Joseph Shore is a retired American opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

tic baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

 and voice teacher. He has excelled particularly in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

.

Biography

Born in Carthage, Missouri

Carthage, Missouri

Carthage is a city in Jasper County, Missouri, United States. The population was 14,378 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Jasper County and is nicknamed "America's Maple Leaf City."...

, Shore suffered from a congenital heart disease

Congenital disorder

A congenital disorder, or congenital disease, is a condition existing at birth and often before birth, or that develops during the first month of life , regardless of causation...

 called coarctation of the aorta, and, at the age of 19, underwent open heart surgery

Open Heart Surgery

Open Heart Surgery was released on August 8, 2000 by rock band Virginwool. The band signed to Breaking/Atlantic Records after initially beginning signed to Universal Records. The album was produced and mixed by Brad Wood....

. In college he majored in theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 with a second major in speech and drama and did his masters work in theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary , located in Louisville, Kentucky, is the oldest of the six seminaries affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention . The seminary was founded in 1859, at Greenville, South Carolina. After being closed during the Civil War, it moved in 1877 to Louisville...

 in Louisville

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

 and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is one of six official seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention. It is located in Kansas City, Missouri. Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary also houses an undergraduate college, Midwestern Baptist College, SBC. Although the seminary focuses...

 in Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

. He later did masters work in voice and opera at the University of Tulsa

University of Tulsa

The University of Tulsa is a private university awarding bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. It is currently ranked 75th among doctoral degree granting universities in the nation by US News and World Report and is listed as one of the "Best 366 Colleges" by...

 School of Music. Without any formal vocal training, however, he won the 1974 Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 National Council Auditions at the district level and became an apprentice artist at the Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe Opera

The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...

. Fellow apprentices included Ashley Putnam

Ashley Putnam

Ashley Putnam is an American soprano from New York City. Her professional singing career began in 1976 and has spanned over 30 years.-Early Life & Career:...

, Vinson Cole

Vinson Cole

Vinson Cole is an American operatic tenor.A native of Kansas City, the tenor studied at the University of Missouri, Kansas City; the Philadelphia Musical Academy; and at the Curtis Institute of Music with Margaret Harshaw...

, and Chris Merritt

Chris Merritt

Chris Merritt is an opera singer. He studied piano, singing, dance and drama at Oklahoma City University where he made his first stage appearance in Jacques Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann in a university production. At age 21, he was accepted into the summer season Apprentice Program for...

. The next year he won all the levels of the Met auditions and was one of the ten national finalists. That same year he auditioned for basso-opera singer Jerome Hines

Jerome Hines

The American Jerome A. Hines was a basso opera singer who performed at the Metropolitan Opera from 1946 to 1987...

 and was given a leading role in Hines' opera on the life of Christ, I Am The Way. Mr. Shore sang with the Hines company until 1996 and developed a close artistic relationship with Hines. While in New York, Mr. Shore also studied with legendary baritone Cesare Bardelli.

Shore performed with the Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...

, the San Francisco Opera

San Francisco Opera

San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...

, the San Diego Opera

San Diego Opera

The San Diego Opera Association is a professional opera company located in the city of San Diego, California and is a member of OPERA America. It was founded in 1950 to present productions by San Francisco Opera in the San Diego area...

, the Houston Grand Opera

Houston Grand Opera

Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

, the New Jersey State Opera

New Jersey State Opera

The New Jersey State Opera is an opera company based in Newark, New Jersey. It was established in 1964 as the Opera Theater of Westfield, and shortly after opening Alfredo Silipigni was hired as Artistic Director. The name was changed to the Opera Theatre of New Jersey in 1965, and in 1968 the...

, Tulsa Opera

Tulsa Opera

The Tulsa Opera, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the 18th oldest opera company in the United States and is ranked among the top 10 regional opera companies in the nation. The company produces three opera productions each season performed at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center...

, Opera Omaha

Opera Omaha

Opera Omaha is an opera company in Omaha, Nebraska. It is well known for premiering Wakonda's Dream, a contemporary opera about Native Americans set in the Niobrara....

, the Arizona Opera

Arizona Opera

Arizona Opera is an opera company which operates in both Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.Arizona Opera was established in 1971 as the Tucson Opera Company, under founding general director James P. Sullivan, and presented its first production, of Rossini's The Barber of Seville, in 1972. By 1976 the...

, the Nevada Opera, the Toledo

Toledo Opera

The Toledo Opera is an American opera company based in Toledo, Ohio. Founded in 1959, the company's first General Director was Lester Freedman with conductor Joseph Hawthorne of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra serving as Music Director...

 and Dayton

Dayton Opera

Dayton Opera is an American opera company based in Dayton, Ohio. The company makes its home at the Schuster Center in downtown Dayton where it annually produces three operas and an operatic concert and has an annual budget of approximately $2 million...

