Simon Estes: The Jackie Robinson of Opera

Lee Habeeb (00:00:10):
This is Lee Habeeb, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people, coming to you from the city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas.

OAS Narration (00:00:21):
Up next, the story of a.

Lee Habeeb (00:00:23):
Small-town Iowa kid who became, against all odds, one of the Jackie Robinsons of opera. Even though he freely admits it was Leontine Price, not him, who was the first to break the color barrier in the art. But that’s even more incredible, considering she told him before his first performance at the Metropolitan Opera, quote, it will be more difficult for you as a black man than it was for me as a black woman.

OAS Narration (00:00:49):
Let’s get into the story.

Simon Estes (00:00:53):
My name is Simon Estes. And I was born in a little town in Iowa called Centerville. It was a coal mining town. And I grew up in poverty in a little house that was 27 feet by 25 feet. I said feet. Can you imagine how small that was? 27 feet by 25 feet. We had no running water, no electricity. And at nighttime when it got dark, it was just dark. My mother was a great mother. My father couldn’t read or write. His parents were both slaves, and he was taken out of school in the third reader. In the colored schools back in those days, they didn’t call them grades, like first, second, third, etc. They called them first reader, second reader. I don’t think my father ever brought home a check more than $18, and he was working 12 hours a day. When he came to Centerville, he worked in the coal mines, and there was a lot of dust down in those coal mines in those years. People didn’t realize to wear a mask. Whoever worked in the coal mine, those people died between 50 and 60 years of age with black lung because they inhaled all this black dust. My father had it so badly when he would come home, he couldn’t talk. He was wheezing like someone having an asthma attack. He had to stop working because he had asthma. And as I say, we were extremely poor from a financial point of view. But we were billionaires in our faith in God and Jesus and integrity. We always prayed for every meal, whether it was breakfast, lunch, dinner. We prayed and thanked the Lord that we had a little bit to eat. Fridays were when it came along before my father got paid, of course. Sometimes we didn’t have hardly anything in the house to eat. My mother would make gravy out of bacon grease, flour, and water, and sometimes maybe milk. And we very seldom had a lot of meat because we couldn’t afford it.

Centerville was very racist in those days. Colored people couldn’t do a lot of things that the white people weren’t allowed to sit downstairs in movie theaters with white people. Most of the restaurants, we couldn’t eat in them. We couldn’t swim in the swimming pool until finally they would let us swim on Saturday from 9 o’clock to 11 o’clock. And then the colored people had to get out of the pool, and they’d put more disinfectant in the water. My mother never did learn how to swim, and she died when she was almost 95. She always regretted that she never learned to swim. I remember a kid. His name was Kenneth, and he was very light-skinned. And he got a job packing people’s grocery bags, you know, and he stole a candy bar. And this is a real true story. He stole the candy bar, but they saw him. And what did they do? They didn’t tell his parents. They called the police. Now, he was 16 years old. They put him in jail. And when they had a court date, obviously he was guilty. They put him in the Fort Madison prison. That is the federal prison. So he was put in at 16 years of age for having stolen a candy bar. If a white boy had done that, they probably would have told his parents, called them, hey, your son stole a candy bar. But can you imagine they put him in the federal prison until he was 21 years old? I mention that because that was one of the saddest stories that we had in Centerville. That’s the way it was. But what really helped me, and I would say my sisters too, was our faith. If it had not been for the Bible, maybe I wouldn’t have been as successful, because perhaps I would have been bitter. Some black people, colored people, obviously were frustrated. But our parents taught my three older sisters and me never to hate white people, just to pray for them.

And my mother taught my sisters and me humility. Well, when you’re very, very poor, usually you’re humble in life. But we all went to church. The white people went to the First Baptist, and the colored people went to the Second Baptist Church. And the ministers preached for a long time. They were very emotional. Of course, the ministers, as you probably know, in those Second Baptist churches, they’d be yelling, Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus, and everything. But that was very important. in our development as human beings. Because when we go into churches, obviously, there was no discrimination because we were all colored people. And the church services would last a long time, but music was vitally important. There was a choir, and my mother, she played the piano in the church and directed the church choir. She had this great voice that I inherited from her. God gave it to her, and she gave it to me. Anyhow, I wanted to be a singer. When I was in junior high school, they invited me to sing over in the high school choir. In my high school class, I was the only colored person. We had a hundred and maybe twenty-five graduates, and that had never been done before, but I was the first soprano, so my voice was really high. And this teacher, his name was Don Gunderson, he was the high school choral director, and I asked him, I said, you think I could ever earn a living singing? He said, yes, you could. Well, I was thinking of popular singers I mean Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole you know when I fall in love this type of music I sang then that was something that I could do I didn’t think about classical music or opera in my senior year I went to choir rehearsal and I hardly had any voice and the choral director couldn’t figure out what’s wrong because here I was 18 years old still singing first soprano with the girls so he sent me to a doctor Dr.

