Carol Wyatt
Carol Frances Wyatt was born in Marshall, Texas, on October 20, 1943, to Charles Wyatt and Mildred Hills Wyatt. After they divorced, Carol and Mildred moved to Denton, where they lived with Carol’s maternal grandmother, Frances, and aunt Nancy for several years until Mildred found a teaching job in Port Neches. She and Carol moved there, and not long afterward, Mildred met and married Earl Strube, a union that produced Carol’s sister, Sharla, and brother Kent.
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Growing up, as Carol Frances Strube Wyatt, attended Port Neches-Groves High School ​and graduated in 1961. That year, she was the Indianettes Co-Captain among many other activities. After graduation, Carol went on to Baylor University on a voice scholarship. She received her B.A. degree in Music under the tutelage of opera teacher Tina Piazza, who also recommended her as a student to Maestro Japelli of the La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy.
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After studying for several years at La Scala, Carol launched her career as a mezzo soprano on stages throughout Europe and North America, singing with the likes of Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo.
She made her official stage debut at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo as Amneris in "Aida".
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At the beginning of the seventies, she came to Germany and was engaged by Christoph von Dohnanyi at the Frankfurt Opera House.
Two years later, August Everding and Horst Stein brought her to the Hamburg State Opera, where she was able to develop her roles of dramatic mezzo-soprano.
In the seventies and eighties, she was one of the most sought-after mezzo-sopranos in Germany and other European countries. Carol Wyatt had extensive guest contracts with the Hamburg State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Opera Houses Cologne and Düsseldorf-Duisburg, she was a guest at the Munich State Opera, in Stuttgart, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Hannover, made her debut at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden as Am ner is and at the Vienna State Opera as Eboli. For more than twenty years she was a principal soloist with the Deutsch Oper Berlin. Among her many roles there and as a guest singer were Carmen in the opera Carmen, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Am ner is in Aida, Princes Eboli in Don Carlos, Jokasta in Oe di pus and Marina in Boris Godunov.
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The Eboli was one of her absolute highlights alongside the (Ah zu say nah) Azucena, Am ner is, (San Too Zah) Santuzza, Dorabella and Marina.
In addition to her activities and opera engagements in Germany, her international guest performances have taken her to Italy to the Spoleto Festival (Mozart Requiem), to Florence as Fricka in "Rheingold" and "Die Walküre."
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Her performances also included Opera Ireland in Dublin as Amneris, to the English National Opera North in Leeds as Charlotte in "Werther", to the Canadian Opera in Toronto as Johanna in Tchaikovsky's "Maid of Orleans", to the Opera Houses of Belgrade and Split as Amneris, additionally, to the USA at Cincinnati (Rossini's "Il Conte Ory" to the Portland Opera as Azucena, to the Verdi Festival in San Diego as Amneris in a new production of "Aida", to New York in Mendelssohn's "Elijah" at Avery Fisher Hall Lincoln Center.
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She also sang Mendelssohn's "Elijah" at the Goot ti ning Göttingen Handel Festival and in the Hamburg Musikhalle, where she also sang the Messiah as well as Bach's Passions, Verdi's Requiem, and Beethoven's Ninth every year. Further concert guest performances have taken her to Vienna, Geneva, Helsinki and Madrid, among others, and she was also a regular guest at the Berlin Philharmonie.
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In addition to her dramatic mezzo-soprano roles, she also made excursions into soprano, for example she sang the role of Laura in Schubert's
"DI Freinda (Die Freunde von Sal-a-Man-Ka) Salamanka" at the (Schubert iade) in Ho-he-nems, Austria. In Turin she sang the soprano part in Zemlinsky's "Lyric Symphony", for RAI Torino she recorded Shostakovich's "14th Symphony", to finally make her role debut as "Fidelio"-Leonore in 1986, which she sang at various German opera houses, including the Staats theater Hannover, and at the (St. YAllen )Gallen Opera House in Switzerland she made her role debut as Marie in Alban Berg's "Wozzeck". Her repertoire includes other contemporary operas and masterworks including songs by Igor Stravinsky (Shakespeare Songs, Joke Songs, Cat Cradle Songs), Leonard Bernstein's "Symphony No. 1 "Jeremiah", and Luciano Berio's "Folk Songs", which she has performed with both the Wiener Symphon iker and the Berliner Philharmon iker. She also made numerous concert and festival appearances with orchestras across Europe and around the world.
Ministry.
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In the early 1980s Carol found her God and the course of her life changed. As she began moving in a different direction, she used her free time to study the Bible and read the works of great Bible teachers. During this time, her love for the Jewish people grew, and she knew that she was to use her gift of music for the Lord. She developed a vision how she, along with other musicians, could bless Israel and show God’s love for the Jewish people through the universal language of music.
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Carol Wyatt chose a very difficult Terrain which to plow fallow Ground. She bravely targeted the hearts of the people whose souls have been bombarded with fear, anger, and Hatred in Jerusalem, The Holy City, where David sang his psalm sand played the harp unto the Lord. Like David, Carol’s “weapon” was the international language of music to touch the hearts of the embittered, the disenfranchised and those without hope. There was where the very rich heritages of Arab, Jew and Christian cohabitate, and many times would collide. There was where many could be reached through the medium of Music.
After more than two decades of singing professionally, Recognizing that her calling was to use God's gift of her voice to bring Christ to the nations, Carol returned to the United States where she underwent formal training for ministry. Thus prepared, she is admirably poised to render praise and glory to her Lord in her second and most-important career.
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Carol returned to the U.S. to attend Rhema Bible College in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She established Song of Joy Ministry in 2000 and became an ordained Christian minister in 2003. She completed training for the International Fellowship of Chaplains and worked several years with the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, participating in their celebration of the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles through music and dance.
On the European concert circuit, Carol was increasingly recognized for her vocal Christian views and her support of the "family" in Israel. In 1996 she was invited to be a featured soloist in the Jerusalem 3000 Jubilee Festival celebrating the accession of King David to the throne of Israel.
Carol had strong conviction that music could bring peace in the hearts of men like no other medium, preparing hearts to receive God's love and to experience His Presence in their lives. She uses music in all her ministry, including her breakthrough success in ministering to Alzheimer's patients.
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In 2018 she attended the first meeting of the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast and remained part of that group. She also was one of the founders of Wilberforce 3 Speakers Bureau, an organization that mentors and encourages women to change their world.
Over the years, Carol developed a special place in her heart for Holocaust survivors and often said that her greatest pleasure in life had been ministering to them. On numerous occasions, she organized groups of professional Christian musicians from around the world and led them on trips to Israel for that purpose, performing in churches, concert halls and retirement communities.
In addition to her work in Israel, Carol ministered in the U.S., Russia, Germany and among nomadic reindeer breeders in the Arctic Circle. She also ministered to Alzheimer’s patients in retirement and nursing homes wherever she went. And she recorded a CD of her favorite hymns, Timeless Classics, as part of her ministry. In her later years Carol was living and still ministering at her church.
