Lakes, Gary
Lakes, Gary
Lakes, Gary, American tenor; b. Dallas, Sept. 26, 1950. He studied with Thomas Hayward at Southern Methodist Univ. in Dallas and sang in the Dallas Opera Chorus. He also attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Calif., and pursued extensive vocal training with William Eddy at the Seattle Opera, where he made his professional operatic debut as Froh in 1981. After winning the Heldentenor Foundation competition in N.Y., he appeared as Florestan in Mexico City (1983), Samson in Charlotte, N.C. (1984), and Siegmund in Act I of Die Walküre in Paris (1985) before making his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as the High Priest in Idomeneo (Feb. 4, 1986). In return visits to the Metropolitan Opera, he sang Siegmund, Bacchus, Don José, the Emperor in Die Frau ohne Schatten, Erik, Parsifal, and Florestan. In 1991 he sang at the London Promenade Concerts, and returned to London in 1994 to portray Berlioz’s Faust. He appeared as Florestan at the Lincoln Center Festival in N.Y. in 1996. He also sang in concerts with major orchs. in the U.S. and Europe.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire