About.
What are we looking for when searching for a voice teacher? It would be an advantage to work with someone who was, or better yet, is in the profession of classical singing, and it would be so much more advantageous if that person was a good singer. Without doubt, teaching experience is important if we know that that experience produces results.
Let’s take the curious case of one Harry Dworchak. It seems that he made his European debut as Sparafucile in Giuseppe Verdi’s RIGOLETTO opposite Carlo Bergonzi and Cornel MacNeill in 1971 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona Spain. With his last performance in 2010 at the Metropolitan Opera, we can see he is singing not only well, but well for over forty years.
Now let’s examine his career more carefully? His Paris debut was as a Bass in 1982 at the Theatre du Chatlet in the role of Banquo in Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth. Wotan at the Stadtthearter Augsburg in1997-1999 was a large part of the Heldon-Baritone repertoire that he has been singing for nearly twenty years. Der Fliegende Hollander, the role of the Hollander at Oper Frankfurt as well as Don Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Colon in South America rounds out his second repertoire.
Things become a bit more interesting when we notice that he sings Jockanaan in Richard Strauss’ Salome and he made his debut at the Royal Opera at Covent Garden as Scarpia, a role that he also sang at the Bayerische Staatsoper. As we can deduce there are three repertoires that are still being sung on some of the greatest lyric theaters in the world. So far we’ve covered several important requirements in our search for a voice teacher.
In 1979 Harry taught his first lesson and since that time has taught full studios in Philadelphia, Paris, Munich and New York. A stint at Carnegie Mellon University rounds out a lifetime of teaching experience. If he were to weigh his successes, over the more than thirty years of teaching, between his male and female voices, the scale would surely tip in favor of his female voices. A less than credible voice teacher might get by singing one repertoire, where a better than average voice teacher might have success singing two repertoires, however to sing three repertoires on the greatest stages in the world should give us pause to consider. Recommendations from colleagues and students are glowing. Perhaps, all of our (basses), so to speak, have been covered.