Brummett was his name he put that little wooden stick and pushed my tongue down looked at my throat he never even saw my vocal cords I assure you but he said you know I just think your voice is changing and he was right my puberty came rather late I thought well I’m not going to be a singer.

Lee Habeeb (00:07:30):
When we come back more of Simon’s story here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habeeb, host of Our American Stories. Send us your story, small or large, to our email, oas at ouramericanstories.com. That’s oas at ouramericanstories.com. We’d love to hear them and put them on the air. Our audience loves them, too. And we return to Our American Stories, and with Simon Estes. When we last left off, Simon was telling us how he thought his singing career was over before it even began. He sang soprano well into his senior year of high school, and now his voice was changing, and he was heading off to college. It was time for a change of plans, and he was going to be a singer. Or so he thought. Let’s get back to the story. Here again is Simon.

Simon Estes (00:08:35):
I decided I wanted to be a doctor, so I went in pre-med. But then I wanted to sing in the choir, and I didn’t realize that the choral director was a racist, to be quite blunt about it. He said, oh, no, your voice isn’t good enough. And I said, oh, well, you’re the head of the voice department. Could I take voice lessons with you? He said, no, you have no talent. I wouldn’t waste my time with you. Being colored, he didn’t think I could do Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, classical composers. He said, however, there’s a young teacher coming here this fall. Now, this was 1957. And he said, maybe he’ll take you. He did. His name was Charles Kellogg. He was a Greek man. Kyriakos was his Greek name. And he heard me singing. And he said, you know, you have a voice to sing opera. And I said, what is opera? In Centerville, obviously, we didn’t have an orchestra. We only had choral music. All the churches had a choir. And the only instrument, generally speaking, would be a piano. So I had not had exposure to classical music until Mr. Kellis played some recordings, those big 33 1/3 plastic records. He played some opera singers so I could hear their voices and that style.

OAS Narration (00:10:00):
Of music.

Simon Estes (00:10:01):
And then he wanted me to hear just pure orchestral music. So he played Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade as a Russian composer. And after I heard it, I said to him, Mr. Kellis, I really like that stuff. I just call it stuff. And he said, well, Simone, he always called me Simone. You had this voice. I mean, really, I had never heard that kind of music. And I loved it the moment I heard it. What I’ve often said, it was dormant inside of me or latent, whatever word you use. And of course, it was enhanced when I went to Juilliard. He sent me to Juilliard School of Music. But I was very naive. I didn’t know the real importance of the greatest musical conservatory or college in the entire world. Everybody wants to get into Juilliard. Right today, they only have an enrollment of about 830 students. Anyhow, the shock was probably more, I was more excited about seeing those skyscrapers than I was going to Juilliard. I was so happy that I got a window seat. So I could look out and my neck, I don’t know if I was on the right side or the left side of the plane, but it was probably stiff by the time I got to New York because I just kept looking out at the clouds and the buildings down there and cars looking like little ants and all of that. That was really an experience. Never was on an airplane. And I remember when Mr. Kellis took me to the Metropolitan Opera House to hear an opera. Rigoletto. Rigoletto is the name of the character. in this opera by Giuseppe Verdi. And I remember I couldn’t believe what I heard in the Metropolitan Opera, that orchestra and all of those voices. Of course, I didn’t realize that they weren’t using microphones until Mr. Kellis brought it to my attention. He said, Simone, you notice all those people on the stage, they don’t use any microphones.

And I thought that was amazing. Anyhow, I was only there two years before I started singing professionally. There were three others. I think we were called black at that point. We’ve been Negro, black, African, Afro, African-American. So I don’t know what I am, but I do know I’m a human being and one of God’s children. And once I started realizing what Juilliard really was, I thanked the Lord for it because I thought, wow, this is amazing coming from Centerville, Iowa. But I had a double feeling because I was frustrated that they wouldn’t let me sing in my own country. When I first started singing opera, it was April 19, 1965, in Germany at the West German Opera House. Here in the United States, a black woman to sing opera, because some roles are romantic, And of course, even with a black man next to a white woman on the stage, it was much more difficult for a black man. And so that excluded us from certain repertoire, certain roles. So it was very difficult. I remember it was in Atlanta, Georgia, and I was singing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. And the opera house, they have an opera house there in Atlanta. I won’t mention the man’s name, but he was the head of the opera. So I went over to see him. I said, you know, I would love very, very much to sing in your opera house. And he told me very honestly, and I respected him because he was honest about it. He said, I would love to engage you, but our donors have said if I engage you, a black man, they would not give us money. I will tell you it was hurting because I knew I was qualified to sing the opera in this country. Anyhow, I started my career at the Deutsche Oper, meaning German Opera House, in West Berlin. And Berlin was separated at that time.

