Bass-baritone PAUL HOUGHTALING joined the University of Alabama faculty in the fall of 2007 as Assistant Professor of Voice and Director of Opera Theatre. Professor Houghtaling has also served on the faculty of Hunter College in New York, and has given master classes at Shorter College, Rome, Georgia, Texas A&M University-Commerce, and the University of Alaska, Anchorage, among others. He holds degrees from Holy Cross College, Worcester, MA (B.A.), The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston (B.M.) and Hunter College (M.A.), and is nearing the completion of the D.M.A. at the City University of New York. Career highlights include European tours as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte with Teatro Lirico d'Europa ("...an extraordinary Papageno of comic sensitivity, naivete and tenderness, served by a superb voice and a remarkable physical agility." Salon de Provence); a debut with the Bard Music Festival and the American Symphony Orchestra in Haydn’s L'Infedeltá Delusa ("...revealed a striking and flexible baritone." Opera News); Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King with ALEA III in Boston ("...singing forcefully, in eerie falsetto highs and chesty baritonal lows … the Davies sent you home stunned." The Boston Globe); a Carnegie Hall debut in Messiah with MidAmerica Productions; Mozart's Requiem with St. Cecilia Chorus at Carnegie Hall; works of Bach with the Orchestra of St. Luke's "Bach Cantatas in Context" Series, American Classical Orchestra, Amor Artis Baroque Orchestra, and others; United States tours with the Waverly Consort, including Kennedy Center appearances, and Early Music New York; "Opera Buffa: Comedy On Stage" on Lincoln Center's "Meet the Artists" series; and his acclaimed Gilbert & Sullivan interpretations with the Knoxville, Anchorage, Nashville and Central City Operas, among other opera companies and orchestras throughout the U.S. In addition to performances at the University of Alabama School of Music, during the 2007-2008 season Professor Houghtaling will sing Bach's Christmas Oratorio with St. Cecilia Chorus under David Randolph at Carnegie Hall, Sir Joseph in H.M.S. Pinafore with Nashville Opera, and direct The Gondoliers for the young artists program of Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre in Iowa.
Professor Houghtaling is a frequent studio artist with Philip Glass and Looking Glass Studios in New York and can be heard as a featured vocalist on Glass's soundtrack to Reggio's film Naqoyqatsi on the SONY label, and as the Laughing Sun and the Ogre in the Glass/Beni Montresor collaboration, The Witches of Venice, recorded for Euphorbia. Stage directing credits include Telemann's Der Schulmeister for both the Long Island Baroque Ensemble and Anchorage Opera's "Second Stage" series, Shall We Dance: Great Duets from Broadway for the Abilene Philharmonic under Shinik Hahm, and Café d'Amour, a new musical-theater/dance work for the Alaska Dance Theater, and a variety of opera scenes and orchestral pops programs. Recent vocal credits included Handel's Judas Maccabeus with Amor Artis Baroque Orchestra, a return to Abilene Opera as Captain Hook in Peter Pan, cabaret performances at the Harmony Hall Regional Center, and Bach arias with the American Classical Orchestra under Thomas Crawford.
In 2004-2005, Professor Houghtaling sang Ko-Ko in The Mikado in his debut with the Lake George Opera Festival at Saratoga Springs, New York, the Sacristan in Tosca with New York's Prism Opera Showcase, the Major General in The Pirates of Penzance with Florida's Gulf Coast Symphony, Bach's B-Minor Mass with Miami Bach Society, and the Fauré Requiem with Manhattan Concert Productions at Carnegie Hall. Other notable opera and operetta engagements include highly lauded performances with the Central City Opera as the comic lead in Friml's Rose-Marie, the title role in Don Pasquale for Tacoma Opera, the Major General with Knoxville and the Anchorage and Central City Operas and Gilbert & Sullivan pops concerts with the Johnstown Symphony, and the Abilene and Erie Philharmonics. He has also appeared with the Boston Lyric, Baltimore, Natchez, Des Moines, Long Beach Civic Light, Nashville, and The Santa Fe Operas, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Opera East Texas and L’Opera Francais de New York under Yves Abel, among others.
Earning considerable attention for his work in contemporary music, especially for his performances of Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, Mr. Houghtaling has performed with Gunther Schuller, the Virgil Thomson Foundation, and ALEA III, both in the U.S. and on the Kalamata and Iraklion Festivals in Greece in new theater works for Greek National Television. Other notable projects include John Cage's Apartment House 1776 during the composer's 1988 Norton Lectures at Harvard, George Crumb's Songs, Drones & Refrains of Death with ALEA III, and Davies' Le Jongleur de Notre Dame with the Dinosaur Annex Ensemble in Boston. In addition to works by Philip Glass, Mr. Houghtaling has created roles in numerous new theater and opera works including Lee Hoiby's The Tempest with Des Moines Metro Opera and the title role in William Harper's El Greco for the Off-Broadway Intar Theater.
Mr. Houghtaling has appeared with the Boston Early Music Festival, Clarion Music, Early Music New York (U.S. tours), the Waverly Consort, and the Mark Morris Dance Company production of Dido & Aeneas. Additional engagements include concerts at the Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with My Lord Chamberlain’s Consort (of which he was a founding member), debuts with the Folger Consort in Washington, D.C., in programs of Spanish Renaissance music, the Billings Symphony in Messiah under Uri Barnea, and the New York Chamber Symphony under Martin Turnovsky, and the rarely-heard Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 with the Manhattan Virtuosi Chamber Symphony. Mr. Houghtaling has performed more than 70 Bach Cantatas and other Baroque works with such ensembles as the Bach Societies of Miami and Worcester, American Classical Orchestra, Boston Baroque, New York's BachWorks at Merkin Hall, Long Island Baroque, the Bach Aria Festival and Institute, and the renowned Holy Trinity Bach Foundation series, also in New York. He has recorded for the Albany, New World, EMI, Euphorbia, Balkanton, and Prospect Classics labels.
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