After retiring from full-time performance in the late 1990s he became a faculty member at the Florida State University's College of Music, where he was Professor of Voice and Lucille P. and Elbert B. Shelfer Eminent Scholar.
[7] He made his professional opera debut at the Met on December 18, 1986, as Arturo in Vincenzo Bellini's I puritani with Joan Sutherland as Elvira as a replacement in the final act for an ailing Rockwell Blake.
[6] He spent the next three seasons at the Met appearing in supporting roles like Borsa in Rigoletto, Gastone in La traviata, Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and the Song Seller in Il tabarro.
He did, however, sing the lead role of Nemorino in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore to the Adina of Ruth Ann Swenson in the Met's touring production in July 1988.
He sang several more large roles at the Met over the next eight years, including Alfred in Die Fledermaus, Fenton in Falstaff, Idreno in Semiramide, the Italian Tenor in Der Rosenkavalier, and Tonio in La fille du régiment, Argirio in Tancrediin 1994 at the Poissy Theater France,.