Sound bites.(Christopher Schaldenbrand)(Brief Article)

Christopher Schaldenbrand was in a work-study program in high school, sorting blueprints in an engineering office, "chlorine blowing in my face," when he realized he had to be a musician. "I had to do something where I could express myself on a more emotional level. I mean, I'm a pretty soft-spoken, laid-back guy," he says, affirming that self-description as he slouches in his chair and stretches his long legs as far as they'll go in a cramped OPERA NEWS office. "But there is a part of me that needs to be onstage, needs to have some attention, needs to show people something different, something interesting and creative."

The "something different" he had in mind, however, was pop music. Born in Detroit, Schaldenbrand studied at Interlochen Arts Academy, where he played keyboards in a rock band. Prescient teachers kept steering him into vocal competitions--which he kept winning. Schaldenbrand won the Met's National Council Auditions in 1992, joined the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and made his company debut that year on tour in Japan, as Silvano in Un Ballo in Maschera. Since then, he's played nearly twenty roles at the Met. Elsewhere, he created the role of Clayton in Floyd's Cold Sassy Tree, and he's recorded a gentle, caring Albert in Massenet's Werther, opposite Vesselina Kasarova and Ramon Vargas (RCA ...