaum is passionate about the roles he’s been given, he still dreams of returning to America as a full-fledged singer—and one not willing to compromise his ideals. “I sing the lead role in a new work here,” he says. “It wasn’t on the main stage, but it was a mainstage production and not a Young Artist Program.
“Nobody in America would have given me that opportunity,” he says. “Also, here they’re encouraging me to move on. They’re like, ‘If you’re getting offers, then go get them.’ I don’t want to go back to America and perform, like I said, some ‘third tree from the left.’
“I want to go there and make a debut with a character that will be recognized and do it well, so that instantly I have the trust from those companies,” he continues. “Because that’s my home. Everyone wants to have a homecoming and come back and be trusted in their hometown. It’s hard to do that right out of a YAP.
“Right now,” he says, “I am trying to decide what to do about management. At the end of the day, although management helps your career and helps you fill in your calendar, it’s also the people that are going to be more or less deciding what to put you up for. They are advising you on your career but, more than that, they’re speaking on your behalf.”
But what’s this business about being called a Barihunk? It’s a blog and website which showcases sexy and hot young baritones, even offering a Barihunk calendar. I also ask him about his long hair and its impact.
“I grew my hair out because I stopped cutting it in Cincinnati,” he answers. “It became something I liked. Although I don’t want to be defined by it, it does help me to be a more memorable face in an audition. I am so happy to be a part of the Barihunk community, because it’s a cool thing to have your name go up and see people have responded to it in a good way.”
And although Quattlebaum has a special affinity to Mozart (“Mozart is like vocal therapy”), he aspires for Verdi, Wagner, and others when he is older and vocally ready. “Of course, I want to sing Verdi and Attila today,” he laughs. “That music is awesome. I want to sing Rodrigo [Don Carlo]. Maybe I could sing the Requiem, maybe some of his songs, and maybe Ezio in Attila.
“It’s like playing chess,” he explains. “You want to win the game, and you want longevity and to sing healthy at the best houses and sound good. You’d better be looking six steps ahead and you better not be debilitated by looking 10 steps ahead.
“But for now, all of the major Mozart roles, especially the Don and Leporello and Figaro and the Count. Handel? All of them! As far as French opera, all of the Mephistopheles roles. That includes Nick Shadow in Rake’s Progress. All the Britten stuff. And I want to sing Barnaba and Alvise in La Gioconda.
“My dream role is the Flying Dutchman. I want to sing Bluebeard and Ward’s Crucible, the role of John Proctor. And John Adams and all the songs of Hugo Wolf! I really want to touch all of it! I like so much of it. It’s easier for me to say, ‘I can’t do this’ than it is for me to say, ‘These are the things I don’t want to do.’”
