Ben Heppner

Photo: Gary Smith

The announcement of Ben Heppner’s retirement took me back more than twenty-five years to June of 1988 when a tenor I had never heard auditioned for me. We were planning a new production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg, and he, described as an heroic tenor, had just been named a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera’s National Auditions. When I heard his “Am stillen Herd”—even in a somewhat cramped audition space, I knew I was listening to vocal gold.

Ben sang in five different productions at Seattle Opera between the 1989 Meistersinger and the world-famous Tristan und Isolde in 1988, and all of them were unforgettable. When he first sang here, I thought he was a heldentenor; I now believe that he was really a very big lyric in the same way that Leontyne Price called herself not a spinto soprano but a big lyric. He began his career with Mozart and Bach which gave him great flexibility of voice and helped him develop a strong technique. His Walther von Stolzing, although costumed as unfortunately as any singer we have ever presented (period white satin tunic and tights did not suit his frame), was magical. Never tiring, completely prepared in one of the wordiest and most difficult texts in opera, he sang with an easy lyricism that could make angels weep.

He came back in the fall of 1990 in what turned out to be one of Seattle Opera’s most famous events: a new production by Guenther Schneider-Siemssen of Dvorak’s Rusalka, which was the first major appearance for Renee Fleming in opera with Susan Graham as the Kitchen Boy. Ms. Fleming’s Rusalka, so lyrical and expressive, was enhanced by Heppner’s remarkable Prince. The sheen of his gleaming tenor, the ease of all the high notes, including the very exposed high C in the final scene, made the audience deliriously happy.

In 1994 he sang his first American Lohengrin in a new production by Stephen Wadsworth. I have attended Lohengrins since 1947, and never can I remember the title role sung better: silvery when necessary, heroic at the big moments, romantic when he sang specifically to Elsa, he was a magical knight of the Grail. The set by Thomas Lynch was one of our most beautiful with an animatronic swan that nestled close to Ben as it floated on a river between fields of tulips when he sang to it twice with silver tone.

He came next for his first Andrea Chenier in 1996 and proved both that he could sing Italian music wonderfully and that he was very smart. Paired with the extraordinary verismo artist, Diana Soviero, he paid attention to everything she did and learned a lot. In those performances his Chenier had power, authenticity, and great beauty. Each of Chenier’s four arias came easily to him, and he shaped them all with the kind of expertise that would serve him in good stead as he added more Italian roles to his repertory.

Next came the big one. I believed that he and Jane Eaglen should do Tristan und Isolde, and that it should be in Seattle. Jane couldn’t wait to sing Isolde; Ben thought a lot about Tristan, studied it, and decided it was time. I asked Francesca Zambello to direct the new production; she chose Allison Chitty as set designer. In my 31 years as General Director of this company, this Tristan has a distinction all its own. Word that both would do their first performances of the opera here went around the world, and we opened single-ticket sales on a day early in December 1987 for the next summer’s performances. The demand was so great–and this may be hard to believe but I swear it is true–that the phone lines to our company were completely blocked for hours. In other words there were so many calls coming in that no one in the office could call out and no calls could come in. We did ten sold-out performances that summer; Jane sang all of them, Ben sang the first eight. He went on to sing many Tristans after, but these were special. With the guiding hand in the pit of the late Armin Jordan, he could be lyrical when needed and dramatic when it was necessary. Each was a moving, shattering performance; I can still hear the duets of Jane and Ben, and the marvelous work of Ben with Greer Grimsley as Kurvenal in the third act. As General Director, I have neither before nor since received from so many audience members so much sheer gratitude. The two sang the opera many times thereafter, but this engagement had a magic that will never be forgotten by any of us who were here.

Ben worked on in many different theaters in Europe and America but never, I’m sorry to say, returned to Seattle. I had the pleasure, however, of flying up to Calgary Alberta a few years ago for his Ahab in Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick. The role is a very, very tough one, and the opera is to me Heggie’s greatest to date. He composed it for Ben, and on the night I heard him sing, he was marvelous. Even without the silken bloom of his earlier performances, Ben truly became Ahab–older, really crazy–conveying vocally the kind of desperate intensity that expressed the old sea captain’s hysterical search for the white whale.

Now Ben Heppner has announced his retirement. His wife, Karen, always at his side at every performance, and his children will get to enjoy him, but those of us who heard him sing in his prime will count ourselves always lucky. He was larger-than-life, always prepared, completely professional and possessed of one of the most unforgettably ravishing voices of our time.