Joseph Benton (1898-1975) was born in Kansas City and moved to Oklahoma as an infant. Following graduation from high school, Benton took up studies at the University of Oklahoma, where he majored in medicine. During his junior year, he switched his focus to music and began studying voice. After receiving his degree (two degrees, actually) in 1921, the young singer accepted a teaching position in the university’s music department. After teaching voice for two years, Benton left OU, briefly attended Chicago Musical College and traveled to France to work with legendary tenor Jean de Reszke. Benton’s debut came about in Nice on December 11, 1924 as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, after which he pursued further studies in Italy. As was the fashion of the day, he changed his name to the more Italian sounding Giuseppe Bentonelli and began building a resume in Italy. During the course of the next several years, Benton sang over five hundred performance of some fifty roles, including Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut, Rodolfo in La Bohème, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Cavaradossi in Tosca and Alfredo in La Traviata throughout the Italian provinces. In 1934, he created the role of Valeriano in the world premiere of Licinio Refice’s opera Cecilia, opposite Claudia Muzio in the title role. That same year, he returned to the U.S. and made his American debut as Cavaradossi with the Tosca of Maria Jeritza and the Scarpia of Pasquale Amato with the Chicago Grand Opera Company. In the middle of the 1935/36 Metropolitan Opera season, Benton was asked to replace an ailing Richard Crooks as Des Grieux in Massenet’s Manon. Regrettably, Benton made little impression on the New York critics. In his two seasons with the MET, the tenor sang only fourteen performances of five roles…Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, The Duke in Rigoletto and the aforementioned Des Grieux in Manon. Otherwise, Benton was relegated to performing ensembles on the MET’s Sunday night concerts. At the end of the 1936/37 season, the management allowed the tenor’s contract to quietly expire. Benton continued touring the U.S. and Canada in opera and concert for a few more years, but retired in 1941 at the early age of forty-three. He turned his attentions to academics, completed his Master’s degree in languages and became Chairman of the Department of Voice at Oklahoma University in 1944. He remained at OU in this capacity for a quarter century, retiring in 1969. During his retirement, Benton wrote “Oklahoma Tenor”, a memoir (with a foreword by Dame Eva Turner) which proved to be an amusing collection of anecdotes culled from his career on the opera and concert stage. Joseph Benton passed away in the spring of 1975 at the age of 76.

Here, Benton sings "M'Apparì tutt' amor" from von Flotow's opera Martha. This recording was made for Columbia on June 4, 1931.

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