If you would have asked Chad Armstrong what he intended to pursue as a career while he was attending Estevan Comprehensive School, an opera singer probably would have been about No. 1,327 on his list.
Well, look at him now. Or better yet, listen.
Estevan is not a hotbed for operatic talent, but this city has sent two fine voices into the concert halls of the world while we're still waiting for our first home-grown NHL hockey player to emerge. We've given the major leagues of vocals a couple of our own in the form of Armstrong and in the 1970s, mezzo soprano Calla Krause.
Armstrong never really considered himself to be a singer while wading through his courses at ECS. He loved the trombone and revelled in the Colin Grunert inspired music classes. He did land the lead in the only musical he ever auditioned for at the school, The Music Man. He was more intent on following the instrumental path, like Mr. G, he said of Grunert who died last year, but is remembered fondly by many ECS music program graduates.
Now Armstrong finds himself travelling the globe, billed as the Canuck baritone on stages in New York, Budapest and Ostrava to name a few centres.
"My home base is New York because this is the epicenter of the operatic world. Of course there are a few places in Europe that would dispute that," he said with a chuckle, a few days before heading off to Hungary for a series of auditions and to complete a contract obligation with an opera company.
After graduating from ECS, Armstrong enrolled in the music education program at Minot State University in North Dakota. Then he was off to the University of Saskatchewan, believing for awhile that maybe he wanted to pursue a career as a doctor. But the world of music drew him back within a year, and back to MSU where he was required to take a course in choir. That led to an audition in front of choral director Kenneth Bowles. Armstrong said he sang God Save the Queen, because it was something he knew he would remember the words to.
Bowles immediately put him in the choir and within a half dozen private voice session, Bowles determined this was a voice that people would be willing to pay to hear and that universities would pay to have him reach for a master's degree. It was that good.
The summer before his senior year, Armstrong spent time developing his emerging vocal talent with the Cape Cod College Light Opera Company, performing musicals and operettas. He enjoyed the work and team concept of the productions. This fit in well with his sports background because in Estevan he had gained a reputation as a track and field competitor as well as a hockey and volleyball player. So there was natural gravitation once the similarities between the opera and jock worlds were revealed. People working together for a common goal appealed to his sense of teamwork.
As he prepared for graduate school, Armstrong said he was still working on getting his head around the concept of pursuing a career in opera. He hadn't even seen one yet. So he went to see Madame Butterfly in Dallas in 1999. That fall he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, Bowles' alma mater.
Armstrong's first paying gig as an opera singer was with the Western Plains Opera Company of Minot when he took on the role of Morales in Carmen.
The path became pretty clear after that. He left a doctorate program at Oklahoma and took to the stage with companies in that state as well as others in Utah and New Jersey. Since then he's sung for the National Lyric Opera and the Operafest di Roma in Italy. He has appeared as a recitalist and concert performer in the Lincoln Center and at Carnegie Hall with a baritone solo in Beethovan's Ninth concerto.
As winner of Hungary's 2009 Mezzo TV Festival, Armstrong made a debut with the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava, Czech Republic. His performance as John Donne in Marco Tutino's Vita which was broadcast to more than 40 countries according to information released by the MSU Alumni magazine in an article written by Cathy Jelsing.
When The Mercury caught up with Armstrong, he was preparing himself for the auditions and the contract work in the Czech Republic. The auditions, he hoped, would lead to contacts with agents who would be willing to represent him there.
"It's much different in Europe than it is in North America. Here we get one agent who will represent you for everything. Over there you might have a whole bunch of agents."
Working as an executive assistant in a New York company that provides him the flexibility to come and go when need be makes it easier as he pursues the opportunities that lead to becoming a full-time operatic singer.
The European work so far takes up a total of about two months a year, but that could change soon.
Asked if there is one opera he prefers, Armstrong quickly notes that La Boheme is one he feels comfortable with. "I know the characters, I know the opera well and all the parts. It's been my choice to this point. I'd love to do Rigoletto but I have an issue there because I look too young," he said. He is 35 now and a Verdi baritone like Armstrong can keep cashing in for at least another 30 years as the voice matures and gets stronger.