 Operas, the Lyric Opera of Dallas, the Fort Worth Opera

Fort Worth Opera

According to the company, Fort Worth Opera is the oldest, continually performing opera company in the state of Texas and among the oldest in the United States. While originally presenting operas one at a time over a fall/winter season, it changed to a "festival" format in 2007...

, the Goldovsky Opera Theater, the Chamber Opera Theatre of New York, New York Grand Opera, Opera Classics of New Jersey, the Chautauqua

Chautauqua

Chautauqua was an adult education movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with...

, Aspen, and Northern Ireland Festivals, the Edmonton Opera

Edmonton Opera

The Edmonton Opera is a Canadian professional opera company in Edmonton, Alberta, it performs in the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. The opera was founded in 1963 as the Edmonton Professional Opera Association. The name was latter shortened to the current name in 1966. It was born out of its...

, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, the Belfast Grand Opera, the Youngstown Symphony, the Savannah Symphony, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, the Raleigh Symphony, and the Jerome Hines Opera Troupe. Shore performed roles such as Macbeth

Macbeth (opera)

Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...

, Rigoletto

Rigoletto

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...

, Germont

La traviata

La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...

, Amonasro

Aida

Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...

, Renato

Un ballo in maschera

Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...

, and Falstaff

Falstaff (opera)

Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...

, among the Verdi roles, as well as Alfio

Cavalleria rusticana

Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...

, Tonio

Pagliacci

Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...

, Scarpia

Tosca

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...

, Barnaba

La Gioconda (opera)

La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...

, Telramund

Lohengrin (opera)

Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...

, Pizarro, and Salieri

Mozart and Salieri

Mozart and Salieri is a one-act opera in two scenes by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, written in 1897 to a Russian libretto taken almost verbatim from Alexander Pushkin's 1830 verse drama of the same name....

.

In 1988, Shore became a voice teacher and accepted appointments to the faculties of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro , also known as UNC Greensboro, is a public university in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master's and 26...

, the University of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

 and Indiana University

Indiana University

Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

. In 1995, he published an interview with Jerome Hines

Jerome Hines

The American Jerome A. Hines was a basso opera singer who performed at the Metropolitan Opera from 1946 to 1987...

 in the NATS

National Association of Teachers of Singing

The National Association of Teachers of Singing is a professional organization for singing teachers, and is the largest association of its kind in the world. There are more than 6,500 members mostly from the United States...

 Journal. Among his students in the pop field were Alexz Johnson

Alexz Johnson

Alexzandra Spencer "Alexz" Johnson is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Her debut album Voodoo was independently released on March 30, 2010....

 and Michael Bublé

Michael Bublé

Michael Steven Bublé is a Canadian singer. He has won several awards, including three Grammy Awards and multiple Juno Awards. His first album reached the top ten in Canada and the UK. He found worldwide commercial success with his 2005 album It's Time, and his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible was...

, and in opera Campbell Vertesi, Bryn Vertesi, David Fankhauser, Davide di Ragusa, Siphiwe McKenzie, Le Roy Jameson, Tyler Lincoln, and Paul Grindlay. His most famous student was Jerome Hines

Jerome Hines

The American Jerome A. Hines was a basso opera singer who performed at the Metropolitan Opera from 1946 to 1987...

 himself who studied informally with Shore and dedicated his book, The Four Voices of Man, to him.

Shore's heart disease worsened over the years and shortened his career. He received an artificial heart valve

Artificial heart valve

An artificial heart valve is a device implanted in the heart of a patient with heart valvular disease. When one of the four heart valves malfunctions, the medical choice may be to replace the natural valve with an artificial valve. This requires open-heart surgery.Valves are integral to the normal...

 in 1994 and had to replace it in 2006. Then 58 years old, he contracted lung disease due to heart complications and had to retire from professional singing.

Shore lives in Burnaby, B.C. and still teaches voice. Much of his pedagogical writing, including his biography, is available from his web site.

Awards

In addition to the Metropolitan Opera auditions Shore also won the Bruce Yarnell

Bruce Yarnell

Bruce Yarnell was an American actor who co-starred in the second season of NBC's Western television series Outlaws, set in the lawless Oklahoma Territory. He was also a noted Broadway and opera baritone.Yarnell played Deputy U.S. Marshal Chalk Breeson, having replaced Jock Gaynor in the role of...

Memorial Award for Baritones in 1981 and the WGN Auditions in 1976.