The Marlboro Man as Macbeth

Once in a generation there appears an artist who by virtue of voice and temperament seems to symbolize an entire school of singing. Today, Birgit Nilsson is the archetypal Wagnerian Soprano, just as Jussi Bjoerling was the ultimate Italian Tenor during the 1940s and '50s. Both are Swedish, proving that national style has nothing to do with nationality. Since the death of Leonard Warren in 1960, no one man has been acknowledged by critics and conductors as the quintessential Italian Baritone. Now, though, there may be a legitimate claimant to the title. Like Warren and Lawrence Tibbett before him, he too is an American: Sherrill Milnes, of Downers Grove, Ill. (pop. 26,000).

Milnes (pronounced Milnz), who has had practically no European training or experience, made his debut last month at the Vienna Staatsoper in the difficult title role of Verdi's Macbeth. Helped along by the unconventional approach of Stage Director Otto Schenk and Conductor Karl Boehm, Milnes portrayed Macbeth as a victim not of ambition but of passion. The slinky-voiced, erotic Lady Macbeth of Christa Ludwig made the passion understandable. When the curtain fell on Macbeth's death scene, Milnes was rewarded with a 30-minute ovation.

Beer and Cornflakes. Milnes' success came as no surprise to regulars at the Metropolitan Opera, where he has gradually emerged as the company's reigning baritone since his debut in Gounod's Faust five years ago. Although his name means nothing to most Americans, his voice is well known to millions: he was once the hearty balladeer who told people on television and radio that "you get a lot to like in a Marlboro." Musically, he has also exhorted consumers to try Falstaff beer, Kellogg's cornflakes and a host of other workaday products. Nowadays, though, Milnes is so busy with opera that he has no more time for commercials, to his mild regret. "I've made more than $20,000 in residuals alone," he says. "My buddies tell me to can the opera career. Some of them make as much as a quarter of a million a year. So could I, but there are other things I want to do."

Before deciding that he wanted to sing opera, Milnes had ambitions to be a doctor. His father was a Methodist minister, his mother the musical director of the local Congregational church. As a boy, Sherrill milked cows and baled hay on the family farm, but also found time to study voice, violin, piano, viola and tuba. Later he took a pre-med course at Iowa's Drake University, where voice teachers urged him to take up singing as a full-time career. Commercials beefed up his cash balance while he sang with Boris Goldovsky's Opera Company and the New York City Opera.

Floating Pianissimo. At 35, Milnes has just begun to hit his stride as a singer. It is not, perhaps, an exceptionally flexible voice, but it has a consistent beauty of tone that never dries up at full volume or veers toward edginess. Although his voice will darken as he grows older, Milnes' baritone today has a vibrantly lyrical quality, with a roof-lifting ping on the top notes, and a floating, sensuous pianissimo. His most effective vehicles are probably such masculine roles as Figaro in The Barber of Seville and Count di Luna in // Trovatore--and not only because of his vocal characteristics. At 6 ft. 2 in. and a trim 220 Ibs., Milnes has the physique of a halfback and a stage-commanding presence as an actor that evokes comparison with Bass-Baritone Norman Treigle of the New York City Opera (TIME, Oct. 3). "He's the singer I've learned most from in acting," Milnes admits.

Mediterranean Milnes sounds; American he is. "When you see Sherrill coming to rehearsal with those funny striped pants and a raggedy sweater," one Viennese chorus girl remarked, "all he needs is two Colts on his hips to make him look like the perfect western hero." Milnes keeps himself in training for operatic rigors with big doses of vitamin C (1,000 milligrams a day) and a methodical schedule of calisthenics (20 pushups, 20 situps, and 40 jumping jacks each morning). Married recently for the second time (to Soprano Nancy Stokes), he has been forced by his operatic success to make a major sacrifice besides giving up all that Marlboro money. After a bad crack-up in Rome, he decided to get rid of his motorscooter. "The danger of accidents is too great," he says. "If I were to get hit in the larynx--well, if you look at it from a dollars-and-cents point of view, it's absolutely ridiculous."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.