"I've sung in most of the concert halls. I haven't sung in the Metropolitian Opera House in New York yet, that's a big house with over 4,000 seats. You really have to project."
Opera singers aren't mic'd up, there is no amplification other than the natural voice projection aided by the acoustics of the facility itself. Armstrong said he can easily work in halls with 1,500 to 2,000 seats and has sung in Met sized venues in Europe, but of course that New York site would be the ultimate or to reach the Met sized appraisal, is what opera world seeks. So the size of the house is important to the singer. When you have no microphones, you're just out there with your voice.
A good singer in a large hall can sound like they are amplified because of the voice projection. "A hall with 4,000 seats, you better be prepared to project," he said, "so I am always striving to reach a level of career that would get me to the Met."
When asked about his start on this path, the former Estevanite said that Bowles, his MSU instructor, found the voice and Grunert was the one who got him interested in music in the first place. "I thoroughly enjoyed by ECS with Mr. G's classes."
He said he comes back home to visit with his Dad and Mom (Dr. Hugh and Dee Armstrong) and tries to rendevouz with his sister Krista, who now resides in Hawaii and brother, Marshall in Medicine Hat, Alta.
"It's nice to get away for a few weeks in the summer, decompress a bit. I usually get back there at least once a year."
The Canuck baritone just recently completed a role in Il Caso Mortara in New York's DiCapo Theatre. This was billed as the first American company to commission an opera from Italian composers since the early 1900s. He played the role of Pop Pius IX, which he said, "was a stretch, because of my age again." But the opera drew very positive reviews for its premiere. "It's a big story with overarching historical significance," he said.
Now Armstrong wants to spend more time in an attempt to latch on to those hard-to-get European agents.
"Getting an agent there is a Catch-22 situation. It's a hard wall to break through, but you just have to keep plugging away," he said. So the trip will involve several auditions for the agents for the first half of the tour which will absorb a few weeks. The second half will see him finishing off the contract with an opera house in Ostrava.
"The system over there is so different. You can be hired on a show-by-show basis or you might get hired as a house singer. That means you are a career singer, it's a job. You get up in the morning and go to work at the opera. In North America, opera is looked at as an art form, in Europe it can be a regular job. I'd love to do that singing full time."
By this point in the interview, it was time to ask a few more lightly laced questions and the Canuck baritone was willing to go along.
So what does C. Armstrong sing while in the shower?
"Hey, when you're singing most of the time, you probably won't find opera singers singing in the shower at all."
What does he have on his iPod player for listening pleasure during his down time?
"I'll probably have opera on it. I might be listening to certain pieces to hear how others did it, working on getting the right sound. I might be on the subway for a half hour or more, so that's a good time to spend listening and learning." Then, after a pause for reflection, Armstrong confessed that he also enjoys listening to the Neil Diamond "standards" and a little Harry Chapin.
"I know that dates me, sorta stuck in the 1970s or something. I don't know why I listen to it, other than it can remind me of home."
So in the opera, it seems the tenors always get the girls. Do the baritones ever get to woo the leading ladies or have them fall in love with them?
"Nope, on stage the baritones are usually the villains, the fathers, the sidekicks or out there to provide some comic relief. In Verdi though, the baritone has a great role, he's still evil, but a good role. There's not a lot of love scenes for baritones," he said with a laugh.
After living in New York for five years, we had to ask him if those New York accents were driving him crazy yet?
"Not really, it's a new normal for me now. In fact my friends here kid me about my accent, especially when they overhear me talking to family or someone back home. They say I sound weird," he said, with a pure Saskatchewan grown accent.
So with a voice that will only get richer and heavier with maturity, the stages in the opera houses will be his to conquer, even if it has to be as a villain.
Somebody has to wear the black hat to make the story work, so why not the guy from Estevan with the big voice!
