Michael Ballam: Utah tenor's career comes full circle

"I thought he was so good that he would go right to the top," says Marianne. "In high school and junior high he was in everything (productions) and was always memorizing and practicing and going to lessons."

But he had little with which to relate to his peers. Instead of going to high school football games on the weekend, he stayed home and listened to symphonies on the record player with his grandmother. While his friends played ball after school, Ballam played the piano. Instead of watching TV, he would write a musical and perform it for whoever would listen to a one-man show.

"I had this burning desire to explore music," he recalls. "There was nobody else who had that passion for it. So you isolate yourself. The same thing happens I suspect to a boy who wants to be a figure skater. I was alone on weekend nights. I came to know Mister Beethoven when my parents were at football games. It wasn't like I didn't like football, but I figured in those three hours I could listen to a whole opera."

"He was always so focused on what he wanted to do with his life," says Laurie Ballam, the singer's wife and high school sweetheart.

Ballam, the youngest of three boys, considered himself the oddball even in his own family. His father Grant played basketball for a state championship team in high school and remains an active athlete. His brothers, both good singers themselves, were good high school athletes. Ballam recalls his father taking him into the yard to play catch, but he was nearsighted and uninterested.

"My father was a prince about it," he says. "He was so supportive, paying for all my music and voice lessons. He was great."

Ballam was in eighth grade at South Cache Junior High when a counselor handed him a list of careers and told him to pick the one he wanted to pursue. After looking it over, Ballam said he told the counselor, "What I want to be isn't on the list."

"Well, what do you want to be?" the counselor asked.

"An opera singer."

"You can't. Find something on the list you want to be."

"There isn't anything."

Ballam had never seen an opera at this point. His only exposure to one was the record player, but that was enough. During his senior year of high school, Ballam emptied his savings account of $60 and signed up with a Utah State University tour group that consisted of "little old ladies" traveling to San Francisco to see art galleries, musicals and plays. Ballam was the only one of the group who bought tickets to see his first live opera. He got the last seat to see Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde."

"It's the longest, loudest, biggest opera ever written," says Ballam. "It was like reading for your first book 'War and Peace.' It's 3 1/2 hours long."