He Forsook Rock To Belt Bel Canto

The last person in the world Gregory Kunde looks like is an operatic tenor. A strawberry blond with wavy hair and a beard, the stocky but not fat, 5 foot-11 ("not big by today's standards," he says), Kunde could be a touring golf pro. In fact, the day we have lunch, he's wearing a yellow V-neck, the kind Jack Nicklaus used to favor. Were he to get his fondest wish, Kunde says that all he wants for Christmas is "to stay at Spanish Bay for seven days and play all the courses."

But Kunde is a tenor in the romantic tradition. Tuesday night he opens as Arturo in the San Francisco Opera production of Bellini's I Puritani which runs for seven performances through December 10. A long time ago, when the Kankakee, Ill., native opted for a career in opera, he decided, for longevity's sake, to limit himself to bel canto repertoire and leave the gut-busters to men with darker voices. More prudent than lacking in courage, Kunde took as his model the Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus, who at 65, is still singing the roles that made him famous.

Kraus, says Kunde, is "really my mentor who brought me into this repertoire. I was his understudy at the Chicago Lyric for six years. He taught me how to use this high voice."

Kunde learned not only technique from Kraus, but also style. "He's the master. You ask the tenors of today about him. But you realize he doesn't get his due. He's 65 and he's still singing "Daughter of the Regiment" with all those high Cs. (Kunde's voice, which has a high F, will be put to the test in "Puritani" with its series of high C-sharps, Ds, and Es.).

Singer with a game plan

Thus far, the 39-year old Kunde has been able to preserve his voice, his looks, and his temperament by remaining unstintingly loyal to his game plan. There are probably no Otellos in his future, at least not, he says "until I'm much older." His wife of three years, Linda Wojciechowski, a soprano who gave up her career to manage her husband's, has been instrumental in molding his career, keeping him from taking on projects that would harm his voice.

"Once you've decided to specialize in these operas, you have to stick with it," says Kunde."It's hard to come back if you leave it. With the heavier things, like "Boheme" and "Traviata," you tend to give too much in your middle voice." To illustrate his point, Kunde tells me about an offer to perform "Werther" at the Opera Comique in Paris next spring. His wife reminded him of his game plan and his self-limitations: "You know what you have scheduled before . . .and after," she said. "You want to be a five-year guy and go home?" Kunde's answer: "I wasn't ready to go into coaching this soon."

In the sensually romantic operas of Verdi, Rossini, and Puccini, the tenor reigns supreme, or at least has parity with la diva. Trouble is, the bel canto rep is a soprano's medium. Arias and cadenzas galore for the spinto lyrics and coloraturas, Custom-made for the gloriously flexible voices of Beverly Sills, Dame Joan Sutherland, and Kunde's" Puritani" co-star, June Anderson.

"With the repertoire I sing, I'm always going to be second banana," says Kunde. "We're like the male ballet dancer in the pas de deux. And once you find that out, you just lay back and have a good time at it."

It's not that Kunde isn't serious about his art, but this thing for golf is a conscious effort on his part to treat opera as what he does, not what he is. Golf, says the 17-handicapper, is much more of a mania than music. "The last thing I want is to be a music nerd," says Kunde, who doesn't even live in New York City to be close to the Met. Or in Europe, for that matter, where his repertoire is performed more often than in the States, and where he tours nine months of the year. Kunde and his wife live in a new home they just built, close the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. At home, he listens to jazz. And if he and his soprano mate sing at all, it is apt to be a Broadway duet.

Inspired by the juke box

Kunde, who grew up in the Midwest, is from a working-class family. His father owned a gas station for 25 years and his mother sang with a couple of big bands when she was in the Women's Army Corps during World War II. When he was a kid, Kunde remembers going with his folks to a bar where he'd press numbers on the juke box and sing along to Connie Francis.

"I never intended to go into opera," he says. "I loved rock'n'roll. Pete Cetera from (the rock group) Chicago was my idol. I was very distressed when he quit the group and they didn't call me to audition." Kunde may be joking here, but probably not. At the time, he was a student at Illinois State University at Normal and was singing lead and playing rhythm guitar (a 12-string Ovation) in a Chicago-clone band called White Elephant. "We made enough money to go to Denny's after a job," he laughs.

Without even knowing it back then, Kunde was guarding his vocal instrument. "I didn't try to sing like that guy from Guns N'Roses, you know, Axl Rose. I had never had a voice lesson, but I guess I did it right." Fronting that group gave the self-described "nerd kid" some well-needed confidence. It was his opera studies a few later that broke up the band.

When he left for college, Kunde wanted to be a choral music director, but he still performed in contests sponsored by the National Association of Teachers of Singing. For one NATS outing, he sang "Una furtive lagrima" from L'Elisir d'Amore" was advised by one of the judges to make opera his career.

When the Baptist lost his head

With his interest thus piqued, Kunde went off to Europe with the ISU madrigal group and saw his first operatic production, Richard Strauss' "Salome" at the Vienna Staatsoper. "It was fabulous," he enthuses. "When they brought that head of John the Baptist up and it looked exactly like the guy who was just singing . . .wow! This is so cool. I guess I gotta do this."

By coincidence, he made his operatic debut as the Second Nazarean in "Salome" in 1978 at the Chicago Lyric. His only appearance at New York's Metropolitan Opera came in 1987 when he was asked to step in for ailing tenor Neil Shicoff in "Manon," opposite Catherine Malfitano, whom he had never met before arriving on stage, 70 minutes into the opera.

"I didn't even know where the dressing rooms or the stage was when I got to the Met at 6 pm that night," he remembers. Someone obliged and guided him to his changing room, but just before he was to go on stage, Kunde says he realized he "still didn't know where the stage was." So I picked up the phone and called the stage manager, who sent someone to help me." Standing in the wings, Kunde says his only thought was: "Holy crap. Here I am. I gotta sing now. I went on autopilot." The New York Times gave him a good review, but says, Kunde, shaking his shaggy head, "they haven't asked me back."

Fifteen years into his career, Kunde has established himself as heir to the Donizetti-Bellini-Gounod repertoire of Alfredo Krause. And probably, as one of the nicer guys in opera. He is still fairly temperamental-free, calling those artists who diva out "babies."

Opera singers, tenors in particular, have a reputation fro being crazier than outhouse rats and prone to certain rituals to get them on stage in one piece. Years ago, there was a pervasive rumor that one very handsome, very diva-esque guy couldn't go on stage unless he engaged in sex in his dressing room right before a performance. Coloratura Lily Pons was so nervous she had to have "ze vomit" before her first entrance. And Luciano Pavarotti prays a lot and always carries his "lucky" handkerchief and scarves. Kunde says he "gets edgy." That's it. He gets edgy and his wife just avoids him.

Once. Kunde's mentor Kraus gave him a great piece of advice. "Don't think when you sing."

"It makes a hell of a difference," says Kunde. "I look at those guys who take this all so seriously and think, 'What are you torturing yourself for?' Are you a masochist? I feel more pressure having to tee off with a foursome behind me."