Me and Jerome Hines of the New York Metropolitan Opera

While I’m in the vein, here’s another prominent visitor to BYU for whom I helped to provide transportation:

I don’t remember how I became involved, nor why.  I had only begun to realize — much to my shock and, honestly, rather to my horror — that I liked grand opera.  I’d seen Verdi’s Aïda in the ruins of the Roman forum on my first trip to Europe (right out of high school), but hadn’t enjoyed it very much (owing considerably to jet lag, among other things), but I had seen Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) while I was serving in the mission home in Zürich, and had loved it.  (Glade Peterson, no relative, was a principal singer with the Zürich Opera and he and his family were members of the ward that I attended while I was in the mission home.  He later founded the Utah Opera.)

But I was by no means an opera aficionado.  I was aware of the name Jerome Hines, but couldn’t have told anybody much about him.  So, while I later thought it right that I should pick William F. Buckley Jr. up at the airport because I was very familiar with him and his work, and a great admirer, it made little sense that I should be involved with Jerome Hines.  Somehow, though, I was.  At least briefly.

He came to BYU in March 1975 to sing the title role in a University production of Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov.  (You can watch roughly nineteen minutes of one of his much later performances of that role here.)

I remember almost nothing about our interactions (it’s been nearly 42 years) except that he was unpretentious and very friendly.  I don’t believe that I picked him up at the airport — Clayne Robison appears to have done that, and rightfully so — and I don’t recall who was with me.  Maybe I just drove him down from campus to his lodgings.  (That might explain why I remember so little.)  What I do remember is dropping him off at his motel, on the north side of what is now called Bulldog Boulevard, not far west of the principal campus entrance.  It’s the same motel, I think, where Mr. Buckley stayed somewhat later.  (Later still, it became a residence for senior missionary couples who were attending the Missionary Training Center.  It was razed many years ago.)  I recall being a bit embarrassed by the rather pedestrian digs that we were putting him in.  Provo restaurants and lodgings couldn’t exactly compete with Manhattan back in those days.  We still can’t, obviously — which is fine, actually — but we’ve come a very long way.

But I was amazed to find myself chauffeuring a principal singer with the Metropolitan Opera.  Actually, I think that somebody else drove.  I came along for the ride.  And, of course, the company.

These were heady experiences for a undergraduate from a quite unacademic family in suburban southern California whose introduction to serious art and music had only come from a remarkable high school German teacher (about whom I’ll also write, someday).  I’ve always been grateful for the opportunities that BYU gave me.