Happily, a work in progress

Luke Sutliff, second-year apprentice

Admittedly, Luke Sutliff did not have the best grades at his Littleton, Colorado, high school. “I hate math,” he says. College seemed out of reach for him, until the afternoon he was doing his Andrea Bocelli impersonation before choir class, and the accompanist pulled him aside. “You really should take voice lessons,” she said. “You could get a voice scholarship to college.”

Sutliff’s father played college baseball, and Luke was following in his footsteps, playing third base and pitching on the high school team. But his mother sang in a lady’s barbershop quartet. She was all about music. Sutliff was sent to voice teacher Christine Gaudreau, who directs the Evergreen Chorale in Evergreen, Colorado. Sutliff arrived late for his first lesson. Baseball practice had run over, she was 30-minutes away, and he stood in front of her in a dirty uniform and a black eye. He sang “Silent Noon” by Ralph Vaughan Williams. “After 30 seconds, she said, ‘Stop.’ I thought I’d made her ears bleed,” Sutliff says. “She says, ‘Come, sit on the couch.’”

“Here’s the deal,” Gaudreau told the baritone. “I think you have something special. I think you could get into a Tier 1 school.” She asked him if money was an issue. It was. “I’ll teach you for free if you promise to work really hard.” There were nine months before the auditions began. She had him prepare arias in English, German, and Italian. He was rejected by the music departments at Lawrence Conservatory and Denver University because his GPA was too low. He was rejected at Wichita State, the alma mater of the accompanist at his high school. He was accepted at the University of Cincinnati but didn’t get a scholarship. He made it to the second round at Curtis Institute of Music before being cut.

The audition date at Juilliard was the same day as the high school musical, which he happened to be starring in. He asked the admissions staff repeatedly for a different date, explaining the dilemma. Finally they relented, letting him audition with the master’s degree students a few days after the musical was over. A callback audition was held the same day. When he was offered admission, the scholarship wasn’t big enough. He told them he still couldn’t afford to attend. They gave him more.

At The Juilliard School, he studied with the late Sanford Sylvan, the celebrated baritone who debuted the role of Chou En-lai in John Adams’ 1987 opera Nixon in China. “He was like a father to me,” Sutliff says. “He believed in me when I didn’t. He brought me out of dark places. I didn’t even read music. I was so far behind. I felt out of place.

“He says, ‘You’re here for a reason. Trust it.’ He was one of the most influential individuals I’ve met in my life.”

Sylvan died suddenly at home in New York at the age of 65. Sutliff had had a voice lesson with him earlier that day and a studio class that night. “Losing him was so heartbreaking,” he says. Sutliff was admitted to the master’s program at Juilliard but didn’t accept. “I felt lost.” There was no one else at the school he felt could replace Sylvan. When Rice University reached out to him and he met Dr. Stephen King, who would become his next teacher, he decided to move to Texas. Sutliff received his master’s from Rice in 2021, and then became a studio artist at the Houston Grand Opera, where he has worked the last two seasons. “Houston offers a less frenetic lifestyle,” he says. “It was good to step away a little bit.”

As a second-year apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera, Sutliff will sing the role of El Dancaïro in Carmen and cover the role of Figaro in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Last summer, he made his debut as Demetrius in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and covered the role of Jon Seward in John Corigliano and Mark Adamo’s world premiere of The Lord of Cries.

At 25, Sutliff is, in many ways, happy to be a work in progress. Apprentice programs offer more than musical technique and stage experience, he says. One of the major things he has learned is how to ask for help. “Part of gaining confidence is knowing when you need something and how to ask for it: vocal help, dramatic help, mental help. You need to find a little team you can rely upon, and you have to have people to talk to.”

Last summer the singer cast as Demetrius in Midsummer fell ill on opening night, and Sutliff, the cover, went on. “I’d performed the part in 2019 at the Chautauqua Festival in Indiana.

“Oh my God, I had so much fun!” he says. “It’s so funny and quirky.” During the performance, he kept thinking, is this real? “I watch videos of Erin Morley (Tytania) on YouTube, and now I’m sharing a stage with her.” He is having a similar feeling this summer, rehearsing for Carmen with Isabel Leonard, who plays the title role, a few feet away. “I watched her at the Met,” he says.

In the fall, Sutliff will be back at the Houston Grand Opera where the learning continues. His roles for their 2022-23 season include Harvey in The Wreckers, Brühlmann in Werther, Sciarrone in Tosca, and a Cappadocian in Salome. Beyond that, the life of a lyric baritone awaits him. He is beginning to interview managers and think about audition tours in Europe. One of his immediate goals as a professional is to pay back Christine Gaudreau, his first voice teacher, for all those free lessons.

“I didn’t know what I was getting myself into at all,” he says. “But here I am.”