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By Mark Rhodes

Gregory Turay

Gregory Turay's desire upon arriving at the University of Kentucky was to be an exceptional pitcher for the Wildcats. Instead, what is baseball's loss has become opera's gain as Mr. Turay has emerged as one of the finest homegrown talents that America has produced of late. In short order, Mr. Turay ended up as a member of the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program for three seasons and made his Met debut as Brighella in Ariadne auf Naxos in late 1997. Other subsequent roles in the Met followed, among them Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, the Youth in Moses und Aron, Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette and Janek in The Makropulos Case. He was also the recipient of the prestigious Richard Tucker award in 2000. Mr. Turay took time out to talk with USOPERAWEB about his upcoming appearance in the Met production of A View From the Bridge and his career up until this point.

Mr. Turay spoke of the unusual origins of his vocal career. "Well, I have always said it was by the grace of God that I got here (Kentucky). I came to Lexington to play baseball originally and as fate would have it, I ran into a voice teacher who also was in his first year at the University and I got paired up with him because I was going to minor in voice. Things happened pretty fast after that. By my sophomore year my voice really started to open up and grow. A lot of the credit has to go to my teacher Everett McCorvey. In fact, a lot of the reason I live here with my family is to work with him and concentrate and study during my times off. He and another coach here, Cliff Jackson, are my angels because they help me stay focussed on musical concerns and technique."

Gregory Turay as Rodolpho (foreground) with (l. to r.) Mark McCrory as his brother Marco, Catherine Malfitano as his cousin Beatrice, Juliana Rambaldi as her niece Catherine and Kim Josephson as Bea's husband Eddie Carbone in world premiere of A View from the Bridge (William Bolcom) a Lyric Opera of Chicago (October 9, 1999). Photo by Dan Rest/LOC.

Mr. Turay spoke of his work ethic in approaching characters as different as Rodolpho in the current production of A View From the Bridge and a more traditional, familiar role like Ferrando. "I approach Rodolpho very much the same as I would any other opera role, traditional or non-traditional. Basically I learn the role itself by singing through the notes and once the role is learned I start to investigate who this person is that I am playing. That is really the meat and potatoes for me. This is pretty much the same whether I am playing Fernando or Rodolpho. I tend to look at them sympathetically in terms of their situations. The music is the first and most important thing for me, but what really sells to the audience is the character. You always hear, 'What comes first the notes or the words?' It has to be a happy marriage. With Rodolpho, there is some beautiful, lyrical music, which is quite rare in American opera these days. So sometimes the music takes precedent; but other times the music lends itself to drama and then it is the character that you are trying to convey more than the music. One advantage with a character like Rodolpho is that the role is fresh and hasn't been sung thousands of time in performance and on recordings."

Despite some of the flexibility inherent in developing a "new" character, there are some challenges in working within the context of an American production. "Performing in English, in front of an English-speaking audience is kind of tricky, because people expect to understand it. So there is more pressure in that regard. In terms of working with an American composer, William Bolcom has been great. He is very accommodating to the singers. There are certainly contemporary composers who are not accommodating to the singers, which is hard to understand because the singers are really selling your work. Bill, however, knows music and the number of styles he puts in his pieces is really incredible."

"When I work through rehearsals (which start in a couple of weeks), I try to experiment and feel out the character. A lot determines how the other cast reacts. This is pretty much the same cast as Chicago so it might be a situation where the piece fits on like an old shoe."

Is there a difference between doing View at the Met and in Chicago? "There is always excitement, no matter where you perform. But being that I grew up, in a manner of speaking, in the young artists program at the Met, there is a sense of a homecoming. New York has an energy, especially at the Met, that is hard to describe."

Mark Rhodes lives and works on Long Island, New York.