Morris Robinson: Profound change brings late convert to opera life

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This was published 10 years ago

Morris Robinson: Profound change brings late convert to opera life

By Harriet Cunningham

You feel Morris Robinson's voice before you hear it. A Deep South ''hello'' rumbles through the phone like distant thunder in a register tailor-made for the great operatic basso profundo (deep bass) roles. But until the age of 30, Robinson had never set foot on an operatic stage.

How did the son of a Baptist minister, born and bred in Alabama and built for the back row of an American football field, find himself making his Australian debut on Friday at the Sydney Opera House?

Going deep: Morris Robinson as Sarastro in The Magic Flute.

Going deep: Morris Robinson as Sarastro in The Magic Flute.Credit: Edwina Pickles

It all happened very fast. Robinson was used to receiving compliments on his voice when he was growing up: his mother encouraged him to audition for the choir at college, and he was often asked to sing at friends' weddings.

He went to university, however, on a football scholarship. He moved to Washington to take up a job at Exxon and, while there, auditioned for a weekend program at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Robinson in his college football days.

Robinson in his college football days.

His stentorian rendition of the national anthem generated immediate interest. He enrolled in the conservatory's opera studio and soon after, the music director of Boston University's prestigious opera institute heard him and invited him to study there.

''From day one it went haywire,'' Robinson says. ''I walked in without knowing anything about this art form at all and it was like drinking water out of a fire hydrant! About a week later, I auditioned for the chorus of Boston Lyric Opera and they cast me as the King in Aida. It just snowballed from there.''

Fifteen years on, Robinson is in demand all over the US and beyond. He is in Sydney to play one of opera's great bass roles, the mysterious wizard Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute, in the lively version created by director of The Lion King Julie Taymor for New York's Metropolitan Opera.

The Magic Flute opens on Friday January 10 at the Sydney Opera House.

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