Sanford Sylvan (December 19, 1953 – January 29, 2019) was an American
baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...
.
Biography
Sanford Mead Sylvan was born in New York City on December 19, 1953, and grew up in
Syosset, New York.
[ Starting at age 13 he participated in the ]Juilliard School
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...
's pre-college program and beginning in 1974 he spent four summers at the Tanglewood Music Center
The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops. The center operates as a part of the Tanglew ...
, where he studied with Phyllis Curtin
Phyllis Curtin (née Smith; December 3, 1921 – June 5, 2016) was an American soprano and academic teacher who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She is known for her creation of roles in ope ...
, which he later cited as transforming his career: "I am the singer that I am today because of Phyllis Curtin." He worked as an usher at the Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...
while completing his undergraduate degree at the Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory in New York City. The school offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition, as well as a bachelor's in mu ...
. He made his Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne () is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hun ...
Festival debut in 1994 as Leporello in Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanis ...
by Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
.
He performed with many leading conductors, opera companies and orchestras including Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...
, Boston Symphony
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...
, Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Sev ...
, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouworkest, Melbourne Symphony and the NHK Symphony. He performed during his career at the Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, Marlboro, Tanglewood
Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the ...
, Vienna, Holland, Oregon Bach and Carmel Bach festivals. He created the roles of Chou En-Lai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Ma ...
in ''Nixon in China
''Nixon in China'' is an opera in three acts by John Adams with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams's first opera, it was inspired by U.S. president Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China. The work premiered at the Houston ...
'' and the title role in The Death of Klinghoffer by John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
.
By 1997 he had established such a reputation as a recitalist with pianist David Breitman that the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', when calendaring their recital five months hence, wrote: "No program had been announced at press time. With this fine and sensitive baritone and his equally deft pianist, it doesn't matter."
Sylvan received five Grammy nominations for his participation these recordings: Charles Fussell's ''Symphony for Baritone and Orchestra "Wilde"'' (2009); Adams's ''The Wound-Dresser
''The Wound-Dresser'' is a piece for chamber orchestra and baritone singer by composer John Adams. The piece is an elegiac setting of excerpts from American poet Walt Whitman's poem "The Wound-Dresser" (1865) about his experience as a hospital ...
'' (1990), which was written for Sylvan; Fauré's ''L'horizon chimérique
''L'horizon chimérique'', Op. 118, is a song cycle by Gabriel Fauré, of four mélodies for voice and piano. Composed in 1921, the cycle is based on four of the poems from the collection of the same name by Jean de La Ville de Mirmont.Orledge (1 ...
'' (1999); ''Beloved That Pilgrimage'' (1992), a compilation of songs by Theodore Chanler
Theodore Ward Chanler (April 29, 1902 – July 27, 1961) was an American composer.
Early life
Chanler was born on April 29, 1902 in Newport, Rhode Island. He was a son of Major Winthrop Astor Chanler and Margaret Ward (née Terry) Chanler, an au ...
, Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Proba ...
, and Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...
;[ and the soundtrack for the Penny Woolcock film of Adams' opera '']The Death of Klinghoffer
''The Death of Klinghoffer'' is an American opera, with music by John Adams to an English-language libretto by Alice Goodman. First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner ''Achille ...
'' (2003). Of his performance in that film, chosen for the 2003 Sundance Festival, Anthony Tommasini
Anthony Carl Tommasini (born April 14, 1948) is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "a discerning critic, whose taste, knowledge and judgment have made him a must-read", Tommasini was the chief ...
wrote that Sylvan "should have received an Oscar nomination for his courageous portrayal of the murder victim Leon Klinghoffer". He premiered a number of works by Adams, Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...
, Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music.
As a student at both the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Musi ...
, John Harbison
John Harris Harbison (born December 20, 1938) is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Life
John Harris Harbison was born on December 20, 1938, in Orange, New Jersey, to the historian Elmore Harris Harb ...
and Christopher Rouse, including Rouse's ''Requiem'' in 2007 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
A frequent collaborator with the director Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars (born September 27, 1957) is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where ...
, Sylvan appeared in Sellars' stagings of Mozart's ''Cosi fan tutte
Cosi, COSI or CoSi may refer to:
* ''Così'', a 1992 play by Louis Nowra
** ''Cosi'' (film), 1996, based on the play
* Così (restaurant), an American fast-casual restaurant chain
* Compton Spectrometer and Imager, or COSI, a NASA telescope to be ...
'' as Alfonso and ''Le nozze di Figaro
''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premie ...
'' in the title role, and operas by John Adams including ''A Flowering Tree
''A Flowering Tree'' is an opera in two acts composed by John Adams with libretto by Adams and Peter Sellars, and commissioned by the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, the San Francisco Symphony, the Barbican Centre in London, the Lincoln Ce ...
'' presented at Chicago's Harris Theater and in 2009 at Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...
's Mostly Mozart Festival
The Mostly Mozart Festival is an American classical music festival based in New York City.
Venues
The festival presents concerts with its resident ensemble, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, principally at David Geffen Hall of the Lincoln C ...
. Along with his performing schedule, he was also Chair of Voice at the Juilliard School
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...
. Along with this, he was on the voice faculties of McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
Schulich School of Music
The Schulich School of Music (also known as Schulich) is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 555, rue Sherbrooke Ouest (555, Sherbrooke Street West). The faculty was named after benef ...
in Montréal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...
and the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program.
In 1993 he came out as a gay man in an interview with the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' and in 1996 he married his then partner.
Sylvan died at his home in Manhattan on January 29, 2019, at the age of 65.
References
;Additional sources
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External links
Matthew Guerrieri, "Breathe above it", January 31, 2019
Annals of the College Light Opéra Company (1969–2012)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sylvan, Sanford
1953 births
2019 deaths
American operatic baritones
American LGBT singers
LGBT classical musicians
Singers from New York City
Manhattan School of Music alumni
LGBT people from New York (state)
20th-century American male opera singers
21st-century American male opera singers
Classical musicians from New York (state)