Jon Vickers

This article is about the Canadian opera singer. For other people with similar names, see John Vickers (disambiguation).

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Jon Vickers

Jonathan Stewart Vickers
Born	(1926-10-29) October 29, 1926 Prince Albert, Saskatchewan
Known for	Opera singer
Awards	Order of Canada

Jonathan Stewart Vickers, CC (born October 29, 1926), known professionally as Jon Vickers, is a retired Canadian heldentenor.

Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a scholarship to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In 1957 Vickers joined London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden company. In 1960 he joined the Metropolitan Opera. He became world famous for a wide range of German, French and Italian roles. Vickers' huge, powerful voice and solid technique met the demands of many French, German and Italian roles. He was also highly regarded for his powerful stage presence and thoughtful characterizations.

In 1968 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Career

Vickers studied with George Lambert at The Royal Conservatory of Music and sang professionally in Canada from the early- to mid-1950s. His international career began with his 1957 Covent Garden Riccardo in Verdi's Ballo in maschera. He continued to appear there into the 1980s, putting his personal stamp on the roles of Aeneas in Les Troyens, Radames in Aida, Don Carlos, Handel's Samson, Florestan in Fidelio, Tristan in Tristan und Isolde, Canio in Pagliacci, and the title role in Britten's Peter Grimes. Some critics praised Vickers' Tristan as the best since Lauritz Melchior's.

He debuted at Bayreuth in 1958 as Siegmund in Die Walküre and sang Parsifal there in 1964. His debut role at the Metropolitan Opera in 1960 was Canio in Pagliacci. He appeared at the Met for 20 subsequent seasons in more than 225 performances of 16 roles, including Don Jose, Erik in The Flying Dutchman, Herman in Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, the Samsons of both Handel and Saint-Saëns, Don Alvaro in La forza del destino, and Tristan. At the ROH Covent Garden in London he sang Tristan, Britten's Peter Grimes (and changed the concept of this part forever), Handel's Samson - and, above all, Énée in Berlioz' epic opera Les Troyens. He later recorded Énée with Sir Colin Davis.

Although scheduled to sing Tannhäuser at Covent Garden in the late 1970s, Vickers dropped out, claiming he could not empathize with the character. He did, however, sing Nerone in L'incoronazione di Poppea at the Paris Opéra, plus Alvaro in La forza del destino at the Met (1975). His roles also included Don Carlo, Andrea Chenier and Samson. Many critics praised his interpretation of Verdi's Otello, which he also recorded in 1960 (with Tullio Serafin) and 1973 (with Herbert von Karajan). Vickers filmed Otello with Karajan and later sang the role in a "Live from the Met" telecast in 1978.

Vickers also sang at the 'home' of Italian opera, Milan's La Scala, as well as in the major opera houses of Chicago, San Francisco and Salzburg. He retired in 1988.

Vickers' reputation rests on his exceptional grasp of characters in the grip of conflicting emotions. He was known to sacrifice vocal beauty and a smooth singing line for the sake of dramatic effect; but his basic musicianship and scrupulous histrionic preparation were never in doubt. His deeply committed portrayals of such tormented figures as Peter Grimes, Canio, Otello, Siegmund, and Samson were the keystones of his artistic legacy. His recordings of these roles are justly prized, but can only hint at the impact of his highly-charged live performances. Videos, however, of certain staged and filmed Vickers performances are available, including his renditions of Otello, Peter Grimes, Canio, Samson, Tristan and Don Jose.

His recordings, accepting their inferiority to 'real life', nonetheless carry a peculiar intensity which is often lacking in the studio opera recordings of lesser actors. The dramatic intensity he was able to invest in his first recording of Otello conducted by Tullio Serafin alongside baritone Tito Gobbi and soprano Leonie Rysanek is all the more striking considering he had not yet performed the role on stage. That Jon Vickers was able to create such an impression in the studio surely attests to an innate dramatic awareness which is all too rare in singers of his calibre.

Vickers also starred in made-for-television films of his Pagliacci and Otello, both conducted by Herbert von Karajan, and premiered the 1978 season of Live from the Met with Otello.

In 1998, following his retirement from singing, he made his first recording as a reciter, in Richard Strauss's melodrama Enoch Arden, accompanied on piano by Marc-André Hamelin.

In 1953 he married Henrietta Outerbridge. They had five children.

Sources

• Kuhn, Laura (ed.). "Vickers, Jon(athan) Stewart" in Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music: R-Z, p. 1952. Schirmer Books, 1999. ISBN 0028653157
• Macdonnell, W.M. and Norman, Barbara. "Vickers, Jonathan Stewart". The Canadian Encyclopedia

Further reading

• Jon Vickers: A Hero's Life by Jeannie Williams, Northeastern University Press, 1999. ISBN 1-55553-408-2

External links

• Interview with Jon Vickers by Bruce Duffie (originally published 1981 in Wagner News, the newsletter of the Wagner Society of America)