Collection ID: C337
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Collection context

Summary

Creator:
King, James, 1925-2005
Abstract:
James King's career as an operatic singer spanned a period of over three decades beginning in the 1960s and continuing until 2000. King began his career as a baritone, but later retrained to become a tenor. Performing throughout Europe and the United States, he was renowned for specializing in the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. In 1984 he joined the faculty of Indiana University as a professor of voice in the School of Music, where he remained until 2002. Collection contains clippings, programs, posters, music, correspondence, recordings, photographs, and notebooks all relating primarily to his professional career as an opera singer.
Extent:
6.4 cubic feet
Language:
Materials are in English
Preferred citation:

[Item], James King papers, Collection C337, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.

Background

Biographical / Historical:

Born in Dodge City, Kansas on May 22, 1925, James Ambrose King began singing in junior high at the age of 14. As a youth, he also played the violin. By the time he had graduated from Dodge City High School, the United States had entered World War Two and King served for two and a half years in the United States Navy Air Corps. Upon the conclusion of the war, King studied at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge with Dallas Draper. During this period he studied French, German, and Italian, and gave numerous performances in the opera department including the roles of Valentin in Faust, the Count in Figaro, and other baritone roles. After receiving his Bachelor of Music degree in 1950, he continued on to receive his Master of Arts from the University of Kansas City in 1952 where he studied under Hardin van Deursen. Following the completion of his studies he accepted a position as an instructor at the University of Kentucky where he taught voice, music history courses, voice pedagogy, and directed choirs until 1961. During this period he performed numerous operettas and musicals, chorus parts, and small solo roles in the Kansas City Starlight Theater.

At the age of thirty-one King began to make the difficult transition from baritone to tenor studying under Martial Singher, the famous French baritone who was also renowned as a teacher. In 1959, King took an eight month sabbatical and studied with Singher in Philadelphia. The transition complete, in 1961 he entered the American Opera Auditions at Cincinnati, and on May 19 he made his official debut singing the tenor role of Don José in Carmen with the Spring Opera Theater of San Francisco opposite Marilyn Horne. When the tenor who had won the American Opera Auditions couldn't get out of a previous contract, King went in his place to Florence where he performed Cavardossi in Tosca and then joined the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1962 where he debuted as Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschers, and until 1965 he performed fifty to sixty performances a year there. In 1963 he sang his first Wagner role, Lohengrin, and the same year he debuted as Bacchus in Adriadne at the Vienna State Opera. In the following years he generally conducted 15 to 20 performances annually. Other performances followed in rapid succession including the role of Kaiser in Die Frau Ohne Schatten at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, at the Salzburg Festival in Iphigenie en Aulide and at the Bayreuth Festival as Siegmund in Die Walküre. After establishing himself firmly in Germany and Austria, King returned to the United States to make his New York Metropolitan debut as Florestan in Fidelio.

Throughout the 1970s, King's career continued in a similar path; he returned regularly to the Metropolitan for roles including Siegmund, Lohengrin, Stolzing in Die Meistersinger, Bacchus, the Kaiser, Don Jose, and Calaf in Turnadot. He appeared often with the San Francisco Opera performing Manrico in Il Trovatore, Canio in Pagliacci and Otello. He debuted at the Bolshoi Opera in Otello and also often performed at La Scala in Milan, the Teatro Colon in Buenes Aires, the Paris Opera and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. King also maintained strong ties with the major music festivals in Europe including the Salzburg Festival.

In 1984, James King joined the faculty of Indiana University as a professor of voice in the graduate music program, while at the same time maintaining his professional career. His final public performance was in 2000 at the University where he sang the role of Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre. He remained on the faculty until 2002.

Renowned for specializing in the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss in a career that spanned over three decades, James King died on November 27, 2005 at the age of 80. He was married three times and had five children. At the time of this death he was married to Elizabeth Lively.

Scope and Content:

With materials which date from the period from 1940 to 1999, the contents of the James King collection relate primarily to King's professional career as an opera singer. The collection is organized into ten series which include: Biographical, Clippings, Correspondence, Itineraries, Programs and Posters, Music, Scripts, Recordings, Notebooks, and Oversize materials.

The Biographical (1952-1998) series includes materials such as artistic representations of King, clippings of a biographical nature, honors received, a very limited amount of material relating to his faculty position at Indiana University and specifically on his tenure process, journals relating to his daily activities, a section of an autobiographical manuscript entitled Just a Plain Country Boy written with Donald Arthur, and numerous versions of resumes and lists of King's recordings.

