Shirley, George (Irving)
Shirley, George (Irving)
Shirley, George (Irving), black American tenor and teacher; b. Indianapolis, April 18, 1934. He was educated at Wayne State Univ. in Detroit, and then received vocal training from Thelmy Georgi in Washington, D.C. and Cornelius Reid in N.Y. He made his operatic debut as Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus with the Turnau Opera Players in Woodstock, N.Y. (1959). In 1960 he won the American Opera Auditions and in 1961 the Metropolitan Opera Auditions; following appearances in Europe, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Ferrando on Oct. 24, 1961, and continued to sing there until 1973, as well as with other U.S. opera companies; in addition, he sang at Glyndebourne, Covent Garden in London, and La Scala in Milan. He created the role of Romilayu in Kirchner’s Lily (N.Y., April 14, 1977). In 1992 he was made the Joseph Edgar Maddy Distinguished Univ. Prof. of Music at the Univ. of Mich. In 1993 he appeared as Edrisi in Szymanowski’s King Roger in Buffalo. He portrayed Strauss’s Herod in Detroit in 1996.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire