Official White House Photo

Fort Worth native performs as opera soloist at White House

Some people sing in the shower. Marcus Haddock honed his vocal skills on a tractor, pitting his voice against the rumble of the engine as he worked the flat, dusty fields of West Texas.

Last night, he tested his talent in a far more elegant setting: The East Room of the White House. The Fort Worth native was one of four opera soloists at a formal dinner for visiting Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

Haddock, a tenor, sang Recondita armonia from Tosca for an audience that included President Clinton; first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton; Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper; actresses Sophia Loren and Susan Lucci; and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

All in all, it was a pretty good night for a youngster who had never heard opera, much less tried to sing it, until he went to college. Although Haddock has performed at virtually every major opera hall in Europe, he is more likely to be known in West Texas as a fullback for the Seminole High School Indians.

"It really is an honor," Haddock said of his White House debut. "When I used to hear about some of my colleagues singing at the White House, I'd think, that would be nice, never thinking that I'd ever be able to do it. It's not like it is just another job."

Haddock, 40, came to music through Baptist churches. He was born in Fort Worth, but his father, a preacher, soon took the family to a series of West Texas towns.

Haddock sang in church choirs and practised his favorite gospel tunes while working odd jobs at neighboring farms. The tractor time paid musical dividends by teaching him to project his voice.

"I'd sing as loud as I could," he said.

As much as Haddock enjoyed singing, music was little more than a hobby until his freshman year at Baylor University in Waco. He had intended to become a doctor, but his plans changed when a teacher loaned him a tape of La Boheme over Christmas break.

"It was the first opera I'd ever heard," he said. "It was more powerful than anything I'd ever heard before. I went back to college and changed my major to music."

A stint in the chorus of the Fort Worth Opera in the late 1970s helped seal Haddock's career choice. He performed with the opera again briefly in the mid-1980s. Looking back, Haddock said his ignorance about the difficulties of breaking into opera was probably a blessing.

"I was too young and naive when I first started to realize that it was going to be a problem," he said.

Haddock, who lives in upstate New York, spends about seven months of the year in Europe. He is scheduled to leave tomorrow for Geneva, where he is booked for the next two months. Then, he's off to Austria.

As for his future in the United States, Haddock has another venue on his wish list now he has performed in the White House. Someday, he hopes to sing at the new Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth.

"I would love to, I would love to get back to Fort Worth," he said. "I've got my bookings out for the next two years now, but you just never know."

Ron Hutcheson for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of May 7, 1998

Marcus Haddock is represented by CAMI