In her book, Ms. Williams recounts stories of Mr. Vickers bullying underlings and dressing down colleagues. When a 1986 Metropolitan Opera production of Handel’s “Samson,” an oratorio, traveled to the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Mr. Vickers insulted the conductor, Julius Rudel, during a rehearsal in front of the entire cast and orchestra, shaking Mr. Rudel so much that he offered to quit. Yet in interviews he often spoke of how his rural roots and Christian convictions had shaped his life philosophy, as he explained in a 1974 documentary for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

“The understanding, which slowly and surely developed in me, of the necessity of human contact and an understanding of the needs of others and their problems has probably, more than anything else, given me the ability to analyze my roles, to come to grips with a score, to study a drama, to project my feelings into the life of someone I’ve never met except on a piece of paper.”

Humble Beginnings

Jonathan Stewart Vickers was born on Oct. 29, 1926, in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the sixth of eight children of William and Frances Vickers. His father was a schoolteacher and lay minister in the Presbyterian and Methodist traditions; he eventually became a high school principal. His mother was a homemaker.

The Vickers house had no electricity or running water, just a well out back. After his fourth birthday the family moved to an old frame house with proper utilities and an adjacent lot that became their vegetable garden. Blond, blue-eyed Jonathan grew to look much like his barrel-chested father, with a square chin, large forehead, big hands and bowed legs.

In the Vickers house everyone sang and played instruments — a “poor man’s Trapp family,” as Mr. Vickers used to call it. On Saturday afternoons, Mr. Vickers was captivated by the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts.

In the summers he and his brothers worked at a farm owned by their father’s best friend, and in his last year in high school he played football and basketball and took voice lessons from the local church organist.

He graduated from high school in 1945, but young Canadian military veterans returning from the war were given preference for college admission, so Mr. Vickers, who had a head for business, went to work at the Safeway, moving from fruit sorter to butcher boy before eventually becoming a manager.