Joyce Castle has been on a cleaning spree.

“I’ve thrown out a lot,” she says. “How many programs of the same opera do you need?”

When you’ve played 130 roles in professional operas – and many of those multiple times – you end up with a lot of memorabilia stored in boxes and trunks.

Going through those collections has made Castle, who balances life as an international opera star with teaching at Kansas University, a bit nostalgic. So she decided to do what any performer might do: a show.

On Tuesday, she’ll put on a recital based on her 36 years as a professional singer. But she has no intention of wrapping up that career soon.

“I’m going to sing until I drop,” she says.

‘Interesting journey’

Castle spent most of her childhood years in Baldwin City, from fourth grade on.

Her earliest stage experience came when she was 3, when she sang “God Bless America” at her church in Louisiana. Her mother gave her rave reviews, but what else is a mother to say?

Castle always assumed she’d have a career in music, and no one told her otherwise.

“At first, I thought I was going to be a movie star, singing musicals in movies,” she says, “because I didn’t see lots of live performances, you see, in Baldwin.”

Her family assumed her career path, too.

“She was always singing, always performing, with a special kind of style that was infectious,” says her older brother, Lawrence resident Neal Malicky. “She had a special gift from the start.”

She went on to attend KU, where a special voice and theater major was created for her. She performed in music theater there – “Brigadoon” was one of her favorites – but didn’t have the voice to do much opera.

“I was doing some opera here, but I was doing smaller roles,” Castle recalls. “I was basically not there yet. Opera is an interesting journey, and voices just take as much time as they take. And mine, as a dramatic, mezzo-soprano voice, it was pretty wild at first, and it had to be sort of tamed and brought back.”

After graduating from KU in 1961 – making her age around 67, though Castle won’t talk about that – she got her master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music in New York and bounced around various music fellowships until she landed her first full-time professional gig at the San Francisco Opera in 1970.

After that, she spent seven years in Paris, working in various operas. When she returned to the United States, her career took off.

“At that point,” she says, “I was ready, and things just fell into place.”

Quirky roles

That’s when her 24-year affiliation with New York City Opera, and nearly as long affiliation with the Metropolitan Opera, began.

Since then, she has developed a reputation as a veteran character actor who isn’t above helping to develop up-and-coming stars.

“I don’t know anyone in the business who has anything negative to say about Joyce,” says Craig Rutenberg, head of the music staff at the Metropolitan Opera. “That’s not a given, believe me.”

Castle, as a lower-soprano voice, tends to get the quirky roles in the opera. Some of her favorites include Queen Elizabeth I in “Gloriana,” Augusta Tabor in “The Ballad of Baby Doe” and Orlovsky in “Der Fledermaus.”

“I’m not the girl that gets the guy,” she says. “I’m everybody’s mother, grandmother, or I’m a witch, or I’m a sorceress, or I’m royalty – a queen, a princess or a countess. These are my role – or a man. Or a silly woman, or a very weird woman, or a diabolical woman.”

Ricky Ian Gordon, a New York-based opera composer who will perform with Castle in Tuesday’s recital, says he’s always amazed by the contradiction of Castle in real life and Castle on stage.

“As a person, she’s somewhat soft-spoken and very polite, and she’s very intelligent,” Gordon says. “When you make music with her, what’s great about Joyce, is she’s nothing but reckless abandon. She’s a very exciting performer, very exciting to make music with. You feel like anything can happen.”

Teaching role

All this operatic fame matters to Candice Bondank, but she doesn’t get intimidated by it.

Bondank, a KU sophomore studying voice with Castle, thinks first of her teacher’s homey personality, the one that insists Bondank take candy from her candy dish as she’s starting a lesson.

“I would describe her as a down-to-earth diva,” Bondank says.

Castle has taught at KU since 2001, when she became artist-in-residence in the department of music and dance. She says teaching music has helped her own voice.

“It’s interesting for me,” she says. “I was there. I want to help these young singers. I want them to have the opportunities I’ve had, whether or not they’re in my studio or other studios.”

Mark Ferrell, music director for KU Opera, says having Castle at the university is a major boost to its music program.

“Any time a young performer, or student who is interested in performing professionally, is around someone with professional experience at the very best places, even if she couldn’t teach at all – which isn’t true of Joyce – just being in a room with them is an education in and of itself,” Ferrell says.

‘Life of music’

Castle enjoys teaching, even if it’s meant she can no longer take every role she’s offered. She has to be more selective now.

She continues to be known as an actor who can perform dramatic work, then follow it up equally well with a side-splitting role.

“It’s good for me if I do something very dark, very dramatic, and then do something quite the opposite,” she says. “That keeps me, I think, more fluid, more able to do this and that. It also keeps me more interested. I think if I did just one type of role it would not be as fulfilling for me. I like to make people laugh as well as do the dramatic roles.”

Castle says she misses living in New York, where she spent 20 years before moving to Lawrence. But she likes the balancing act of her new life in Kansas.

“If I didn’t enjoy it, I should quit,” she says. “I don’t see myself stopping performing, and I think teaching is very interesting. I think I’ll just see where life takes me on that. I’ve had a life of music. It’s wonderful to have a life of music.”