Singing at Indiana

The stars of the Indiana University Opera Theater's presentation of Parsifal could hardly have been better--even if they did seem a little bit old and fat for college students. There in the role of Parsifal was Charles Kullman, a veteran tenor from the Met; as Kundry, there was Margaret Harshaw, who has been a leading Wagnerian soprano since the '40s. Both are now "artist-performer-teachers" at Indiana, and Indiana is far and away the nation's most ambitious music school.

Big, Bold & Excellent. Parsifal has been Indiana's chef-d'oeuvre every Lenten season since 1949, two years after Wilfred C. Bain, 56, became dean of the music school. The opera is one of Wagner's most inaccessible, but Bain has an ample notion of his school's grandeur, and each year Indiana's Parsifal aspires to more. Last week, with five faculty members in the leading roles, a somber, brooding mirage of sets by Mario Cristini (who spent 25 years with the San Carlo Opera in Naples), a cast of 66, a 62-voice chorus and the 74-piece Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra, Parsifal would have done almost any opera house proud. Said Bain, who can trump any compliment: "Indiana University's production of Parsifal symbolizes a new kind of education in the musical arts."

Bain's approach to music teaching is not so much new as it is big, bold and excellent. With a faculty of 103 and a fulltime student body of 1,072 ("the largest in the world," Bain says), the music school has three full orchestras, gives three complete ballet productions and more than 350 recitals a year. But opera is at the heart of Bain's program; the university presents at least six operas a season--weekly from October to May--giving Bloomington, Ind., a longer opera season than Los Angeles, Washington, Miami or Boston. "We do opera because we've got the horses to do it," Bain says proudly.

Nostalgic Surprises. Bain's horses work out in a plant that includes 95 teaching studios and 178 practice rooms, a library of 45,000 books, 10,000 scores and 25,000 phonograph records. Their productions are not surpassed in more than half a dozen opera houses in the country. But even at that, Bain thinks of his Opera Theater as Macy's thinks of its Broadway windows: the glamour of the opera is only a lure to attract students to the business of learning music. When 948 music school graduates let the music school know what had become of them last year, it was no disappointment to Bain that only 57 were professional musicians. Of the other 891, no fewer than 713 are teachers of music.

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