In 1973, when I was 13, bass-baritone Norman Treigle came to Portland, Oregon to perform his, by then famed, four villains in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Kenneth Reigel sang Hoffmann, Portland soprano Gloria Marinacci Cutsforth was Olympia, Karan Armstrong was Giuletta, and Linda Cook was Antonia. Music Director Stefan Minde conducted the James De Blasis production. Three performances sold out and Treigle agreed to a fourth performance.

The star arrived in bad shape. There were reports that he was too unwell to perform. My stepfather, who was Music Editor & Music Critic for the “Oregon Journal,” went to the Benson Hotel to interview him and came back home saying that Treigle was painfully thin to the point of emaciated, quite frail, and seemed depressed. The star said that he had a bad cold but felt up to performing. On opening night, a doctor friend of my parents, whose wife had sung with my mother with the Portland Opera, told us that he had been asked earlier in the day to be backstage in the star’s dressing room before Treigle went on to give him “a vitamin shot.” The star requested them before each performance.

What a performance it was. I vividly recall how Treigle used stillness to make a dramatic impact. In all four roles, he always seemed to have an economy of movement. As Dapertutto, when he sang “Scintille diamant,” he stood completely still, holding a large diamond just out of reach above the seated Giulietta, a voluptuous Karan Armstrong. She looked up transfixed at the diamond as he kept it – never moving. For him, the aria was not about beauty of line, although he certainly displayed plenty of it; it was about sex. Later, as Dr. Miracle, after pretending to play the violin in a demonic way, Treigle employed a deadened gaze that seemed to leap into the audience like a menacing ghost come to life. The impact was chilling. Towards the end of the trio with Dr. Miracle, Antonia, and the ghost of Antonia’s mother, Treigle stood motionless, extending his long arms slowly upward, drawing a frantic Antonia towards him as if they had a magnetic power, until she collapsed onto the ground at his feet. As she lay before him, he continued to look ahead as if in a trance. For Dr. Miracle, he transformed the voice into something cold, penetrating, and sinister.

I attended all four of Treigle’s performances. Through it all, friends and co-stars who worked at the Portland Opera and were friends of my parents, discussed with concern that the star might not only have to cancel the remaining performances, but may need hospitalization. Instead, he rallied like the legend he was, and, for each performance, delivered a musical and dramatic experience that was fit for the Gods. Less than a year and a half later, Norman Treigle was dead. He was 47. For Norman Treigle, genius came with a price. I have never been able to find a recording of Treigle’s Portland Opera appearances. Below is a truly remarkable performance from New Orleans in 1964. His co-stars are Beverly Sills, in her early prime, whose dazzling Olympia may be the fastest I’ve ever heard, André Turp, and Michael Devlin: