By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
When Keith Phares was a teenager, he would sing along to show tunes as he mowed the lawn.
As a trumpet player, he performed in every ensemble he could – marching band, concert band, jazz band, and especially the pit orchestra for the high school’s annual musical.
He was so excited about these that as soon as he learned what the next one would be, he’d buy a recording and listen to it, including through his earphones while mowing.
And young Phares would sing along.
“I thought ‘this sounds pretty reasonable’ but I wasn’t sure,” Phares said in a recent interview in his office the BGSU College of Musical Arts where he is now an assistant professor of voice.
As it turned out, that voice was more than “pretty reasonable,” though he only fully realized that after a journey that involved teenage crushes, an academic detour, and a minor role in “A Secret Garden.”
The operatic baritone will perform the male lead Count Danilo, in the Toledo Opera’s production of Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow,” on Friday, Feb. 10, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 12, at 2 p.m. at the Valentine Theatre, 400 North Superior, Toledo, Ohio. Click for tickets.
[RELATED: Toledo Opera staging ‘The Merry Widow’ in February]
This is not Phares first go at the role. He performed it at Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 2007.
Eight years into his professional career, the role was a transformational experience. First, it was a dance-centric performance, and the production was the star of the show.
“I must have lost 10 pounds during rehearsals,” Phares recalled.
The part, which is sometimes sung by a tenor, was the highest role Phares, a baritone, had performed.
When Kevin Bylsma, his university colleague, and the co-artistic director for the Toledo Opera, approached him about reprising the part, Phares said he was “terrified because it’d been a long time.” He was 34 when he’d done it before, and it was a challenge then. Now he is 48.
“I’ve had my challenges working the role back in my voice, but it’s there. I can sing up there,” he said.
“I enjoy declamatory text driven pieces,” Phares said. “It’s not about what’s the most beautiful, luscious, rounded tone I can get right now,” he continued. “It’s about the text and how can I infuse this text with charm and charisma. That’s something when I first did it, I didn’t have that much confidence. It’s a gift to get to do it again.”
“The Merry Widow” is “just a fun show.”
The plot centers on whom the young widow of the title will marry. There are machinations as to who the groom will be, but Hanna Glawari, played by Metropolitan opera star Alyson Cambridge, has ideas of her own with Count Danilo in the middle of this romantic entanglement.
“It’s an evening of entertainment and beautiful singing and dancing,” Phares said. “There’s enough conflict and tension happening, but you’re not worried about any of these people. This is going to be a fun night, and everyone is going to be OK in the end. No one’s going to be stabbed.”
“The Merry Widow” is a joyful show for the audience and the characters. “It’s also funny, ,” Phares said. The pacing of the dialogue set by director Jamie Offenbach “is really quick. It’s fun to do that. I don’t often get to be funny. It’s rare.”
And he gets to work with friends he’s performed with before, including Cambridge. He’s worked with Offenbach and Bylsma as well as cast members including his former BGSU student Nick Kottman and baritone Jason Budd, a BGSU alumni.
For once, a performance opportunity is just 25 minutes up the road from BGSU, not across the country. “I’m going to be doing a lot more teaching while doing a very taxing role,” Phares said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Phares came to teaching later in a quarter-century-long performance career that started with his teenage love of musicals.
Other than singing in elementary school choir, he had not been a singer. When two girls he had crushes on auditioned for a regional high school honors choir in New Jersey, where he grew up, he decided he’d audition as well. He scored well at the audition. But he decided choral singing was not to his liking. He conceded that as a trumpet player who had soloed, he developed a bit of an ego. And “the band was more of my people.”
His family moved to Hilton Head, North Carolina, when he was a senior in high school. His first question to the high school band director was if they did a musical. Yes, he was told, but they didn’t use a pit orchestra. They were looking for males for the cast.
Phares auditioned and was cast as the male lead Emile de Becque.
The summer after he graduated, he played Matt in a summer musical production of “The Fantasticks” He wondered then if he should pursue voice but was concerned. He thought he was starting too late.
He went to the University of Richmond as a psychology major with a music minor at. Trumpet was still his focus, though he also did some theater.
But a minor role in another summer production of “The Secret Garden” pushed him into taking his voice more seriously. The cast included professional opera singers and, they encouraged him to study voice, which he did when he went back to college for his junior year, though still a psychology major.
“One thing led to another and next thing I knew I was putting together audition repertoire for graduate school,” he said.
Phares ended up studying at the New England Conservatory. He describes himself as “blissfully ignorant” at the time and when someone suggested he do the Metropolitan Opera competition, he did it. He made it into the New England regional finals the first year, and then was one of 10 national winners the next year.
His first professional role was two lines in Boston Lyric Opera’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
He went to the Juilliard Opera Center, which led to roles as at the New York City Opera.
Apprenticeships at the Aspen Summer Music Festival and at regional companies led to his getting professional management, and roles of increasing prominence.
“I was so green and so clueless, and some people didn’t have time for me,” Phares said. “They heard me sing but didn’t live up to their expectations in other ways. That was frustrating for some people. Some people didn’t have time for that. But I continued to work and continued to get to bigger houses.”
As with any career, there were ebbs and flows, he said. Then in early 2018, he looked and saw massive holes in his schedule. He had been interested in teaching. “I had a desire to shape how people were performing, specifically America contemporary opera.”
Others reassured him that not having a doctorate would not be an obstacle. So that spring Phares started sending out applications. He was invited to BGSU campus and was hired.
It takes an adjustment going from a full-time singing to teaching, with its service work and committees. He has 18-20 students in his studio. Then everyone had to shift gears because of the pandemic. He taught over Zoom, or outside, or in the student union theater.
Teaching voice requires him to use his own voice and body. He must pace himself, so he doesn’t get fatigued.
The irony was that once he started applying for academic jobs, the offers for operas started rolling in. “I had to pull out of two or three different gigs to take this job,” he said.
On campus, he’s had solo roles in Handel’s “Messiah” and Mendelsohn’s “Elijah.”
He takes what roles he can, with the realization he can only be gone from campus for a certain length of time. The use of Zoom, adopted during COVID, does help him keep in touch with students.
He must start preparing earlier for roles because of his teaching responsibilities. Before he would learn a part in a month, now as soon as he’s contracted, he starts.
“That’s fun to do,” he said of preparing for a role. “That’s me time.”
When his colleague soprano Myra Merritt asked him how he was adjusting to academic life,
Phares responded: “This is the part of my life that’s been missing. That’s what I feel like.”
