Born 1938 in Ohio, McCray served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War before entering the Mannes School of Music in
New York City where he was a pupil of Patricia Neway. In 1962 he won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. In the
spring of 1965, he was active with the Concert Opera Association at Philharmonic Hall in NYC, singing Chekalinskij in Pikovaja dama
and Francesco in the United States premiere of Benvenuto Cellini. The following summer he appeared
at the Stratford Festival of Canada as Jimmy Mahoney in Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.
From 1965 to 1968, McCray was active with the Israel National Opera, performing such roles as Canio, Cavaradossi,
Don José, Manrico, Riccardo, and Samson. In 1969, he made his
debut at the New York City Opera as Vladimir. The following year he sang Loris with the Opera Orchestra of New York,
conductor Eve Queler, and soprano Judith
de Pauli as Fedora.
In 1971 he sang Dick Johnson at the Minnesota Opera. That same year he performed the role of Manrico, with Irene Dalis and Betty Allen
alternating in the role of Azucena, for the San
Francisco Opera. In 1972, he created the role of Ken in the world premiere of Harold Farberman's The losers, which was commissioned
by the Juilliard School.
From 1974 to 1976, McCray performed annually with the Greater Miami Opera Association, portraying roles in productions of Robert Ward's
The crucible, in Der fliegende Holländer, and Otello under conductor Emerson Buckley. In 1977, he had
a particular triumph at the Seattle Opera as Siegfried in Wagner's Ring cycle.
McCray joined the stage director Giancarlo Del Monaco in Kassel, Germany, in September 1981 for Otello and Tristan.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, McCray sang in various European places including Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Copenhagen, Amsterdam,
Barcelona, Prague, Catania, Cagliari, Oslo, Rouen, Toulon, Nantes, Angers, Orange and Bordeaux among others.
In addition to singing Siegfried in August Everding's Ring in Warsaw in 1989 and 1990, he sang more than 100 performances
of Tristan und Isolde, including a production in Brussels with Gwyneth Jones, conducted by Sylvain Cambreling,
in Montréal with Berit Lindholm, in Nancy with Liesbeth Baltslev, in Freiburg with Deborah Polaski singing her first Isolde, and
in Bordeaux with Linda Kelm, conducted by Pinchas Steinberg. With Giancarlo del Monaco
he performed the principal tenor roles in several productions including Otello, Il tabarro and Tannhäuser.
McCray has sung every Wagnerian opera for heroic tenor, from Liebesverbot and Die Feen to Parsifal.
He appeared in Wagner in various Italian opera houses including La Fenice in Venice, where he also sang Fritz in
Franz Schreker's Der ferne Klang with Sylvia Sass, under the musical direction of Gabriele Ferro.
McCray sang in several productions of Otello in theaters at Split, Hamburg, Zagreb, Graz, Gent, Liège,
Prague, Bratislava, and Miami.
In October 1995, McCray was invited to Novi Sad in Serbia to sing a humanitarian concert as well as Canio in Novi Sad, where he met his
wife.
McCray's last performance was Pollione in Bellini's Norma with the Yugoslavian soprano Radmila Bakočević at the
May Festival in Skopje, Macedonia, in 1996.
After that he taught in Serbia, Italy, Germany, San Francisco – and The Hague, where he had been living since 1997, and where he
died on January 30th, 2018.
Reference
