9.17.04

Dr. Clyde McCants

Retirement opens creative chapter for Erskine alumnus

Erskine alumnus and former faculty member Dr. Clyde McCants is not quite ready for a rocking chair. Since his 1998 retirement as pastor of Bethel Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Winnsboro, the 1954 Erskine College graduate has written two books on opera and is working on a third.

He has also served as chairman of the Fairfield County Library Commission and remains on the boards of the Friends of South Carolina Libraries and the Palmetto Book Alliance.

And he still finds time to serve congregations who are without a pastor.

"As any minister would probably tell you, we do not retire from ministry," said McCants, who graduated from Erskine Seminary in 1970 and taught there for four years beginning in 1978. "We are ordained to the Christian ministry not for a number of years, but for life."

He recently completed a full year of service as interim pastor at the Chester ARP Church. "Each Wednesday, I still go to Chester to visit in the congregation and to lead in their Wednesday evening Bible study program," he said.

Meanwhile, McCants pursues a keen interest in opera, and through his writing has linked opera with another of his longtime interests, libraries. His first book, “Opera for Libraries,” was published in 2003, and is a two-part guide to help libraries assemble collections of operatic materials.

His second book, “American Opera Singers and Their Recordings,” published last summer, contains critical commentary, biographical information and a discography for each of the 52 singers, as well as information on a group of Hollywood vocalists.

McCants’ love for opera predates his high school and college years and his career as a college and seminary professor, minister and writer.

"The first opera I remember seeing was Humperdinck’s 'Hansel and Gretel' at what was then the all-girls Anderson junior college," McCants said. "I was probably 11 or 12 years old at the time."

He said that shortly after World War II his father bought the family a new FM radio, and he was able to hear the Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera. He still remembers the first of these broadcasts he ever heard, and it made a lasting impression on him.

"The opera was Puccini’s 'Madama Butterfly,'" he said. "After the first act I had to leave to attend a meeting, but 30 years later the Met was offering recordings of early broadcasts as a gift for contributions." McCants sent in his donation, received the recording, and finally heard the second and third acts of that long-ago performance.

He said he succumbed to the "collecting disease" in the mid-1950s when his small teacher’s salary allowed him to purchase a few recordings. For a year or two during that time, he hosted a program about opera at a North Carolina radio station. "I would justify my purchases as a necessity for the broadcasts," he said.

"Since I’ve been writing about opera, the justification has become easier and easier," McCants observed. Now, he said, he collects mostly CDs and a few LPs, having sold a portion of his collection several years ago. His has more than 7,000 CDs and his collection includes 54 recordings of Verdi’s "Aida," the subject of the book he is now writing.

"My interest is primarily in recordings of operas that are not otherwise part of my collection, performances of operas by artists whose recordings of these works are not part of my collection, and recordings of arias and other selections by interesting singers of the past and present," he said, adding that "interesting singers" may include some "distressingly bad" ones.

Asked how his interest in opera affected his ministry, McCants said, "My involvement with music as a pastor primarily had to do with the choice of Psalms and hymns for worship services."

Few of his parishioners have shared his degree of interest in opera, McCants admits. "In every community, however, there were friends who shared my enthusiasm," he said.

McCants is active in sharing his faith and his knowledge of the arts. He has presented programs on the relationship of Christian faith to the arts and the art of opera in particular. "I will lead a workshop on religion and the Bible in opera at a conference later this fall," he said.

His favorite composer of sacred music is Johann Sebastian Bach. "But I can’t leave out Verdi, whose 'Requiem’ is to my taste one of the overwhelming works of religious art."

Describing one somewhat tenuous connection between opera and ministry in the ARP Church, McCants reveals his sense of humor. 

"There are a few unlikely operatic tunes in the old ‘Bible Songs’ book," he said. "From time to time I have led Psalm sings for different churches, and I enjoy using one or another of these operatic melodies and letting the congregation know they’re in competition with Enrico Caruso."

Reflecting on his student days at Erskine, McCants said the college had "a remarkably gifted faculty" in the 1950s. His voice teacher, Helen Ligon, took groups of students to Atlanta for annual performances by the Metropolitan Opera. He said he was "certainly not a singer," but he played the piano and accompanied a number of vocalists at Erskine, and was allowed to go along. "Thus, my first exposure to big-time opera," he said.

McCants received a master’s degree from Duke University, taught English at Elon College from 1955-60, then taught freshman composition and sophomore literature courses in Erskine's English department from 1960-65. He also directed plays during his first year on the college faculty and again while he was a seminary student.

He remembers the seminary as "still a very small institution" but calls the quality of the education offered there "top flight" and said Dr. Kenneth Morris made a great impact on him. Following his graduation from Erskine Seminary in 1970, he served ARP congregations in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

He later taught Erskine Seminary courses in worship, preaching, church administration and Christian education. During his years of teaching and ministry, he contributed articles to the ARP Magazine and in the 1970s wrote two Bible study books for ARP Church women.

 "It was exciting to realize that people all over our denomination were using my books in their monthly circle meetings," he said. "It was also scary: what if I wrote it wrong and misled those who were using the book?"

McCants has had similar mixed feelings about his opera books. "The rewards of the books on opera are certainly not financial, although I do enjoy seeing a royalty check twice a year," he said. "Perhaps it has more to do with the feel of my own book in my hands and realization that I did it, for good or ill.

"Of course, that can be scary, too," he said. "My first opera book had a few good reviews, but there was one devastating notice, and the worst of it is that I found myself agreeing with much of what the critic said."

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