| Biography | Simon Estes (born March 2, 1938) is an operatic bass-baritone of African-American descent who had a major international opera career beginning in the 1960s. He has sung at most of the world's major opera houses as well as in front of presidents, popes and internationally renowned figures and celebrities including Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Boris Yeltsin, Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Notably, he was part of the first generation of black opera singers to achieve widespread success and is viewed as part of a group of performers who were instrumental in helping to break down the barriers of racial prejudice in the opera world.
Like many African-American artists of his day, Estes decided to go to Europe where racial prejudice was not as much of a barrier as it was in the United States. In 1965 he made his professional opera debut as Ramfis in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida at the Deutsche Oper Berlin to a warm reception. The following year he scored a major success when he won a bronze medal at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Competition. The competition win led to an invitation from President Lyndon Johnson to perform at the White House in 1966 and several offers for engagements at major opera houses in Europe soon followed.
Estes kept a very busy schedule performing in European opera houses during the late 1960s and the 1970s. He drew particular acclaim for performing leading roles in operas by Richard Wagner. He appeared at such houses as La Scala, Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, the Liceu, the Hamburg State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna State Opera and the Zurich Opera among others. He also sang at several notable music festivals, including the Salzburg Festival and the Glyndebourne Festival. In 1978 he notably became the first black male, African-American or otherwise, to sing a leading role at the prestigious Bayreuth Festival when he sang the title role in Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. The performance was a personal triumph for him and he went on to sing at Bayreuth for the next six consecutive years. He returned to Bayreuth again in 1985 to sing the Dutchman again; a performance that was captured on video and is still considered one of the best recording of that role.
While Estes's career was thriving in the best European houses, he continued to be spurned by many of the major American houses during the 1970s. His debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1971 was in the minor role of the Ghost of Nino in Semiramide, and his successive roles at that house were not any bigger. The Metropolitan Opera did not even attempt to engage him in the 1960s or 1970s. More favorable to him was the San Francisco Opera (SFO) with whom he sang several good roles in 1967, including the 4 villains in The Tales of Hoffman and Carter Jones in the United States premiere of Gunther Schuller's The Visitation. He returned to the SFO several times during his career, singing Ramfis in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida (1972), Don Pedro in L'Africaine (1972), Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor (1972), The Flying Dutchman (1979), Marke in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1980), Amonasro in Aida (1981), and Escamillo in Georges Bizet's Carmen (1981).
In 1981 Estes was finally offered a contract to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. He accepted, but at the time was cautioned by Leontyne Price, the first African-American to become a leading prima donna at the Met, about the difficult road ahead. Price, who suffered actual threats to her life when she first opened at the Met, explained, "Simon, it's going to be even more difficult for you. Because you are a black male, the discrimination will be greater. You have a beautiful voice; you are musical, intelligent, independent and handsome. With all of these ingredients, you are a threat. It will be more difficult for you than it was for me." However, the Met audience and critics responded favourably to Simon's house debut on January 4, 1982 as Hermann in Wagner's Tannhäuser with Richard Cassilly in the title role and Leonie Rysanek as Elisabeth.
Estes went on to sing in the next six consecutive seasons at the Met, portraying such roles as Amfortas in Wagner's Parsifal and Orest in Richard Strauss's Elektra. In 1985, he sang Porgy in the Met's first production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. In 1986, he sang Wotan in the inauguration of the legendary Ring production at the Metropolitan Opera directed by Otto Schenk. He returned to the Met in 1990 to sing Porgy again and for the last time in 1999 to portray Amonasro to Sharon Sweet's Aida. Perhaps his greatest Met moment was singing the role of Amonasro to Price's Aida for her farewell opera performance which was telecast live on national television on January 3, 1985.
He is a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity. |