Bass mettle
Stephen Moss, his rise to the top was far from easy
Willard White, by reputation at least, does not suffer fools gladly, so it is with some trepidation that I call him one Sunday morning at his home in Paris. This will be an attempt, I tell him, to offer a rounded portrait on his 75th birthday, which falls in October, so it will take a reasonable amount of time. ‘As long as it’s not an unreasonable amount,’ he says with that gloriously deep, slightly intimidating voice.
This is not a good beginning, and I fear the worst – not least when I ask him how many children he has, and he replies ‘enough’. It is, though, said jokingly; we settle on seven (he has been married three times), and thereafter the conversation thaws. The tenor Robert Tear once said of him: ‘Willard can be impenetrably serious. He gives you a look that manages to be quizzical but killing at the same time, and people tend to be terrified, which is a shame, because deep down inside he’s rather cuddly. But deep is the word. You have to dig.’ Which I suspect is right: the occasionally forbidding exterior masks an intriguing, questioning, warm-hearted man.
HE TAKES LIFE very seriously, and sees his bass-baritone voice as an expression of what is within him. This explains the depth of his dramatic interpretations on stage: he does not perform roles; he inhabits them. It is not every singer who, as White did in 1989, can perform Othello with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is a true actor, the antithesis of the ‘stand-and-deliver’ singer. As he approaches 75, he has no intention of retiring. He says he sings virtually