The Clippings (1946-1999) series is divided into two separate sub-series. The first, King's Career (1946-1996), includes hundreds of newspaper and journal clippings relating to the span of King's career. These articles offer critiques and coverage of the various operas King performed in as well as his career in general. The second sub-series, Subject files (1975-1999) includes articles of interest which King collected on topics such as funding for the arts, the decline of American culture, music, the opera profession, quotes, religion, and numerous miscellaneous other topics.

The Correspondence (1956-59; 72-79; 80-89; 92-99) series is divided into two subseries. The first, General correspondence (1956-1999), is organized chronologically and includes formal invitations, professional contacts, and letters to politicians relating to King's advocacy for arts funding. The second series, Contracts (1980-1990), which is arranged chronologically, consists of contracts from various opera houses relating to King's performances.

The Itineraries (1962-75; 80-88; 90) series which is arranged chronologically consists of schedules listing the dates of King's performances.

The Programs and Posters (1940-1997) series is divided into two sub-series. Arranged chronologically, the King's Performances (1940-1996) sub-series consists of programs and posters from performances ranging the span of King's career. Some of the productions represented include the operas Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Carlos, Otello, Tosca, Carmen, Moses und Aaron, Die Walküre, Il trovatore, Fidelio, Parsifal, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Palestrina, Wozzeck, Die tote Stadt, Anacréon, Billy Budd, Elektra, along with several others. The General (1966-1997) subseries, consists of programs in which King did not perform, with a few containing King's notes on the performance.

Organized alphabetically by composer, the Music series consists of hundreds of music scores from composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Georges Bizet, Johannes Brahms, H.T. Burleigh, Antonio Caldara, Eduardo Di Capua, S. Cardillo, Chopin, Francesco Cilèa, Aaron Copland, Ernesto de Curtis, Claude Debussy, Luigi Denza, John Duke, Henri DuParc, Antonin Dvořák, César Franck, George Gershwin, Umberto Giordano, Georg Friedrich Händel, Arthur Honegger, Jerome Kern, James King, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Agustin Lara, Franz Lehár, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Albert Lortzing, Robert MacGimsey, Gustav Mahler, Joseph Marx, Jules Massenet, Mozart, John Jacob Niles, Hans Pfitzner, Amilcare Ponchielli, Cole Porter, Giacomo Puccini, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, Orrorino Respighi, Giuseppe Sarti, Franz Schubert, Rudolf Sieczynski, Robert Stolz, Richard Strauss, Piotr Ilyitch Tchaïkovsky, Francesco Paolo Tosti, Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and many others.

The Scripts (undated, 1969, 1991) series consists of three pieces, two which are unidentified, and a copy from Walküre from 1991.

The Recordings series consists of audio recordings of several of King's performances. Many of these recordings are undated; those that are dated are from the late 1960s and early 1970s. There is one video recording of a performance from 1989.

The Notebooks (1967-1995, undated) series is composed of 33 notebooks. They do not have much order, with only about half containing dated material. Those notebooks with dates were arranged roughly chronologically. However, in most cases the start and end dates are unclear. The remaining undated notebooks are placed at the end of the series. The notebooks contain a variety of materials including German and English vocabulary lists, quotes, clippings of interest, thoughts on the field, drafts of essays, notes, and teaching quizzes.

Acquisition information:
Accession 2004/028
Custodial history:

Transferred from the IU School of Music Library, March 2004.

Processing information:

Processed by Carrie Schwier.

Completed in 2007

Arrangement:

The collection is organized into ten series: Biographical, Clippings, Correspondence, Itineraries, Programs, Music, Scripts, Recordings, Notebooks, and Oversize materials.

Online content

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

Collection is open for research. Advance notice required.

TERMS OF ACCESS:

The donor(s) of this collection have not transferred their copyrights for the materials to the Trustees of Indiana University. For more information, please contact the Indiana University Archives staff.

The Indiana University Archives respects the intellectual property rights of others and does not claim any copyrights for non-university records, materials in the public domain, or materials for which we do not hold a Deed of Gift. Responsibility for the determination of the copyright status of these materials rests with those persons wishing to reuse the materials. Researchers are responsible for securing permission from copyright owners and any other rights holders for any reuse of these materials that extends beyond fair use or other statutory limitations.

Digital reproductions of archival materials from the Indiana University Archives are made available for noncommercial educational and research purposes only. If you are the copyright holder for any of the digitized materials and have questions about its inclusion on our site, please contact the Indiana University Archivist.

PREFERRED CITATION:

[Item], James King papers, Collection C337, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.

CAMPUS:
Indiana University Bloomington
LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
Herman B Wells Library E460
1320 East Tenth Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405-7000, United States
CAMPUS:
Indiana University Bloomington
CONTACT:
812-855-1127
archives@iu.edu