On a train journey carrying the San Francisco Opera Company cast to Los Angeles, the small child climbed on the lap of the famous singer, Salvatore Baccaloni.
“So, young man,” said the well-known vocalist. “Are you going to be a tenor like your father when you grow up?” The small boy scowled back: “Nobody’s gonna make a tenor outta me!”
Well, somebody did, but it took another 60 years.
As I grew up, I wanted nothing to do with opera or singing. That was my dad’s activity, not mine, and I pursued a career in journalism. Fast forward to age 60, when my daughter sang in Jeffrey Benson's high school chorus at the H.B. Woodlawn Program in Arlington, Va. Wow! I wanted to do that!
If I was getting serious about singing, I thought, I ought to take some voice lessons. At the Selma Levine School in Washington, my teacher, Charles Williams, liked my two-octave range and said, “You have a beautiful instrument that you have been misusing all of your life.” I told him I expected to sing bass. “No, absolutely not. You are a tenor!” (Oh my God! No!) I told him that I once told a famous tenor that no one would make a tenor out of me. “Except you!” I shouted as I pointed to my new teacher, and we both laughed.
Next, I sang with a community choir and a gospel choir and even put out a solo YouTube video. After a year of sight-singing lessons, I was ready for a new challenge. I decided to audition for the prestigious Washington Men’s Camerata, led by Frank Albinder, which appears annually at the Kennedy Center.
I was looking for some advanced choral music to practice with for the audition, when I came across father’s choral books in a box that I received when he died. I carefully opened the box and thumbed through the books of songs, many of which I had heard him sing around the house. Often the high notes were accented by profanity when he couldn’t hit them.
I took out some of the dusty music and practiced with it as it brought back memories.
I passed the audition.
Thanks, Dad.
