Training aspiring singers who supplemented their incomes by holding down ordinary jobs, Michael V. Lepore channeled the voices of secretaries, printers and even grocery clerks into one of the most acclaimed operatic choruses.
Mr. Lepore, 97, chorus master of the Lyric Opera of Chicago from its founding in 1954 through the 1974-75 season, died Friday, Jan. 23, in his Northwest Side home.
“He was a great chorus master and a pillar of the Lyric,” said William Mason, the opera company’s general director. “He embodied everything that an operatic master should be. He was a man of great musical integrity.”
Among his achievements during his 20-year tenure, Mr. Lepore was responsible for training a local chorus for the 1954 production of “Norma” that first exposed diva Maria Callas to American audiences.
He had a reputation of being a mild-mannered but stern chorus master.
“He took a lot of people who didn’t have a lot of experience,” said his wife, Sharon, one of his trainees in the late 1950s and early ’60s. “He was a taskmaster and a perfectionist, but he got wonderful results.”
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Lepore was one of three sons of Italian-Americans. He trained as a concert pianist from a young age. In 1924, at age 17, he performed his debut solo recital at Aeolian Hall in Manhattan, playing Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata, his wife said.
Before being forced to abandon his career as a pianist because of a finger ailment, he studied piano and music theory in Florence, Italy. In 1961 he was awarded Italy’s honorary title of cavaliere for his contributions to Italian opera.
Mr. Lepore would go on to assist conductors at opera houses and ballet companies in Philadelphia, Cincinnati and New York. Mr. Lepore moved to Chicago in 1954 for the Lyric’s inaugural season.
During the company’s first 15 years, he spent weeknights training chorus members who relied on day jobs to make ends meet.
“The work isn’t easy and the sacrifices many,” Mr. Lepore said in a 1969 Tribune article. “Rehearsals often run five hours a day, and considering that most members must hold down an additional full-time job, scheduling becomes a big problem.”
His wife said that before the advent of all-professional choruses, singers couldn’t make a living on opera alone, particularly in the off-season.
She was a clerk-typist who joined the chorus in her late teens. She was the winner of the 1961 WGN Illinois Opera Guild auditions.
“I was sort of overwhelmed by it, but he was a marvelous teacher,” she said.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Lepore is survived by many nieces and nephews.
Mass will be said at 9:30 a.m. Monday in Our Lady, Mother of the Church, 8747 W. Lawrence Ave., Chicago.
