Robert Hale

Robert Hale (August 22, 1933 – August 23, 2023) was an American operatic bass-baritone.

He was first a leading baritone at the New York City Opera for a decade, where he performed, alongside Beverly Sills, mostly in Mozart operas and in the revival of belcanto opera such as Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Born in Kerrville, Texas, on August 22, 1933, Robert Hale spent his childhood in Louisiana.

His family then moved to Oklahoma City, where he attended high school and college.

He graduated from Bethany-Peniel College (now Southern Nazarene University) in 1955 with a Bachelor of Music degree.

He then completed his master's degree at the University of Oklahoma.

During his studies there, he won the National Association of Teachers of Singing award in the Singer of the Year category.

He completed further studies at Boston University and the New England Conservatory of Music.

He won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

His voice teachers were Gladys Miller, Chloe Owen and Léopold Simoneau, and also Boris Goldovsky in New York.

Hale began his career as a recitalist appearing in concert halls across the United States.

He made his operatic debut in 1965 in the title role of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Denver Opera.

He appeared at the New York City Opera from 1967, first as Colline in Puccini's La bohème.

He remained with the company as a leading baritone for 10 years, where he was often seen in productions starring Beverly Sills, performing for example as Raimondo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor which was broadcast nationwide.

Other roles in the revival of the then-neglected belcanto repertoire were Enrico in Donizetti's Anna Bolena, and Bellini's Giorgio in I puritani, and Ottoveso in Norma.

He also appeared there as Mozart's Don Giovanni, as both Figaro and the Count in Le nozzze di figaro, also as Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen, and the Father in Chabrier's Louise.

Hale performed the role of Wotan in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (which is the Wanderer in its part Siegfried), first at Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, directed by Nicolas Joel, who had been an assistant to Patrice Chéreau for the Jahrhundertring, the centenary production of the Ring at the Bayreuth Festival in 1976.

Hale appreciated the director's work as "strong, clear, concise, related directly to the text".

Hale then shifted to heavier roles, performing the title role of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer first in 1978 at the Opernhaus Wuppertal, Germany.

After his success there, he became in demand to perform the role at leading opera houses in Europe and the United States.

As a guest, he performed the role of Claudius in Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas at the San Diego Opera in 1978, and the four villains in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in 1980.

Hale shifted towards heavier bass-baritone repertoire and appeared in the title role of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer first at the Opernhaus Wuppertal in Germany in 1978.

After the success there, he became in demand to sing it at other houses, such as the Bavarian State Opera, the Hamburg State Opera and the Stuttgart State Opera the same year, and also at the Opernhaus Zürich, Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Oper Frankfurt, among others.

Hale appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, again first as the Holländer, alongside Janis Martin as Senta and conducted by James Levine.

He went further and tackled the role of Wotan in Wagner's Ring cycle, which he first performed in Wiesbaden in 1984, then at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1986.

It became his signature role, performed and recorded worldwide, and he regarded the Berlin company as his artistic home for almost two decades.

He then performed the role at Deutsche Oper Berlin, in a 1986 production directed by Götz Friedrich.

He came to regard the company as his artistic home, where he learned "not only to sing his great operatic roles, but also to shape them in terms of words and acting".

He performed the role of Jochanaan in Salome by Richard Strauss when he first sang at the Royal Opera House in London, in 1988, where he worked with Georg Solti.

Hale performed in the Ring and as Escamillo at the San Francisco Opera.

It also toured to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 1989.

A reviewer noted then:

"Here was an artist whose voice, good face, noble bearing and telling gestures expressed the promptings of a deep imagination, an artist who commanded not just the notes of his part but the spirit, from tragic grandeur to ironic detachment, from flooding tenderness to grim rage, all breaking forth with the immediacy of real life. It was almost too much to hope for. Even his silences were eloquent. Before he made a sound, he was making music."

Other roles in Berlin included Pizarro in Beethoven's Fidelio, Amonasro in Verdi's Aida, Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca, the Holländer, the four villains in Les contes d'Hoffmann, and Méphistophélès in Gounod's Faust, as a "whimsical antithesis" to Wotan.

giving him a chance to show his "comic talent with electric guitar and devil costume".

He performed Wotan in 30 performances at the house until 2005, and was on stage more than 170 times.

The Ring production toured to Japan, as the first time the cycle was performed there completely.

Hale appeared as Wotan and Holländer in many major opera houses of the world, receiving the Russian Golden Mask award in 2005 for his performance as the Holländer at the Bolshoi Theatre.

It was his 100th performance in the role, as reviewer John Rockwell from the New York Times mentioned, who compared the evening to the premiere with a different cast.

He wrote:"Mr. Hale, a former New York City Opera stalwart, made a fine impression. He lacks the beauty of tone and security of production of Mr. Morris, who preceded him in this production. But he sang and acted with more dramatic fire, and even looked the part of this spectral wanderer better than the sleeker Mr. Morris. The voice itself is a solid one, not particularly large or biting or authoritative. But Mr. Hale knows how to declaim a Wagnerian phrase, and his big moments - "Die Frist ist um", "Wie aus der Ferne" and his final self-revelation - made a far greater impact than they had in Mr. Morris's bland account."