Joyce Castle (born Lillian Joyce Malicky; January 17, 1939) is an American mezzo-soprano and voice teacher. She has had an international career in operas, musicals, and concerts that has spanned eight decades from the late 1950s into the 2020s. While her repertoire embraces a wide range of musical periods, she is closely associated with contemporary operas, often performing in new works or 20th / 21st century stage works. She was featured on the front cover of Opera Monthly magazine in November 1988. The accompanying feature article on her described her as a performer who "specializes in portraying nuts, mamas, lesbians, nymphomaniacs, witches, and men". Critical commentary of her career has emphasized her strength at embodying powerfully believable and widely diverse characters ranging from tragic to humorous with often scene-stealing impact.
Castle was born in Beaumont, Texas, and grew up in Golden, Colorado, and Baldwin City, Kansas. A graduate of University of Kansas and the Eastman School of Music, she began working professionally while studying at both institutions. Her stage debut was in Dallas in 1958 as a member of the chorus in stock theatre, and her professional opera debut in a leading part was as Lucia in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana with the Opera Theatre of Rochester in 1962. In the 1960s she was a regular performer with the Chautauqua Opera and Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, and was a member of the early music ensemble Ars Antiqua. From 1969 to 1973, she performed frequently with the San Francisco Opera's Western Opera Theatre, and in 1970 sang with that organization's main company as Siebel in Gounod's Faust in what was her first appearance with a major opera company in a leading role. She was married to the sculptor Wendell Castle, and later to tenor Bruce Brewer, in 1971. Castle and Brewer periodically performed together during their marriage, and moved to Paris, France in 1973. Castle lived in France for approximately ten years and worked in Europe as an opera and concert singer. She was a frequent performer in broadcasts of operas recorded for Radio France during this part of her career.
Castle returned to the United States and became a regular performer with the New York City Opera (NYCO) at the invitation of Beverly Sills. She sang with this company with intermittent regularity from 1983 through 2009, serving as the NYCO's leading character mezzo. She also performed with the Metropolitan Opera in many productions from 1986 to 1999. She has worked as a guest artist with many opera companies, mostly in the United States with organizations like the Seattle Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, and Santa Fe Opera, but also abroad. In her later career she performed several roles with the Des Moines Metro Opera, most recently portraying the Countess in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades in 2021 at the age of 82. It was the 140th role of her career. She taught on the voice faculty of the University of Kansas as a distinguished professor from 2001 until her retirement in 2023. She sang her farewell concert at the age of 84.
Early life The daughter of Beaumont Exporters pitcher George Malicky and Ethel Malicky (nee Reed), Lillian Joyce Malicky was born on January 17, 1939, in Beaumont, Texas.Texas Birth Index, 1903–1997 She sang her first solo at church when she was three years old and was taught to play the piano by her mother, beginning lessons at the age of 5. Because of her father's work as a baseball player, construction worker, and later in the oil industry the Malicky family moved around to different places in her early years. She spent three years in her early childhood living in Golden, Colorado.
The Malicky family moved to Kansas and settled in Baldwin City around the time when Joyce was a fourth-grade student in elementary school. In her teenage years Joyce studied singing with teachers at nearby Baker University and participated in music camp for high school students at the University of Kansas. In addition to singing she played instruments in school ensembles, learning to play the cello, tenor saxophone, oboe, and clarinet. She either placed or won regional music competitions, and gave a recital in Baldwin in 1957. In 1958 she won second place in the state music competition of the Kansas Federation of Women's Clubs. Her older sister, Georgann Raney (née Malicky), was also musical and became an organist. Her older brother Neal Malicky became an academic administrator at Baker University and president of Baldwin-Wallace College.
Joyce studied music and theater in the School of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas (KU), where she was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority. At KU she studied voice with Reinhold Schmidt and drama with Lewin Goff. In 1958 she performed in KU's productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I (as Anna Leonowens) and Assunta in Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street. She was also a soloist in KU's presentation of Handel's Messiah. In the summer of 1958 she performed in professional stock theatre in the chorus of a series of musicals staged at the Dallas States Fair, among them Oklahoma! and Guys and Dolls. She later performed in the ensemble for a second season of musicals with this company. The Dallas casts included many well known stars of the period with Castle performing on stage with Shirley Jones, Jack Cassidy, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Burgess Meredith, Janis Paige, Jane Powell, and Marie Wilson among others.
In 1960 Joyce performed roles in several KU productions, including the prostitute Dol Common in the 17th-century play The Alchemist by Ben Jonson, Cleo in The Most Happy Fella, and Meg Brockie in Brigadoon. She toured in the latter KU production to Asia for performances of the show in Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, and Hawaii. These performances were given for those serving in the American military and were sponsored by the United Service Organizations. She gave her senior recital as a mezzo-soprano at KU in April 1961, and graduated the following June with a Bachelor of Arts degree in voice and theater. She married sculptor and fellow KU student Wendell Castle in June 1961. The marriage did not last, and she married her second husband, operatic tenor Bruce Brewer, in 1971.
