Dooley, William (Edward)
Dooley, William (Edward)
Dooley, William (Edward), American baritone; b. Modesto, Calif., Sept. 9,1932. He was a pupil of Lucy Lee Call at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and of Viktoria Prestel and Hedwig Fichtmuller in Munich. In 1957 he made his operatic debut as Rodrigo in Don Carlos in Heidelberg; after singing at the Bielefeld Stadttheater (1959–62), he was a member of the Berlin Deutsche Oper (from 1962), where he sang in the premieres of Sessions’s Montezuma (1964), Reimann’s Gespenstersonate (1984), and Rihm’s Oedipus (1987). In 1964 he appeared at the Salzburg Festival, returning there in 1966 to sing in the premiere of Henze’s The Bassarids. On Feb. 15, 1964, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Eugene Onegin, remaining on its roster until 1977. His engagements as a concert artist took him to many of the principal North American and European music centers. Among his prominent roles were Pizarro, Kothner, Escamillo, Macbeth, Amonasro, Telramund, Mandryka, Nick Shadow, and Wozzeck.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire