Music: Basso Behind the Desk

With his firm jaw and conservative business suits, Robert Oliver, 36, is the picture of a successful executive. And so he is: boss of management development at California’s missile-making Hughes-Aircraft Co. But when he talks, his voice is that of someone else: an oldtime Wagnerian “black bass,” echoing with rare depth and timbre. Executive Oliver’s voice is so unusual, in fact, that when Composer Igor Stravinsky first heard him, he added a specially low voice role to his last great work and asked Oliver to sing it.

At Venice’s International Festival of contemporary music last year (TIME, Oct. 6), Stravinsky got his wish. The composer’s Threni, id est Lamentationes ]eremiae Prophetae (i.e., Threnody, Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah) is a complex, 33-minute work for six vocal soloists, chorus and full orchestra, and the bass part, ranging from middle B-flat to low E-flat, is the most difficult of all. At Venice, says Conductor Robert Craft, who rehearsed Threni’s chorus, the starring role should have been the tenor, “but there was no question that Oliver ran away with all the honors.” Last week music lovers could hear for themselves what all the excitement is about. On sale was a Columbia recording of Threni that put Missileman Oliver’s amazing performance on permanent exhibit.

Master & Peasant. Born and raised on a western Pennsylvania farm, Oliver sang in the choir at Geneva College (’43) and became vaguely aware that he had “some sort of a voice.” But aside from a short stay at Manhattan’s Juilliard School of Music after his World War II service (Navy gunnery officer), he did not do much about it. Instead, he set out to make his mark in business. Says Oliver: “I never had much taste for living in a garret. And I guess, too, that I’ve still got the cautious instincts of a peasant.”

What started him singing again was Los Angeles’ Roger Wagner Chorale, the West Coast equivalent of Manhattan’s Robert Shaw Chorale. For fun, Oliver began singing with the group. One day Dr. Hugo Strelitzer, a well-known voice coach, heard him and made it his business to train that powerful voice.

Trial & Temptation. At first, remembers Strelitzer, Oliver “was irregular—beautiful and smooth one moment, harsh the next. He needed to develop his breathing, head resonance and overtones to bring out the true quality uniformly. He has worked very hard to do this and has succeeded wonderfully well.”

The proof was Threni. Since then, Oliver has scored other successes singing four Mozart arias with the Santa Monica Symphony, and as Zuniga in the Hollywood Bowl’s Carmen. He takes as many as five lessons each week, is now being trained by Strelitzer to sing all of Wagner’s bass roles. Oliver insists that he will not turn professional. But he knows that most bassos do not reach their peak until their mid-40s and admits that the idea is attractive. Says he: “There is a great temptation when you have that feeling of raw power over an audience.”