Eastman School of Music In the 1960s Castle pursued further studies at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester where she was a voice student of Julius Huehn. She graduated from Eastman with both a Bachelor of Music (1964) and a Master of Music (1966) in vocal performance. She later studied lieder in Vienna, Austria in 1968 through a grant provided by the International Institute of Education, and continued to study privately during her career with Harry Garland in New York City.
In 1964 she was a featured soloist in a concert honoring Eastman's director, composer Howard Hanson, and that same year was appointed to the voice faculty of the Hochstein School of Music & Dance. In 1965 she portrayed Mistress Quickly in Eastman's production of Verdi's Falstaff; sang Mahler's song cycle Kindertotenlieder with Laszlo Halasz conducting the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra; and performed the world premiere of Frederick Koch's Astronaut with the Eastman Chamber Orchestra. She later performed this work with the Orchestra of America at The Town Hall in New York City in 1967. In 1966 she performed roles in two operas at Eastman: Mrs. Herring in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring (with John Maloy in the title role) and the Third Lady in Mozart's The Magic Flute.
Career Early career in New York Castle began her performance career in the early 1960s as a chamber musician while studying at Eastman. She was a member of the vocal group Ars Antiqua, a professional chamber choir based in Rochester, New York. With this group she was a featured performer in the 1962 production of the 13th-century mystery play Herod taken from the Fleury Playbook. That same year she sang in the chorus for a truncated version of Bizet's Carmen performed on CBS television for the program The Drama of Carmen with the New York Philharmonic and conductor Leonard Bernstein. She also sang in the chorus with the New York City Opera at New York City Center in this period which was her first professional work in opera, notably working with the company during its season of American operas.
Castle's first major role with a professional company was in 1962 with the Opera Theater of Rochester (OTR) when she replaced an ailing Gloria McMaster as Lucia in Cavalleria rusticana. Conducted by Paul Freeman with players from the Rochester Philharmonic, the production starred Eddy Ruhl as Turiddu and Charlene Chadwick-Cullen as Santuzza. After this she continued to perform with Ars Antiqua in performances of early music repertoire from 1963 to 1965. In the summer of 1964 she performed the roles of Berta in Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Marcellina in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with Opera Under the Stars in Rochester. The following Fall she portrayed the Guardian in OTR's production of Ron Nelson's The Birthday of the Infanta. In December 1964 she portrayed the role of Plentiful Tewke in Hanson's Merry Mount with the San Antonio Symphony under the baton of the composer for performances at the San Antonio Grand Opera Festival. The cast also included Chester Ludgin as Wrestling Bradford and Beverly Sills as Lady Marigold Sandys.
In 1965 Castle was the soloist in De Falla's El amor brujo with the Rochester Civic Orchestra coducted by Paul Freeman. She returned to Opera Under the Stars as Suzuki in Puccini's Madama Butterfly (1965) the Witch in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel (1965), Verdi's Maddelena in Rigoletto (1966) and Azucena in Il trovatore (1969). She was a resident artist at the Chautauqua Institution in the summers of 1965 through 1969 during which time she performed in concerts and on radio with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. With Chautauqua Opera she portrayed The Princess in Puccini's Suor Angelica (1966), Mrs. Pearce in My Fair Lady (1966), Berta in The Barber of Seville (1966) Alisa in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (1967), Parthy in Show Boat (1967), The Duchess of Plaza-Toro in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers (1967), Mistress Quickley in Flastaff (1967), Rebecca Nurse in Robert Ward's The Crucible (1967), La Frugola in Puccini's Il tabarro (1968), Nicklausse in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann (1968), Zita in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (1968), and Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance (1969).
In 1966 Castle was a district winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and was appointed a resident artist with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra (SSO) with whom she first performed in the fall of that year as the soloist in Kindertotenlieder with Karl Kritz conducting. In December 1966 she was a soloist in Handel's Messiah with the Rochester Oratotorio Society and the Rochester Philharmonic with fellow soloists including soprano Benita Valente and bass Malcolm Smith. In 1967 she appeared with the SSO in staged productions of Faust and Madama Butterfly. In May 1967 she was a soloist in both Bach's Magnificat and St Matthew Passion at the Rochester Bach Festival. In 1968 she performed excerpts from the title role in Carmen with the Rochester Philharmonic led by Samuel Jones, and performed the world premiere of Richard Bales' song cycle for orchestra and mezzo-soprano, A Set of Jade, under the baton of the composer at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. She repeated this latter work at Eastman's 39th annual Festival of American Music in 1969.
1970s