John A. Ford, 71; Founder of Educational Opera Assn.

John Arnold Ford, the amiable, one-time opera basso who founded the Educational Opera Assn.--touring groups of singers, musicians and actors that gave schoolchildren their first taste of an old art form--died Sunday.

Ford, son of legendary county Supervisor John Anson Ford, was 71 when he died at a Valencia hospital. He had been battling cancer.

Turned Down the Met

The younger Ford, who first developed an interest in music as a student at John Marshall High School, had sung professionally with opera companies in San Francisco, Houston, San Diego and Los Angeles. In the Army in World War II, he toured in shows with Mario Lanza, and after the war he performed as a soloist at the Hollywood Bowl with Leopold Stokowski conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 1952, he auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera Company.

“I was accepted,” he said in a 1984 interview, “but I didn’t take the job.”

Why?

A combination of a dislike of New York City and a lack of the total dedication it takes to perform at the Met.

He came back to Los Angeles and his home in the Los Feliz area to continue his work with the opera association, a group he had founded in 1951 to bring affordable, mini-musical tableaux to Los Angeles-area schools. By the early 1980s, more than 220 of the programs that he called “cultural resources” were being staged each year at individual schools at a cost of only $150. That was the secret of his popular, if not commercial, success--at that price even inner-city schools could afford him.

He offered a choice of two hourlong programs, “Fun With Opera” or “Fun With Music,” an eclectic survey of music history featuring highlights from the classical repertory of several Western nations. “Fun With Opera” offered staged scenes with piano accompaniment from such light and comedic operas as “Tales of Hoffman,” “Barber of Seville,” “Daughter of the Regiment” and “Die Fledermaus.”

A narrator sketched in the story lines as the singers performed highlights.

His shows were considered a high point of the school year for teachers and students, if not for Ford’s accountant. Despite a $50,000 annual underwriting campaign by the city and the county and private sponsors, which were augmented by the schools’ individual contributions, the foundation lost about $5,000 each year.

Ford also directed the Pilgrimage Play at the John Anson Ford Theater near the Hollywood Bowl from 1955 to 1961 and staged operatic scenes for many years over radio station KFI.

The elder Ford, for whom the theater was named and who was known for years as “Mr. Los Angeles,” died in 1983 at age 100.

And his son continued to sing, although in surroundings much more modest than he would have experienced at the Metropolitan.

Regrets? he was once asked.

None, said Ford, who is survived by his wife, Lucille, four children and three grandchildren.

One time in concert, he explained, “I sang ‘Shenandoah.’ And this little old lady came up to me and said it had been her late husband’s favorite spiritual and then she started to cry. That did more for me than a standing ovation for ‘Mefistofele’ ever could.”