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Essentials in
Press Kit
Meet Sherrill Milnes
An Honorary Life Member of the Society, a world class opera star, and a REAL baritone.
Updated: 8/26/2004 2:33:00 PM
If you know opera, you know Sherrill Milnes—the foremost operatic baritone performing today. A commanding performer and breathtaking singer, for decades he has appeared on the world’s most prestigious opera stages. He is the most recorded American opera star ever, and is a noted operatic conductor as well.
Milnes is also a fan of barbershop, having sung it in high school and as an undergraduate student at Drake University. And now he is the Society’s newest honorary lifetime member, having received the honor at a May 5 reception at Harmony Hall. The reception also honored 2001 international champion Michigan Jake.
Milnes visited Kenosha from nearby Chicago, where he is presently Distinguished Professor of Music at Northwestern University. During the visit, our Society’s chief music professor, Dr. Greg Lyne, took a few minutes to discuss music with Milnes.
Greg Lyne: Mr. Milnes, you have received many honors through the years. What do you think of being presented an honorary lifetime membership in the Barbershop Harmony Society?
Sherrill Milnes: Well, barbershop was part of my musical background. In addition to singing Messiah, Elijah and Brahms Requiem in high school and college, I was also in a barbershop quartet. In college, we weren’t really an official barbershop quartet because we’d throw in some Hi-Los, some Four Freshman harmonies, and I know there were certain parameters which might have somewhat changed. I don’t know, but in the ’50s there were certain things you couldn’t do or it became too much like jazz. All four guys in our quartet played trombone (I was a tuba player actually), but the four of us used to do barbershop quartet material on the trombones. Four trombones playing barbershop-style music is just great!
G: Absolutely ... nice and rich.
S: And, I always loved the clarity and crispness of barbershop. Barbershop harmony is never fugal, and it is always vertical. It is very sharp, clean and exciting. There is a lot of muscle in that kind of harmony. And it was great on trombones. I remember we had the harmonies all worked out, and we would sing “Grandfather’s Clock” or “Coney Island Baby” and a host of songs. We would finish a phrase and the leader would put his thumb up or put his thumb down and we would just start the next section up a step or down a half a step.
G: So it was somewhat improvisatory?
S: Rather, I guess that would be fair.
G: Obviously you are known worldwide as a soloist. Do you make any adaptations when you perform with an opera ensemble? More generally, should a singer make any vocal adjustments when doing ensemble work?
S: No, the simple answer is no. You don’t have to be quite as loud because there are other folks with you. So you can save just a little bit, but every time there is a quasi-solo passage where your voice is supposed to come out over, you tighten the screws and kick a little harder. But when you are a harmony part, you can save a little bit. In fact, I would say that in ensemble singing, that’s the time when I would use the words “fun,” or “satisfaction.” When singing with an ensemble, you are not being shown off as a soloist. When it is time for your aria, your mind knows that this is what the audience is waiting for and your heart goes faster, there is no question about it.
G: That leads into another question that I have for you. You have perhaps the most commanding presence on stage of any performer that I have ever seen. Could you share with us some thoughts on how you prepare when performing and how you bring your personal best to the stage?
S: I don’t think it is a thing that just happens. You have to dig into your guts and into your soul muscle. Careers are made up of many performances and doing your best at each performance. Not the best there ever was, because we are humans, not machines. I always tried to sing every performance as though it was my only performance, and perform to the maximum that I could, and thinking of each performance as its own entity. Of the 654 performances I sang at the Met in 35 roles, I never thought of a performance as just one of many. There is only the one that you are performing right now. And I suppose that maybe that is the answer with any skill. You must give it your utmost at the moment.
G: In the case of your performances, that shows. Barbershop harmony may have peaked in public awareness and popularity about a century ago; in opera music, probably two centuries ago. Yet, we are witnessing a surge of young singers interested in barbershop harmony today. How do you feel the opera world is doing in creating interest among youth these days?
S: I’d guess that there are more young people coming into barbershop singing. There is a lot of interest in opera today, also. The use of supertitles or subtitles has made a huge difference. This has given people permission to enter into the spirit of whatever is going on, whatever the story line. Now people can stay with it.
There are more opera companies in the United States of America right now doing performances of opera than ever before in history. The back of Opera News, the magazine of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, used to be two or three pages. Now there are 10 pages in small print of what is happening this month and next month.
Tony Randall, who was a good friend of ours, said to me, “You deal only with masterpieces and minor masterpieces.” All operas being performed are proven masterpieces. Even some of the lesser operas are still tried and true and known. Othello as an opera is probably greater than Othello as the play. An opera singer doesn’t have to deal with mediocrity, and our business is performing music that we know. Opera is a tribute to the music’s indestructibility.
For those going into opera as a career, the numbers probably haven’t changed. Do remember that at age 20, in gymnastics, you are an “old-timer?” Twenty would be an embryonic age for singing opera. At 20, you might begin to develop a love for opera and develop your music skills and slowly begin your work with the voice. Somewhere around 25 or 30, or even older, the voice begins to settle into its maturity.
G: Our Society is filled with men who love to sing and who wish to sing better. What general guidelines about singing and approach to singing might you like to share with us?
S: You can’t really give a voice lesson with words, but I’d say to stand tall, chest and shoulders comfortably high, feel wide across the chest, not sunken. At the same time, never in a stiff, bloated manner. Always with flexibility.
Feel the breath low on the sides and the back. Amateur singers sometimes sing with a throaty quality. To avoid this, the singer must keep an open throat as much as possible. A quiet breath makes an open throat. (He breathes with a noisy audible breath) See, the noisy breath I just took dries out the throat. I am going to swallow immediately to re-lubricate. If you breathe quietly, you do not dry out the throat, and the breath has gone lower.
Try to keep your chin from going up like someone is going to take a jab at it. Keep your chin flexible and down.
G: If you could choose a dream quartet, considering all of the people you have sung with, who would be the other singers in that quartet?
S: What kind of music—opera, oratorio and must they be all living singers?
G: Just four male singers singing in a cappella style that would produce a fabulous sound and be a wonderful performing ensemble.
S: Sam Ramey would be singing bass. I think the melody singer would be Richard Tucker, because you would always hear the melody. And the top tenor would be Nicolai Gedda. I guess I’d sing the baritone part.
G: Wow, what a foursome that would be! That means Sherrill Milnes would be singing baritone in a barbershop quartet! That is a most exciting thought, Sherrill!
Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Milnes. It means a great deal to me, personally, that you and Maria are with us today, and it will be an honor for our Barbershop Harmony Society to present you with an honorary lifetime membership later this afternoon.
S: Thank you. n
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