Count on Him: Dickerson Takes the Lead

Like most of the vocal Fellows at the Music Academy of the West (MAW), Benjamin Dickerson has an affinity both for art song and opera. But Dickerson has already reached the top tier in both endeavors at the Montecito summer festival. Dickerson claimed the coveted Marilyn Horne Song Competition in his only other summer in Santa Barbara back in 2015, and he’s returned to MAW to portray the leading role of Count Almaviva in this weekend’s fully-staged production of The Marriage of Figaro.

“Winning brought to life a love for art song that I hadn’t previously explored,” Dickerson said in an interview last week. “I was able to work on the recital program (for the subsequent mini-tour) for months with the pianist, to perfect it and take in tour, which is very rare. Marilyn Horne is a legend, so winning her competition instilled a drive to work even harder and become a better musician. And I was able to make a living in New York just doing recitals for a while.”

Dickerson didn’t put opera on the back burner, though, having landed a position with Florida Grand Opera’s studio program last year, where he’ll return in the fall to appear in La Boheme. But first, there the Count, the famously conniving philanderer who gets his comeuppance at the hands of his servants in Mozart’s beloved comic opera. While the baritone spent months back East in initial preparations for the part, he’s doing a deeper dive readying the role for the performances on Friday and Sunday, August 3 and 5, at the Granada.

“It’s a role you can work on for your whole life and still discover new things,”: he said. “It’s a big challenge. So many greats have done it, and they are usually older. I’m only 25, and the character is very petulant, prone to anger when he’s confused, which happens a lot. It’s a struggle for young baritones to sing it with your own voice and not let the anger cause you to sing differently, or try to sing older. You have to find the joy in the character, the confidence he has and the nuances in the role, and embrace it as your own.”

Dickerson had a little help from one of his role models just a couple of weeks ago when the baritone star Simon Keenlyside – who made his debut portraying the Count – served as a Mosher guest artist, and led a vocal masterclass at which Dickerson performed.

“I listen to his Count all the time – it’s one of my favorites and he’s a big influence on me,” Dickerson said. “When I sang the aria for him, it was a bit surreal but also really cool. He had a lot to say. It’s one of those arias that there are always things to improve on or play with. It’s one you will sign for a long time in your career. He knows all these tricks, so it was great to have his input.”

Of course, Dickerson has also been taking direction from director James Darrah, whom he cited as perhaps the biggest reason he decided to return to sing Count Almaviva at MAW this summer. “He’s such a creative mind and a force in our industry right now. And he knows how to bring out the actor in all of us, even singers like me who have had very little acting training.”

This Week at the Music Academy

Thursday, August 2: Percussion Fest II brings Steve Reich‘s hour-long Drumming to the Hahn Hall stage, with Collin Currie joining the flute, vocal, and percussion Fellows.

Friday, August 3: The MERIT Recital is the annual performance by school-age musicians who have been mentored by the Fellows… SonataFest is a special public performance of pieces collaborative piano and instrumental Fellows have been working on during the summer in master classes and rehearsals. Program highlights include violin and cello sonatas by Debussy, Gershwin’s Three Preludes for bassoon, and Rachmaninoff’s sonata for cello.

Monday, August 6: Piano power: the final collaborative piano masterclass in the afternoon is followed by a recital with Mosher guest artist David Fray.

Tuesday, August 7: The final Festival Artists Series concert of the season at the Lobero finds the faculty performing modern works, including Frederic Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues and Kevin Puts’s Seven Seascapes setting up Dvorak’s Piano Quintet, Op. 81.