‘A voice for a historic moment’
Opera star and Grammy nominee Will Liverman is one of Virginia Beach’s own
Will Liverman first grew up singing in the choir of Norfolk’s New Hope Church of God in Christ and then at New Jerusalem Church of God in Christ in Virginia Beach.
Around age 13 — as it so often does with teen boys — Liverman’s voice broke. But, unlike some of his peers’, his voice got deeper, and deeper, and deeper, so thunderous that by the time he was in high school, he could fill a room with sound without a microphone.
He didn’t know it, but his voice was unique because, as he says now, he was able to “tap into more of a classical sound.”
Liverman, 34, has what The Washington Post called “a voice for a historic moment” and is what the Chicago Tribune called “a rising international baritone.” On Thursday, he was set as a concert headliner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The week before, at the Guggenheim museum, he presented a soul opera that he co-wrote. He’s in the running for two Grammys next month — for Best Classical Solo Vocal
Album (“Okpebholo: Lord, How Come Me Here?”) and Best Opera Recording (Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones”).
As his star continues to climb, Liverman will be home more often: He took on the role of a creative adviser with the Virginia Opera a little over a year ago.
“Accepting the position was really cool,” he said, “because I consider it the place where opera really drew my interest” — it was there that he saw his first opera.
While a student at Cox High School, Liverman auditioned for and earned a spot at the Governor’s School for the Arts. He found
a “musical dad” there, instructor Robert Brown, who taught him core concepts of classical singing, such as how to project his voice.
Then there came the moment when he saw that first opera, Wagner’s “Die Walküre.”
The instruments soared with a triumphant sound. The emotive singing was rich with soul, and the young man with the big voice was mesmerized, bewitched by opera’s fusion of art forms to tell a grand story.
“For a high schooler, it was quite a lot,” Liverman said. “But I was drawn in to just how different opera is.”
“Opera is unlike any other art form because it encompasses a lot of different art forms, from dance, the instrumentals, the singing, the acting, the costumes,” he said.
“It’s a larger-than-life experience.”
In 2006, he graduated from Cox and the Governor’s School. Brown, who has since died, encouraged him to apply to music programs.
He earned a degree in music from Wheaton College, then a master’s from Juilliard. He studied further at one of the country’s top opera companies, Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Liverman starred in regional shows but wanted the stage of the most prestigious opera house in the country, the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
He was living in Chicago and flew in for auditions. He’d sing, tense, as he saw evaluators in the audience scribbling notes. He made the trip four or five times but was never cast.
“It can be intense. Particularly if you’re traveling there just for that audition and knowing that a lot of
folks really want to sing at the Met,” he said. “It can be a lot of pressure.”
Then in 2018, he earned a role in the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s “Marnie.”
Since “Marnie,” Liverman has performed in Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” and Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” both at the Met.
In 2020, he heard about “Fire Shut Up in My
Bones,” which was based on the memoir of New York Times columnist Charles Blow about his upbringing in a small Louisiana town and coming to terms with having been sexually abused as a child. “Fire” was the first piece by a Black composer performed at the Met.
The pandemic forced Liverman to audition through video, and the process was difficult. He had to embody powerful, dark sensations while not allowing them to hurt his performance.
“You can’t go too far with the emotion because it could be difficult to sing through it,” Liverman said. “The subject material is so intense, it’s so easy to want to strain your voice ... or cry.”
He earned the title role. The New York Times called it “a breakthrough performance.”
Deborah Wyld, chair of the Virginia Opera’s Statewide
Board of Directors, has heard him perform for years, particularly when he started singing with the opera before the pandemic. She has even traveled to New York to see him.
“He’s just a phenomenal singer but he’s also a great actor,” she said. “I’ve seen him in everything that he’s done ... he’s just captivating.”
Liverman’s next big role is in the Met’s production of “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” — about the prominent, and controversial, Black activist in the 1960s.
“It’s a very daunting task, I think, when you think about someone like Malcolm X and just who he was and what he means when we look back at history,” Liverman said.
“But I’m up for the challenge.”