THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 31, 1996 TAG: 9601310029
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CRAIG SHAPIRO, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
LAST WEEK, John Hurst would have said his biggest opening night was the first time he sang at the Staatsoper in Vienna. Waiting to go on, he thought of Caruso, Pavarotti and Domingo - the great tenors who had filled the storied opera house.
Five nights ago, at the Harrison Opera House, he got a whole new rush.
John Hurst, Maury High School class of '68, was singing in his hometown. On top of that, his first performance in Norfolk - as the huntsman Erik in Virginia Opera's production of ``The Flying Dutchman'' - marked his U.S. debut.
``Did I have butterflies? I was scared,'' Hurst said. ``Singing at home and singing Wagner - anyone who says he's not is lying.''
Except for a slight go-round with a virus, he was no worse for the strain Monday morning.
But singing at home?
Who would've thought it?
Certainly not Hurst, who went to Austria in the summer of 1972 to study at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He was 21, fresh out of tiny Brevard College with a degree in music education (``only because I needed a major''). A job teaching high school band in Charlotte, N.C., awaited his return. He decided to stay.
Although he has carved out a successful career over more than two decades abroad, Hurst is the first to say it wasn't completely by design.
He didn't sing at Maury. An accomplished swimmer, he could have had a full scholarship at East Carolina University. ``I quit after high school,'' he said. ``I did it for 10 years and felt that was enough. I was developing webbed fingers and toes.''
Until he was told to audition for a production of ``Brigadoon,'' he didn't sing at Brevard. ``I said: `I have nothing to sing. How am I going to audition?' They told me to sing the national anthem. I did, and they gave me the lead.''
Hurst, now 45, didn't even sing professionally his first nine years in Europe. He worked for the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna and then for the German government.
``I always sang for the joy of it,'' he said. ``My wife, Melitta, met a new music teacher in 1981. He said I was a tenor. I said, `No, I'm a baritone.' ''
The music teacher was right. That summer, he entered the prestigious Belvedere Competition, which brings singers from all over the world to Vienna, and won first prize.
``That got the ball rolling,'' said Hurst, who resembles the actor John Lithgow. ``That's when I started to take it real seriously.''
Peter Mark, Virginia Opera's general director, auditions some 500 singers a year. He was in Germany last year for the premiere of ``Simon Bolivar'' when Hurst drove down from his home in the Bavarian mountains.
``He didn't sing Erik,'' Mark recalled. ``He sang Lensky from `Eugene Onegin' and he sang some operetta. But what I heard immediately was a wonderful sense of line, that ability to articulate the shape of a phrase clearly. He also had a command of German diction.
``Some singers don't articulate the text for meaning. It takes a certain caliber of singer to use diction in shaping a line.''
While it was the first time Mark heard Hurst, it wasn't the first time he'd heard of him.
Carl Dolmetsch, former chairman of the English Department at the College of William and Mary, brought the tenor to Mark's attention several years ago.
A contributor to Opera Canada and magazines in London and Berlin, Dolmetsch has lived in Vienna six months a year since 1984. He saw Hurst several times at the Volksoper.
``His last name suggested he was American (but) his German was impeccable,'' Dolmetsch said. ``His stage prescence was commanding. I thought, `Why haven't I heard this guy before? Where has he been? Where have I been?' He seemed to be somebody up-and-coming.
``I was so impressed with him as an artist long before I had any inkling that he was a hometown boy.''
Hurst's homecoming also represents another first - the first time he's sung the role of Erik in 14 years. ``I did it for my debut in Germany,'' he said. ``I was scared, petrified. When I finished, I said I would never sing the role again. Now I'm singing it in Norfolk and I'm only horrified.''
But not so much that he isn't enjoying old home week.
One childhood friend is bringing 50 people to hear him. Twenty were in the house opening night. Hurst even looked up a friend of his late parents, a 92-year-old artist who lives in Kitty Hawk, and brought her to a performance.
``I called her and said, `Henrietta, are you still alive? This is John.' I asked her if she wanted to come hear me sing. She said she'd love to but they took her car away from her when she drove it into the ocean.''
``Dutchman'' isn't the first time he's been back to Norfolk. The occasion does, however, have him reconsidering his definition of ``home.''
``Europe has been my musical home since 1972, and I love it,'' he said. ``But the older I get, the more my roots start spreading and pulling me back. I wanted to do this. It's home. I think it's remarkable what Norfolk, and Virginia, have done to have an opera company.''
Hurst laughed. ``I've been saving these dramatic roles for later, but how much `later' is there? I might as well sing them now and ruin my voice, then go do something else.''
That might mean teaching; several German universities have approached him. He likes the idea, though he's not nearly ready to shelve his singing career.
Not when he's had that first taste of singing in America. He's already spoken with people in Washington, D.C., and an agent from New York was in Norfolk opening night.
``I'll allow myself to be pursued,'' Hurst said, grinning. ``He seemed quite interested, but you never know. I think things will work out.
``Maybe I'll come back and start the Southern Shores Opera Company and make some competition.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
John Hurst in ``Dutchman'' with Dinah Bryant.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY OPERA by CNB