Creative Couples: Joseph McClain and David Manning, A Life of Mentorship and Music in San Miguel

By Judith Jenya

For Joseph McClain and David Manning, San Miguel de Allende was supposed to be a retirement place. Instead, it became the place where decades of experience in opera, education and leadership converged.

Joseph’s life in opera began far from San Miguel. Born in Oklahoma City to a Baptist preacher, he grew up moving from coast to coast with his father’s ministry. Music was a constant. He began with piano lessons as a child and eventually discovered his voice. By 18, he was studying voice seriously. He attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and later earned a master’s degree at Indiana University, where he studied with Margaret Harshaw, one of America’s most influential voice teachers of the 20 Century. After an apprenticeship at the Santa Fe Opera, Joseph spent a decade in Germany, initially as a singer. Then an opera administrator who had become his friend noticed that Joseph was constantly critiquing other people’s rehearsals. Finally, he told him, “You’re going to direct something.”

Joseph resisted. “I found after about two days in rehearsals that I really loved this,” Joseph says. By his early 30s, he had transitioned from singing to stage direction. Eventually he returned to the United States, settling in Austin, Texas, where he intended to complete a doctorate and teach. Instead, he became fascinated by the absence of an opera company in a city that already had a thriving ballet, symphony and theater scene.

That curiosity led to the creation of Austin Lyric Opera, where Joseph served as founding general director for 20 years. It was during those years, in 1994, that he met David. They both had left marriages and children.

David, unlike Joseph, had spent virtually his entire life in one place. Born in San Antonio, he entered education as an art teacher after college. He soon discovered that what fascinated him most was not simply teaching art, but listening to children.

“As an art teacher, you don’t ask, ‘What is that?’” David explains. “You say, ‘Tell me about that. “I realized that’s really what I love to do.” That realization led him through graduate studies in educational psychology, school counseling and educational administration. He became an elementary school administrator and eventually principal of an alternative high school serving emotionally disturbed students. Later he worked in psychiatric hospitals before returning to education, where he developed a principal certification program and began coaching educational leaders.

His work increasingly centered on mentoring and leadership coaching—skills that would eventually become part of his life in San Miguel. The two met through a personal ad in the Austin Chronicle. At the time, David knew almost nothing about opera.

Through Austin Lyric Opera’s educational and outreach programs, he attended rehearsals, lectures and performances, eventually seeing operas from beginning to end many times.

He became an enthusiastic supporter and advocate.

When Joseph retired from Austin Lyric Opera, the couple began looking for something different. They had visited San Miguel on vacation and fallen in love with the town. One day, they noticed the doors of the historic bullring were open.

“I walked in there and thought, ‘My God, this is a Roman theater. This place begs for opera.’”

Despite wanting to escape the demands of opera, Joseph soon founded Opera de San Miguel and helped establish its internationally recognized vocal competition. From that work came another idea: Bel Canto, a summer institute designed to bring exceptional Mexican singers together with outstanding teachers. Now in its 12 year, Bel Canto selects just 12 young singers each summer. The singers are invited rather than simply accepted through open auditions, and they receive intensive training and coaching. “To see them come out of the program and start having major careers is really exciting.”

David serves as a coach and emotional resource for the young singers, many of whom are far from home for the first time. He helps them navigate anxiety and personal doubts.

The results can be dramatic. Recent Bel Canto participants have gone on to major opportunities, including performances at the Palacio de Bellas Artes and contracts with important European opera houses. Keeping the program alive, however, is not easy. Bel Canto receives no government and depends largely on individual donors. For both men, however, Bel Canto represents something larger than opera. It is part of what they love about San Miguel: a community filled with creative caring people who have deliberately chosen to make their lives here.

San Miguel has given them not simply a place to live, but a place to contribute. And in the process, this small colonial city has become an unlikely home for the next generation of great singers.

Learn more about Bel Canto and support their work at www.belcantoism.org