Charles Robert Austin’s career path has been anything but usual. He comes to singing as a second career, and this former helicopter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps is now finding great success on the both the operatic and concert stages. A versatile bass-baritone, Mr. Austin sings repertoire from Bach to Wagner and opera to oratorio. His career has taken him to most of the major houses in North America, Europe and Asia in over 100 opera roles.
Mr. Austin currently lives near Seattle, where his garden blooms with honeysuckle and roses almost year-round. When CS phoned him for an interview last winter, he described the hummingbirds flying around an elevated feeder while one of the Austin family cats looked on helplessly from below. The bass-baritone sat with his German shepherd lying at his feet and shared insights into his life and career.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Lincoln, Neb., and grew up in Seward County, some 24 miles west of the city. Although my family was not particularly musical, I joined every chorus in school and the choir at church as soon as I was old enough. We did the Messiah, and I also remember singing Tomás Luis de Victoria’s motet “O Magnum Mysterium,” which I thought was the neatest piece of music I had ever heard.
Eventually, I found the Time-Life classical music collection on a private shelf in the school library and convinced the principal to let me listen to it. That’s basically how I was introduced to classical music.
When did you first discover you liked opera?
It wasn’t until I heard a rendition of “O du mein holder Abendstern” from Wagner’s Tannhäuser that I really developed a love for opera. At the time I encountered it, I was studying voice in college and my teacher let me learn the piece, even though he thought I was too young for it. I was attending Hastings College in Nebraska, preparing to be a music teacher, since I was not yet aware that a singing career was a possibility.
What did you do after finishing college?
After I got my bachelor’s degree, I went into the Marine Corps. I needed to find out if my love for music really was up to the level I thought necessary for me to become a professional singer. I thought that if I really missed singing I would return to postgraduate studies, which is what I eventually did.
I never finished my degree, however, because I was already singing small parts at Opera Omaha. Earlier, I had entered the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and been a regional finalist, so in my last year of eligibility, I auditioned again. I made the national finals but, unfortunately, I was out-classed, because I studied with a teacher who wasn’t accustomed to bringing students up to a professional level. Rise Stevens spoke with me afterwards, and her words were discouraging, but sometimes you just have to have enough drive to keep going.
The Met’s artistic administrator, Jonathan Friend, said he heard some talent in my voice and recommended that I go back to school for a year or two. I went to the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, and the training I got there helped me get the polish I needed. During the summer, I was an apprentice at Santa Fe Opera, and that exposure got me several opera jobs.
I know, now, that there is an enormous difference between academic voice lessons and the kind of training you get from a teacher who has spent some years as a professional singer. There really is no comparison. Often, academic voice studio people don’t know much about vocal projection and what that involves. If they themselves have never worked in the profession, they may not know how to make a song come to life. Having the correct pronunciation and getting the dynamics right is not all there is to creating art!
Was there a teacher who really gave you the background you needed to become a professional singer?
When I began studying with Margaret Harshaw, I realized how different it was to study with a teacher who had been a professional singer for many years. She didn’t cut me any slack! When she thought I wasn’t doing things right, she said so in no uncertain terms! At one lesson, I made the same mistake five times! She yelled at me, asking why I kept doing that. At that point, I started to laugh and told her she reminded me of my Marine Corps drill sergeant! She was a great voice teacher because she knew what it took to be on stage.
How I loved working with that woman! I do so wish she had stayed on the planet a little longer. She knew vocal anatomy inside out. She knew what it really took to stand, support, and sing properly. She taught her students how to sing correctly and get the best sound out of their instruments.
Have you found there is a great deal more to opera than just singing?
Let’s face it, opera is about multitasking! An opera singer has to be a Renaissance person who can sing, dance, fence, and be a true performer. You cannot just work in a studio, either. You need to have life experience from which you can draw. You can’t bring an emotion to the stage if you’ve never felt it yourself.
What are some of your favorite roles?
Scarpia is, by far, my favorite role. I have a tendency to play darker characters, and the last time I sang it, my wife said she was “creeped out!” I like characters such as Mephistopheles in Faust and Wotan in the “Ring.” When I play Leporello in Don Giovanni, he also tends to be on the dark side. I would love to do Hagen in Die Götterdämmerung someday, because he matches my ability at characterization and I have the low notes.
I really enjoyed singing Mephistopheles in the Madison Opera Faust, directed by Ken Cazan. He is both a singer and a director, and his ideas are often “outside the box.” He had six demons accompany me everywhere I went on stage. He even encouraged them to cause havoc among the choristers, each of whom had some sort of character to play. It made Mephistopheles more powerful and the opera much more believable. He told us to take it to the max, and we did. He said he would pull it back if it got too wild, but he never did.
Cazan allowed me to push the envelope, to find new depth that I never had before, and working with him was a wonderful experience.
Who is the most memorable conductor you have worked with?
When I was at Santa Fe Opera, Matthew Epstein, [now former] artistic director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, recommended me to Riccardo Muti for a recording of Tosca with Carol Vaness and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I sang the part of the Jailer.
Muti is a wonderful pianist and he played that score more beautifully than I had ever heard it rendered. At the first orchestra rehearsal, he and the musicians blew my mind away from the first page. What an amazing conductor he is! When he wanted to correct the first violins, he demonstrated their mistake to them in tempo, using solfege!
How did you come to be in the Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart Emerging Singers program for Wagner singers?
That was a stroke of luck. I happened to be doing Die Walküre at Virginia Opera. Tenor Thomas Rolf Truhitte, who had just gone through the program, thought that I should look into it and he recommended me. The Stewarts came to a performance at which I was singing Hunding and covering Wotan. Actually, I had met them when I was an apprentice in Santa Fe during 1990 and 1991, but I had not been in touch with them since. In any case, they liked my work and asked me to audition for them.
I sang “Wotan’s Farewell” from Die Walküre for them. Stewart told me some things that I was doing wrong, but he also told me that I was doing a lot of things correctly and that I should be singing full time! The program gave me a great deal of confidence and let me know that Wagner’s music was right for my voice. It has opened doors for me, because when Stewart and Lear hear of someone who can use me, they make the introduction. They have connections that neither my agent nor I have.
Have you ever had to sing when you are really ill?
I sang König Marke in Virginia Opera’s Tristan und Isolde. On the morning of one performance, when I was walking down to breakfast, I tried to say good morning to someone—and no voice came out! After that, I tried to phonate, and realized that I had nothing! They had no cover for me, either.
I went back to my room and sat over a steam machine for two hours until I got my voice to work. Then, I phoned the company’s director and told him that I could sing, but it wouldn’t be pretty, so I wanted him to make an announcement about it. It was the first time this had happened to me, and I knew that the whole Wagner society from Washington, D.C. would be there! You know you’re a real professional when you can make something out of that situation!
What are some of your upcoming performances?
On July 16, I sing the Mozart Requiem with the Cleveland Orchestra, directed by Jahja Ling, at the Blossom Music Festival. That’s held in Cuyahoga Falls, 25 miles southeast of Cleveland. During September and October, I will be covering the role of Bluebeard in Bartók’s A Készakállú herceg vára [Duke Bluebeard’s Castle] at Washington National Opera.
On Nov. 11, 14, 17, and 19, I will sing Frère Laurent in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette at the Pittsburgh Opera. Finally, I will end the year 2006 singing Handel’s Messiah with the San Diego Symphony under the direction of Jahja Ling, on Dec. 14, 16 and 17.
