Opera bass-baritone Aubrey Allicock stilled his body and allowed his face to transform into that of a fighter.
“What makes a man a man?” he sung, and the words rippled through the intimate gathering at the Sally S. Levy Opera Center. “Is it the color of his voice? The way he walks? Is it the life he lives?”
June 15-30, Allicock will star as bisexual boxer Emile Griffith in the world premiere of Champion, an opera composed by jazz great Terence Blanchard with libretto by Michael Cristofer.
Allicock awed Opera Theatre leaders when he performed a preview of the Champion number at a Feb. 22 luncheon – just after the leaders announced that Allicock will be this year’s recipient of the Mabel Dorn Reeder Foundation Prize. He receives a $10,000 cash prize to further his artistic and professional growth. In 2010, the foundation gave the theatre $2 million to fund programs that nurture the careers of budding young artists such as Allicock.
When Allicock first read the lyrics for Champion, he said they were natural to embody.
“Everybody questions themselves,” he said. “Why am I this way? What makes me me? When I first read those words, I said, ‘This is going to be a journey and an experience.’”
Emile Griffith was a three-time World Welterweight Champion and twice a World Middleweight Champion, fighting from the late 1950s into the 1970s. When Griffith’s sexuality as a gay man went public, he was nearly killed by a gang outside a gay bar in New York. Years before in 1962, Griffith knocked out then title-holding fighter Benny “The Kid” Paret. The knockout resulted in a coma for Paret, and he died 10 days later.
“I kill a man,” Griffith was quoted to have said, “and most people understand and forgive me. I love a man, and to so many people this is an unforgivable sin.”
This summer, Allicock will take the audience through this moving journey of self-discovery and story of strength, courage, rage, regret, and compassion.
Local opera fans first got to know Allicock during his two-year stint with the Opera Theatre’s Gerdine Young Artist program, where he performed the roles of Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin and the Customs Official in La Bohème. He went on to play Mamoud in The Death of Klinghoffer in 2011 and the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland in 2012.
Allicock’s inspiration to become a singer began with his mother.
“I like to say she inspired me,” said the Tucson, Arizona native, “but she really forced me to get up and sing in church. Those are my earliest singing experiences.”
As a music undergraduate at Grand Canyon University, he met his first operatic voice singer. He told her that he would sing in any style – except opera. His teacher gave him a singing technique that he could apply to any style. Then one day, he said something clicked in his voice.
“I sung this one note, and said, ‘Holy hell, what was that?’” Allicock said. “I didn’t know a voice could get such a sound. I felt like I had a super power.”
Currently Allicock is studying at the Juilliard School and is the recipient of the Richard Gaddes Fund for Young Singers, as well as a Sullivan Foundation Grant winner.
St. Louis and Opera Theatre have a special place in his heart.
“I love it here,” he said. “Partly because of my heart for the company, but also because people here love the arts. The heartbeat for the arts here is astounding.”
Timothy O’Leary, general director of Opera Theatre, said Allicock is an artist with a gorgeous voice and rare dramatic gifts. Allicock’s first season with Opera Theatre was also O’Leary’s first season as general director.
“It’s been a thrill to watch him grow from a Gerdine Young Artist in our chorus to become a leading baritone at our company and elsewhere,” O’Leary said. “He has a big future ahead, and we are privileged to help him achieve it thanks to the generosity of the Mabel Dorn Reeder Foundation.”
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Jazz St. Louis join forces in the Champion premiere June 15-30, as part of Opera Theatre’s 2013 Festival Season.
