Gidon Saks (born 15 January 1960) is an Israeli-born South African bass-baritone. Education Saks grew up in South Africa. His father was a first generation South African of Lithuanian descent. His mother was Scottish of Ukrainian extraction. He had an aunt who was an accomplished opera singer in South Africa but he had no interest in singing at first. He had originally wished to become an actor, dropping out of school at the age of sixteen because "I hated it". He auditioned for drama school at the Little Theatre under the direction of Mavis Taylor but was told he had to be eighteen for admission and they suggested he study singing in the meantime. He began his musical studies under Angelo Gobatto, the director of the opera school at the South African College of Music which is a department of the University of Cape Town. In order to avoid the military conscription which was mandatory for all white South African males at the time, he moved to the U.K. to study at the Royal Northern College of Music, after a year at opera school in Cape Town. While still a student at Northern College, he began drawing designs for college productions and these were used in Brecht/Weill's Happy End, Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, Mozart's Don Giovanni and Berg's Wozzeck. Early career At the age of 22, at the urging of his voice teacher in Toronto, Patricia Kern, he debuted in Brian Macdonald's production of The Mikado at the 1982 Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, which went on tour as well as being televised. With the Canadian Opera Company, he sang the role of Lord Rochefort in Donizetti's Anna Bolena, with Dame Joan Sutherland; Daland in Der fliegende Holländer; Wurm in Luisa Miller; Bluebeard in Bluebeard's Castle and Boris Godunov. He acknowledged in an interview that his performances at this early time in his career were sometimes less than polished. Nevertheless, his admiration for Kern borders on the religious in his own estimation, such was her inspiration and influence on his career. Switzerland As has been the case with many aspiring opera singers, the experience Saks gained by performing with some of the myriad small state-funded opera companies on the continent was invaluable. He earned a scholarship to the Zurich Opera Studio which led to a three-year contract at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Later he earned another three-year contract