Why I Quit Singing - Eric McKeever

 

Why I Quit Singing

 

Eric McKeever
May 14, 2026

Singing is not a “forever” career for most singers, and the decision to move on can be a difficult one. CS columnist and (now former) singer Eric McKeever shares the reasons for this decision to leave opera.

In June of 2025, after a wonderful career singing in opera, I decided to quit. In the late fall of 2025, my editor asked me to write about the “why.” This is that story.

I want to preface this by saying the intention of sharing my journey is to spark a dialogue about this aspect of singing that is often whispered about but rarely said out loud. It’s also my intention to continue processing what this transition feels like internally as well as externally. To add legitimacy to this article, I think it’s important to share highlights of my career. It’s also a way to remind myself of the extraordinary opportunities I’ve been able to experience because of my voice and artistry.

I came to pursue opera a bit later than most singers. It wasn’t until I was in grad school that I had a sincere desire to take on this career. Like many young singers, I auditioned for the big Young Artist Programs and was fortunate that Richard Pearlman who, at that time, ran the YAP at Lyric Opera of Chicago, saw something special in me. While I never got into the program, I was given the opportunity to cover two small roles in the Lyric Opera of Chicago world premiere of Anthony Davis’ Amistad as well as sing leading roles with Lyric’s Education program, “Opera in Schools.” After that, I sang with at least five regional opera YAPs and created a relationship with my “home” company, Opera Columbus, where I started with small roles (my debut being the Cappadocian in Salome and, yes, I can still remember those five lines!).

After taking a four-year hiatus, I returned to opera, starting from nothing (thank you, Bel Cantanti Opera for jump-starting things for me again), and over the course of the next 14 seasons rose to enjoy a wonderful mid-level career. With Opera Columbus, I graduated to perform leading roles including Sharpless, Marcello and, most recently, Papageno in a reimagined take on The Magic Flute called The Temple. I also performed leading roles with many regional companies as well as with most of the companies in New York. Along the way, I performed with small and large companies, had three different agents, one voice teacher, and a small circle of “advisors” who helped me navigate all things opera.

The 2024–2025 season was one of my most successful (and profitable) with me singing with NYC’s now defunct On Site Opera, making my Seattle Opera debut, and having return engagements with Opera Memphis, Nashville Opera, Opera Baltimore, and Little Opera Theatre of New York. I was also profoundly grateful that my work received critical acclaim. I truly felt like I was turning a corner and rising through the ranks. So, what made me want to step away when it appeared that I was (finally) moving into a new career phase?

The decision to stop being an opera singer is probably one of the hardest decisions any artist makes. I struggled for years trying to decide if I should stay in the field. Okay, yes, I did “quit” singing at least once every two years and, yes, it became a running joke with people who knew me that when I said I was quitting, they would simply nod and say, “We’ll see what you say in six months,” as miraculously I would receive an operatic engagement that was so thrilling that the idea of quitting flew to the wayside and I would thrust myself back into the art of opera.

But this time things were different. First, my phenomenal voice teacher, Mark Oswald, who really helped tighten up my technique, retired. And deservedly so. After a world-class career as both a singer and teacher, he was ready for something new. Then, shortly after the COVID shutdown, my agent, the wonderful Nick Netos, announced that he was retiring.

As I continued to sing, coach, and perform, I found myself wading through the management search. From being told a polite “I don’t think we’re a good fit” to not hearing any response, I began to question if I was actually a viable artist. How is it that I had spent so many years working, getting great reviews, and being told I was a wonderful colleague and that I had something special, and yet not one agent seemed genuinely excited to represent me? It truly hurt.

The other consistent challenge I seemed to face was that I didn’t fit easily into a repertoire box. For so many singers it’s clear what roles they can vocally and physically embody based on the lineage of artists who have taken those roles on. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there wasn’t a great historical record of five-foot-nine African American lyric baritones to pattern myself after, so I often embraced what felt right vocally and dramatically and allowed myself to side-step trying to classify myself as any particular Fach. The upside was this allowed me to sing a diverse range of repertoire ranging from the title role in Henze’s El Cimarron to Monterone in Rigoletto to Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore to the title role in Don Giovanni to a host of new operas. In essence, my niche was that I didn’t fit into one specific niche.

These two challenges, along with having only three engagements on the books for the 2025–2026 season made me really sit back and examine if this was the sign that I needed. While I’m all about being proactive in my career, I also believe that when you are aligned with what you are meant to do, there is a sense of ease about it. Yes, there are a multitude of stories of artists who stayed in a field and succeeded. But with opera being so focused on momentum, youth, and not only Fach categorization but of placing an age limit on when an artist is supposed to have blossomed, it is truly rare that a singer in their 40s or older shifts into a different echelon within opera.

Like many singers, I had mantras that I repeated to keep motivated. One of those: I am enough. During the summer of 2025 as I was working on the incredibly difficult Eine florentinische Tragödie by Zemlinsky, I had an epiphany. If being in a field continually made me question if I was enough, maybe I was asking the wrong question. What I needed to ask myself was if the career of being a singer was enough!

What was I getting out of it? Yes, I loved the work. I loved digging into a score and learning it inside and out. I loved working to perfect my vocal and dramatic intentions. I loved connecting with colleagues both on and off the stage and having those magical moments where your artistry and theirs creates something close to a spiritual experience. I loved the immediacy of having an audience who could respond to the story being filtered through my artistry. I loved all of that. But, for most of us, that is only a small percentage of the career.

The magic of performing was what motivated me to show up in my score study, my technical work, my interactions with colleagues, and the discipline it takes to be an opera singer. Unfortunately, the industry continued to lack transparency and often felt like it was the job of a singer to create a false sense of success through the announcement of a season, the idea of jet-setting around the world, and constantly posting clips of oneself singing. Some people love this aspect of the job, while for me, it sometimes felt like a distraction.

A general director told me that a person’s social media presence was often a determining factor in whether someone was getting hired. But I could cite countless singers who have a large social media following but were not actually singing much. On top of that, I often wondered if a singer spent so much crafting an online persona, did they truly have time to practice, audition, and improve or was it becoming a vicious cycle of producing content, content, content over quality of artistry. I still don’t know the answer, but I also knew that I didn’t want to keep asking.

Another major factor that made me consider the shift from opera was how our industry responded during the height of COVID. While many companies worked to pivot toward digital opportunities for audiences and artists, and I was extremely fortunate to participate in several, it always felt like each company was functioning in their own sphere. But when I looked at the musical theatre world, particularly Broadway, I saw the emergence of community, where it was not only important to preserve access to performances but create space for all of the theater: Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theater.

It appeared that the musical theatre world cared about all of its own at a local, regional, and national level—and I realized that I was not getting that feeling from the opera world. I’m not completely naïve to believe that there is full transparency in the musical theatre sphere, but I do get the sense that there is a concerted effort to care for its own and a desire to embrace more and more diverse perspectives.

I’ve given a lot of reasons why I left. But as I type this, I have to acknowledge that I was far luckier than many. I also have to say that perhaps I’m not the most reliable narrator and that my take on the opera world could be a “jaded” singer who auditioned three times for the Met but never got hired.

What I know, however, is that I walked away from opera because I didn’t see a way to make a decent living in an industry where I never felt like I belonged. It was only through years of self-examination and clarity on the type of life I wanted to lead that I was even able to recognize that I no longer wanted to continue down that road. Deciding to leave opera has been cathartic, painful, confusing, and liberating.