And then in 1966, the State Department asked me to go to Russia and sing in the Tchaikovsky Competition. And they told me that I’d have to sing some songs in Russian. I said, well, I don’t know any Russian, of course. Because I didn’t know any Russian, they said, we will send you money to study Russian in Germany. And they never did send it. And so something told me to, I had all the other repertoire, Italian, German, French, all those languages I was singing in, and English, of course, I had that. But something told me to go anyhow. And when I flew there, I think God arranged all this time. This is where my faith comes in, in the Bible and all that. A Russian actress who was doing a movie in East Berlin, and she spoke German, of course, and I spoke German. And she asked me, why was I going to Russia, to Moscow? And I told her, to the Tchaikovsky Competition. She was really, wow, at the Tchaikovsky Competition. Tchaikovsky was one of the greatest Russian composers. And so I asked her to teach me a famous song that was famous in Russia, phonetically. And so for three hours between East Berlin and Moscow, this lady taught me a song called Ni slova, o drug moy, which means not a word, oh my friend. And I believe that God arranged that. I believe that Charles Kellogg was sent to the University of Iowa, this teacher who discovered me. And I believe he put that lady next to me. And what I realized then, God had given me a talent for languages. And when I got to Moscow, my accompanist, her name was Irina Zorina. That was 1966. She said, Russian not bad, but we will make better. And so she helped me. And in fact, I got a review from the Pravda newspaper. It said Simon Estes had the best Russian of anybody in the competition who was not a Russian.

And then to skip ahead, I won the bronze medal. And President Johnson invited me to come to the White House and invited my mother. And my mother had never been on an airplane either.

Lee Habeeb (00:16:43):
And you’ve been listening to Simon Estes tell one heck of a story. My goodness, he holds a firm belief that God puts certain people in his life at certain times and places and in a sequence. And my goodness, that Greek teacher of his who told him he had a voice for opera. And Simon’s reply, what is opera? And he said, I had never heard that music, but I loved it. He didn’t know Juilliard either. And the next thing you know, he was there or its importance. And of course, anyone who knows music knows what Juilliard is and the role it’s played in unearthing some of the great musical talent of the last century.

OAS Narration (00:17:23):
And then came the discrimination.

Lee Habeeb (00:17:26):
As Leontine Price had predicted, it would be harder for a man to break in than a woman, and that experience in Atlanta, absolutely heartbreaking. He knew he had the talent, so did the head of the opera there, but he gave him the bad news.

OAS Narration (00:17:40):
The white donors wouldn’t allow it. They’d back out.

Lee Habeeb (00:17:44):
And off to Germany he went, then to Russia, and when we come back, More of this remarkable story of triumph over tragedy here on Our American Stories. And we return to Our American Stories and the final portion of our story with Simon Estes, one of the greatest opera singers of our generations. When we last left off, Simon, facing discrimination in the United States, left for Europe to pursue his professional career and would get his major break in Moscow, of all places, at a competition, no less, after having learned Russian on the ride over.

OAS Narration (00:18:33):
Let’s return to the story. Here again is Simon Estes.

Simon Estes (00:18:37):
Many years, I couldn’t sing recitals, even in the southeastern part of the United States. But finally, they let me sing down there. And I remember in one city, my accompanist and I, we got out of the plane. We went into the city, to the hotel. And there was a patrolman. He followed us from the airport to the hotel. Checked in the hotel. Went down to eat before I sang, you know. That patrolman was still there. And my pianist was a white man. I remember the patrolman walked over and said, I want you boys. They put him in the boy category then. I’m following you. I was staying in a hotel in the South. A woman’s jewelry was stolen. I was the only black person staying in the hotel. And I got in the elevator. I will never forget this. I was in my tails. And there was a white woman who got in the elevator. She said, boy, what did you do with it? I said, what are you talking about? She said, we know you stole a woman’s jewelry. I can still remember. She said, on the fourth floor. On the fourth floor, you stole. I said, man. And I was in my tuxedo. I said, do I look like a thief to you? And she said, well, we’re going to search your room, boy.

OAS Narration (00:19:49):
All right.

