When opera singer Kenneth Kellogg speaks, you listen. You can’t help it. It’s startlingly similar to what happens when he stands on opera stages — all 6 feet, 5 inches of him — and bellows in his sonorous bass-baritone; you are irrevocably drawn in.
This quality is part of what landed him the role as Seattle Opera’s first-ever artistic ambassador.
“When you speak to him, you know exactly what it is,” said Dennis Robinson Jr., Seattle Opera’s director of programs and partnerships, who will be working directly with Kellogg in the role. “When he speaks, when he sings, he lights up the room. When he walks in the room, you automatically have a connection to him. And I think that was exactly the sort of spark we were looking for.”
Although specific events are not yet planned, in his role as artistic ambassador, Kellogg will engage with opera audiences through post-show Q&As, panel discussions, podcasts and other community events, said Robinson. He’ll also advise Seattle Opera’s staff on racial equity initiatives and community partnerships.
The role is in many ways a continuation of the scholar-in-residence role held by opera scholar Naomi André for the past five years. That position, too, was an inaugural one, created to help Seattle Opera engage more closely with audiences who may feel intimidated or unwelcome by what is often seen as an elitist institution. Like André, Kellogg will continue that tradition in addition to advising the opera on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion, both behind the scenes and in opera audiences.
For Kellogg, 45, the role is a chance to share his love for opera and to bring a singer’s perspective to the discussions that happen behind the scenes at an opera house — conversations that inform the who, what and how of what ends up onstage.
“We are often the face of the industry. We get the most attention. A production succeeds, our names are mentioned. If a production fails, it’s our names who are often mentioned. And often we don’t have a say in what happens before it even gets there,” he said.
“We as singers aren’t often even asked how we feel, what we think can help. We aren’t often asked our opinion. So for Seattle to recognize that the artist’s perspective is very valuable to them, and how they run the company and how they go about reaching the community is very important.”
Switching this community engagement and advisory role from a scholar to an artist position, Robinson said, will give community members a chance to connect with the opera in a different way.
“The benefit of being a singer and performer is that he is in front of people. And this gives a more intimate connection to our community, to what’s happening onstage and to the art form itself,” said Robinson.
But really, he said, the role is a fluid one, shaped by the person who fills it. The important part is finding the right person, and given Kellogg’s already strong relationship with Seattle Opera, he said, it was a “natural progression.”
Kellogg, who lives in the Bay Area, has been intertwined with Seattle Opera’s artistic and mainstage programming since he appeared as the Commendatore in the Opera’s filmed version of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” in 2021 and then with “Blue,” Tazewell Thompson and Jeanine Tesori’s opera about a father who loses his son to police violence, in 2022.
Kellogg’s son was 5 years old when Kellogg starred in “Blue,” and his experience as a relatively new father of a son while performing in “Blue,” he said, became one of the most powerful experiences of his career.
With a pandemic and vigorous national protests about police brutality taking place at the time, and given Kellogg’s interest in the administrative side of opera, Kellogg became a part of conversations at Seattle Opera about representation and equity and improving the opera’s relationship with the community.
His role as artistic ambassador will, in many ways, be a sort of continuation of that work.
“I built a relationship with a company and with a board just talking about opera,” said Kellogg. “Just as someone who clearly loves the art form and loves thinking about how to make it better, and how to make it work for all of us.”
Kellogg isn’t shy when it comes to speaking his mind, and he does so with kindness and an open mind.
“I’m not shy about confronting difficult issues, I’m not shy about holding people and organizations accountable,” he said. “Artists often play it safe so as to not hinder their career. There are a lot of artists who make that choice. But I don’t see that as my role, and I see it as a hindrance when it comes to making art.”
Growing up in Washington, D.C., and attending the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Kellogg credits the public school arts teachers who taught him since grade school with instilling in him his love for music. And it shows. His artistry is inextricably bound to education.
Although he is not professionally a scholar like his predecessor André, he reads and researches extensively as preparation for his roles. When he played Malcolm X in Seattle Opera’s recent production of Anthony Thompson’s “X,” he picked up a copy of Manning Marable’s biography of Malcolm X. While performing as the father in “Blue,” he consulted Black police officers in addition to drawing on his own experience as a father of a young Black boy.
But he considers his experiences onstage with other artists and his interactions with audiences as a part of his education as well.
“I come with a very informed and broad spectrum of conversations from other artists, from people in the community,” he said.
After his emotional performances in “Blue,” he said he was profoundly impacted by the reactions of audience members who approached him after the show — from non-Black audience members who approached him moved and shocked by the harsh realities of the opera’s depiction of police violence, to young Black men who told him about their own experiences with police violence.
These experiences, he says, are as important as the facts and dates that a scholar like André can offer.
“People need to know history. People need to know why these pieces matter, why they’ve lasted for so long in culture, and why they’re important to different cultures and different people in different parts of the world,” said Kellogg.
“I can tell you that a woman who lost her son to police violence gave me a hug and cried in my arms after seeing ‘Blue,’” he said.
After one performance, Kellogg said, a young Black man told him about a Black police officer who flashed his badge while the audience member was walking down the street minding his own business. “[He] gave me a look [that says] ‘Thank you. You just told my story on stage,’” said Kellogg.
It’s important to bring the voice of the opera outward to the community, he said, but in this role, Kellogg also wants to bring the voices of the community inward to the opera.
André and Kellogg will be in conversation on May 9 as André bows out of the position as scholar-in-residence — turning her attention to her new role as a distinguished professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The conversation, Seattle Opera says, will be a chance to reflect on André’s time with the Opera and hear Kellogg share his perspective on charting opera’s future.
André’s advice for Kellogg as he prepares to take on the redefined role? Show your passion.
“Show your passion for the art. Show why you love it,” she said. “Let everyone know that we love it because we’re human, because of the emotions it makes us feel … It’s so intensely personal and passion is what fuels it.”
