Baritone who saved 'Cav/Pag' steps into familiar 'Aida' role

By CHARLENE BALDRIDGE - For the North County Times | Wednesday, April 9, 2008 12:20 PM PDT ∞

Baritone Mark Rucker stepped off a plane March 24, expecting to begin rehearsals for the role of Amonasro in San Diego Opera's upcoming production "Aida." Upon landing, he picked up a cell phone message from artistic administrator Marianne Flettner saying she would meet him in baggage claim.

"My first reaction was, I must be really important if the second in command is picking me up," said Rucker.

After initial small talk, Flettner asked, "By the way, how well do you know 'Cavalleria Rusticana' and 'Pagliacci?'"

Rucker said he knew "Pagliacci" fairly well, having performed it at the Metropolitan opera last season. He was less sure of "Cavalleria," which he hadn't performed in four years.

Flettner said, "Our baritone (Bruno Caproni, double-cast as Tonio in "Pagliacci" and Alfio in "Cavalleria Rusticana") isn't feeling well. I'm not sure he's going to sing."

Rucker said, "Give me a score. I'll take a look."

The next morning at the "Aida" meet-and-greet, San Diego Opera General Director Ian Campbell drew Rucker aside and asked, "Did you look at the score? Can you sing it?"

"I think I could," said Rucker, expecting he had a couple of days to prepare.

"Good," said Campbell. "You're on. Tonight."

Rucker was rushed to costumes and then to the stage, where the crew graciously changed scenes for him while someone told him where to go and when. Then the crew showed him the ropes ---- literally ---- those he had to pull to commence the commedia scene in "Pagliacci."

During that night's performances and another, colleagues, crew and stage managers made certain Rucker was on the spot physically, sometimes with a whispered, "Over there," and once with a mad-dash precipitating: "I think you enter on the other side!"

After his rush to rescue "Cav/Pag," Rucker was admittedly frazzled mentally, but in performance he was spot-on, reminding patrons, who have seen him as Amonasro (1996), Renato in "A Masked Ball" and the title role in "Rigoletto" (2002), what a glorious instrument he possesses. Now one must add coolness in the face of chaos to his virtues.

In person, the handsome Rucker proves a witty raconteur. One wants to bathe in his luscious speaking voice as it resounds with laughter during impassioned discussions of politics, race in today's opera world and his dazzling rise to international acclaim as a Verdi baritone.

Rucker was born to a church choir director/singer and a contralto/organist and raised on Chicago's South Side.

"Reading-wise, my mother was probably the better musician," he said. "What I got from him was his innate quality to feel music besides just looking at the notes and the timing. He was able to bring out the emotions of it. If you sing without that, you're just making sound."

Though Rucker started singing in the church choir at age 9, his father was always saying, "Sh." He might have become a star football player instead of an opera singer if his Kenwood High choral director, Lena McLin, hadn't been so adamant.

"She kept saying, 'You're going to sing at the Met,' and I kept saying, 'Oh, yeah, this is a crazy woman,' and so I played. I got tackled once and I heard a voice from the stands shouting, 'Don't hit him in the throat!' My main claim to fame was that I was knocked cold by Dick Butkus."

Two surgeries later, he decided football was not something he should be dealing with. He got back into singing.

Rucker and his wife, Sadie, met at Drake University, where she was in the church choir that he conducted. Just friends at first, she became his accompanist. Things changed, and Sadie has been by Rucker's side ever since, traveling the world and serving as a repository of warmth and facts about upcoming dates and roles. Clearly, she adores him.

Early in their 20-year marriage, they moved east, rightly thinking that Des Moines wasn't conducive to starting an operatic career. They took an apartment in New Jersey, which they still see occasionally. Rucker began the audition process, and was a semifinalist in the 1981 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a participant in San Francisco Opera's Merola Program.

"I've had a lot of turning points, but they were all progressive," he said. "The Pavarotti Competition (he took first place in 1986) raised my fee and opened some doors because people saw it on PBS."

It takes time for a Verdi baritone to prove himself capable of carrying a role in a costly production. Giuseppe Verdi wrote no unimportant baritone roles: Germont Pere in "La Traviata," the title roles in "Rigoletto," "Macbeth" and "Nabucco," and Amonasro, the Ethiopian king and father of the title character in "Aida."

In 1988, Rucker made his New York City Opera debut as Rigoletto, a role he's performed hundreds of times since. His 2004 Metropolitan Opera debut was Amonasro. His wife, Sadie, was there. Rucker smiled as he remembered. "She always said, 'You're going to sing at the Met,' and there we were."

The story

Aida (Indra Thomas) is a captive Ethiopian slave in the court of Egypt, where she is handmaid to the King's (Jose Gallisa) daughter, Amneris (mezzo-soprano Mariana Pentcheva). Both women love the military hero Rhadames (tenor Carlo Ventri), who returns with captives from Ethiopia, among them Amonasro (Rucker), Aida's father. Aida and Rhadames plan to flee Egypt, but are caught and sentenced to die. Other singers are Reinhard Hagen as the High Priest, Ramfis; Priti Gandhi, a Priestess; and Kenneth Morris, a Messenger. Valery Ryvkin conducts; Garnett Bruce directs.

Charlene Baldridge is a freelance journalist, poet, and critic, and a member of San Diego Theatre Critics Circle. She writes locally for the La Jolla Village News, Downtown News, Performances Magazine and the North County Times; http://members.cox.net/charb81

"Aida"

When: 7 p.m. April 12 and 15; 8 pm. April 18; 2 p.m. Apr. 20; 7 p.m. Apr. 23

Where: San Diego Opera at the San Diego Civic Theatre, Third Avenue at B Street, San Diego

Tickets: $28-$192

Phone: (619) 533-7000

Web: www.sdopera.com