Simon Estes (00:19:50):
Well, you can search my room, but you better not disturb anything. And she used a double negative. That don’t make no difference. Well, when she used a double negative, I realized she wasn’t educated. Of course, obviously, I didn’t steal the jewelry. It was really scary. I can honestly tell you, when that plane took off sometimes, I was always happy that I got off the ground, got out of the South, but I still wanted to go there and sing. Anyhow, I remember when I sang when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was in Canada. And I remember I was getting dressed. I had the TV on, and Walter Cronkite, he said, ladies and gentlemen, and he had his glasses. I remember he took them off. And put him, he said, Martin Luther King has just been assassinated. I told the people that night I wouldn’t sing some happy songs that I had on the program. And they had already a reception planned for me. Of course, not knowing Martin Luther King was going to be assassinated. But they said something to me. They said, you know, why don’t you move to Canada? We wouldn’t treat you that way. And I was surprised that they said that, but I wasn’t surprised because I thought if 10 million black people came to Canada tomorrow, you might have a racial problem too. Not that we are inherently problem makers. And I said, no, I’m going to stay in my country and continue to try to fight for justice and equality. And it was frustrating. I was sad. I was underpaid all these years that I sang opera. I was never paid what I should have been paid. In some of the opera houses where I sang, too, they put makeup on. My first performance, when I sang Ramfis in Verdi’s opera called Aida, Ramfis is a high priest, and it takes place in Egypt, and when they made me up, They made me white as snow.

I went to the makeup room. I looked in the mirror and I thought, if my mother could see me now, I was snow white. But my parents always said, never give up. Don’t become discouraged and don’t let something deter you. Stay strong. And obviously I didn’t give up. Whenever I would go out and sing recitals, I would always pray before. And I would pray that through the talent that God gave me that somebody or more than one person’s heart would be touched through their music, that they would love one another and would have peace through music. I think I’ve sung in 44 of the 50 states. But when I sang at the Met, I remember I was, the opera that I sang in there was called Tannhäuser. I did the Landgraf. That’s a Wagnerian opera. And I remember when I, at that time, After the performance, when I was in my room, I was thinking, wow, I actually sang at the Met. And I remember I wished I could have sung there earlier because I was qualified, but I didn’t really start singing consistently at the Met until 1983. And I sang six years in a row and did a number of different operas. And I was thrilled and just grateful that my parents taught me to have courage and not be distracted because of racial discrimination. And I feel so blessed because I have literally sung all around the world, whether it’s Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China, Africa, South America, all of the European countries. And when I was a kid growing up in Centerville, Iowa, I didn’t think I’d get farther away. East, maybe, than Chicago. But I’ve been to Tokyo, and I’ve been to China, to Beijing. And I’ve sung for the Nobel Prize Committee, and Nelson Mandela. Oh, yeah, and I’m not Catholic, but I’ve sung for two popes, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II.

It’s really true. And Billy Graham, you know the Billy Graham crusade? And Madison Square Garden in New York City. And some of these things that I’ve done, I still can’t believe it. But I realized it was a gift from God that he gave me. And I do a lot of teaching. I’m a full professor. I have 14 honorary degrees. Two years ago, Juilliard gave me a doctorate degree also. And I just thank God that he gave me this talent and opportunity to travel all around this planet Earth that he created. I still can’t believe it. I remember I built a new house many years ago when I was married in New Jersey on three acres of land. I remember one time when even after we were having dinner, I have three daughters now. They were little girls then, of course. I remember I left the table and I went out and I built this house on three acres of land. And I looked at that house and I thought, wow. And I didn’t know how big this house was when I built it. I saw a house. that I liked, and I asked a builder if he could build it like this house that I saw from the outside but not the inside. And I didn’t even realize how big it was. Well, it had 6,500 square feet of living space. And my little house in Centerville was 27 feet by 25 feet. And I remember I stood there, and I looked, and I thought, wow, that’s my house. I built this house. I could hardly believe it.

Lee Habeeb (00:26:03):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by our own Montie Montgomery. And a special thanks to Simon Estes for telling his story. And to Steve Schott, the producer of the wonderful documentary Simon Estes, A Heart and a Voice, for setting up this interview for us. And to find out more about the documentary, go to aheartandavoice.com. That’s aheartandavoice.com. And what a heart to overcome this indiscriminate discrimination that he faced not for a year or two, But for decades, the story of that elevator ride where he’s in tails and this woman’s lost jewelry and just assumes he stole it and how he wanted to continue to sing in the South despite that discrimination and that line he had about always praying before his performance, I prayed for peace through music. And by goodness, his parents gave him that courage in God, the courage of his faith, to just get through the hard stuff, to get to the beautiful and to get to the godly. And that 27 by 25 square foot house that he grew up in, he ended up with three acres in New Jersey and 6,500 square feet. In the end, he attributed it all to his creator. The story of Simon Estes on Our American Stories.