NEIL SHICOFF'S CAREER

Take Shicoff...when I first came into contact with Neil, my sense of him was that he could do a certain kind of passionate romantic part more in the French or Russian mould than in the Italianate, though he does Italian roles very well. I pushed him to sing Lensky, Werther, Roméo and Hoffmann because I thought that the combination of his physical presence, his stage qualities, the kind of voice he had, and also the fact that there weren't too many people who could do those roles at that time, would make him move forward better.

- Meiron Harries, Opera Today

He gave the first performance in 1980 of what would soon vie with Werther as his most important signature role: Offenbach's Hoffmann. This he sang to great critical and audience acclaim in Florence (the five-act Oeser edition) under the baton of Jürgen Flimm. Since then, he has sung the role many times, most notably in Florence, Hamburg, London, Barcelona, Paris/Bastille (notably in 1992), and New York. More debuts followed: San Francisco in 1981 as Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor), and Paris in 1981-82 as Roméo (Roméo et Juliette), where he also sang Hoffmann. Also notable: Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur at the Met in 1986.

1986 saw his first performance, at La Scala, in his third signature role: Lensky in Eugene Onegin. Shicoff's voice, at first essentially lyrical, has developed and darkened, allowing him to take on heavier roles, including Rodolfo in Luisa Miller (which he sang in Amsterdam in 1991) and Don José in Carmen, a role he debuted in Seattle in 1987, and sang again in Paris's new Bercy Hall in 1989, and also in Macerata, Madrid, and Nîmes, among other houses.

That same year, he sang his first French Don Carlos at the Paris Opéra. He made his Barcelona debut in 1990 as Hoffmann, and his first appearance in Stuttgart in the same year, as Cavaradossi, a role he repeated at the Met in 1991, his last season there before his seven-year self-imposed "exile". Another important debut came in 1995 with his first Manrico in Il Trovatore in Zürich in 1995. More significant was his first Peter Grimes in Vienna in 1996 - his first role in a modern opera, and a huge triumph for him (likely to become another signature role?). He also sang Maurizio in Zürich in 1994, Hoffmann in the 1994/95 season at La Scala, and Cavaradossi in Tosca there in the 1996/97 season.

Shicoff has also sung in concert with several major symphony orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, the Israel Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, the Cincinnati Symphony under James Levine and James Conlon, and the San Francisco Symphony. He is also a regular performer at festivals, including Macerata, Caracalla, Arena di Verona, Orange, Münchener Opernfestspiele, Berliner Festwochen, Wiener Festwochen, and Salzburger Osterfestspiele. He sang the tenor solo in Verdi's Requiem at the Salzburg Easter Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado.

Widely hailed as the finest Werther, Hoffmann, and Lensky of his (and in the case of Hoffmann, possibly any) generation, Shicoff's operatic repertoire is predominated by most of the great Romantic French and Italian lyric and spinto tenor roles: Gounod's Faust and Roméo,Massenet's Des Grieux (Manon) and Werther, Don José (Carmen), Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Éléazar (La Juive), Maurizio (Adriana Lecouvreur), Nemorino (L'Elisir d'Amore), Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Rinuccio (Gianni Schicchi), Rodolfo (La Bohème), Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Luigi (Il Tabarro), Don Carlo/Don Carlos, Alfredo (La Traviata), Macduff (Macbeth), il Duca di Mantova (Rigoletto), Ernani, Riccardo/Gustavo III (Un Ballo in Maschera), Manrico (Il Trovatore), Foresto (Attila), Alfred (Die Fledermaus), the Italian Singer (Der Rosenkavalier), Narraboth (Salome), Lensky (Eugene Onegin), and Peter Grimes.

Shicoff cancelled his scheduled appearance at the prestigious Vienna State Opera Ball on 2 March 2000 to protest the attendance of members of Jörg Haider's Freedom Party, and the election of the right-wing government in general. In an open letter to Wiener Staatsoper Director Ioan Hollender, Shicoff wrote: "I have the strongest possible moral reservations about any eventual contact with individuals of a party sympathetic to neo-Nazi ideas....I do not wish to be in any way connected with members of such a political party until I can be sure that it has learned what the rest know from our all too recent history."

A severe upper-respiratory infection unfortunately forced Shicoff to cancel his role debut as Andrea Chénier, scheduled for Nice (France) in late May 2000, along with several other European performances in late spring and summer of 2000. There is no news of a new date/venue for his Chénier debut. He debuted in his newest role, the introverted, conflicted Captain Vere in Britten's Billy Budd, at the Wiener Staatsoper on 12 February 2001 to wide critical acclaim and wild, seemingly-endless ovations.

In an interview with the Buenos Aires Herald, in June 2001, Shicoff revealed exciting plans for new roles to be added to his repertoire: his first Des Grieux in Puccini's Manon Lescaut in Vienna in 2005, his first Mozart ever - Idomeneo - in the 2005/2006 season - and his dream role, Hermann in Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame in 2006.

- Karen Mercedes (Copyright © 2000 by Karen Mercedes)

Copyright © 1999-2002 by Karen Mercedes. All rights reserved.