From Shield Carrier to Leading Operatic Roles : Opera: Rodney Gilfry thought he’d be a music teacher. Instead, he’s singing visible roles, including that of Ford in ‘Falstaff’ at the Music Center.

Aswirl in a black cape, Rodney Gilfry trounces onto the rehearsal scene, slams a money-filled satchel on the table before his seated adversary, Falstaff (Benjamin Luxon), then proceeds to vent his knuckle-biting fury.

Gilfry is portraying Ford, the imaginary cuckold in Verdi’s “Falstaff,” which opens tonight at the Pavilion, courtesy of Music Center Opera. And he ends his rich-voiced monologue on a bench, quivering with impotent rage, reduced to a fit of paranoia.

But just last month the strapping, blond baritone was a savvy good-guy from the servant class, singing the title role in “Le Nozze di Figaro.” And before that, he impersonated the four villains in “Les Contes d’Hoffmann.”

Who would guess that a mere 3 1/2 years ago Gilfry practically stood among the ranks of unknown shield-carriers? (He sang a minor role in Music Center Opera’s 1986 inaugural “Otello.”) Or that Los Angeles had quietly spawned this versatile and uncommon talent in its back yard?

“Least of all me,” says the singer on the eve of his 31st birthday. But after rehearsal the easy-and-outgoing native of Covina registers neither false modesty nor self-importance as he sips mineral water poured from his own portable supply.

“The funny thing is,” he explains bemusedly, “I thought small and never wanted to travel the world. Every plan I made from high school on revolved around having a secure job and living a stable family life--the kind I grew up with in Covina, where orange groves and tract houses and young couples with kids are the norm.”

Indeed, Gilfry saw to those goals. He pursued a course of music education in college “with the idea of being a music teacher.” He married a longtime family friend from Claremont High with whom he has children ages 4, 2 and 1.

But along the way, and almost against his will, a stage personality was budding.

“In high school all my friends belonged to a church group that put on musicals. I was very social, very community-oriented and joined the productions--despite feeling that it was a sissy thing to do.”

He was “an awful klutz,” to hear him tell it, and “felt foolish and uncomfortable” in the role of exhibitionist-at-large. But peer pressure gave way to mastery, and, after taking the lead role opposite his bride-to-be in an amateur “No, No, Nannette,” among others, he followed her to Cal State Fullerton’s Music Department, where “people kept saying I could have a career.”

After graduation, with substitute teaching in the city schools proving less than satisfactory to him, Gilfry was open to alternatives. He began to take concert dates, while working part time in a music store and following a graduate degree in voice at USC. Further studies brought him to Santa Barbara with the noted voice teacher Martial Singher.

His present status is no fluke, however. Peter Hemmings, director of Music Center Opera, remembers auditioning local singers in 1984, “about 200 of them,” he says, “and there’s no doubt Rodney Gilfry was the most exciting of the lot . . . an extraordinary talent.”

The Times’ Martin Bernheimer recalls, as well, that the baritone “instantly attracted attention,” noting in a 1987 review of Britten’s “War Requiem” with the William Hall Chorale that Gilfry “need fear nothing from the specter of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, for whom this music was written.”

But stepping out into the world did not occur until 1985, when the singer went to audition in Europe. The Frankfurt Opera offered him a two-year contract, to start the following season; it guaranteed 11 roles.

“Hamburg also wanted me,” he mentions, “but made a far less compelling bid. And when Rolf Liebermann, the Intendant there, realized I was turning him down he became furious. With his reputation--as a person not to cross--I figured I was dead meat after that.”

Nothing of the kind. A month later, Liebermann called Gilfry and asked him to sing Figaro.

“What a twist,” he says, explaining how, if he had taken the original Hamburg contract, he would have been assigned a smaller role in the opera, “with no chance for advancement.”

Even with this early stroke of luck, there was cause for trepidation: Gilfry had never sung Figaro and “knew nothing but two of the arias.” His debut would take place in just six weeks and, to make matters worse, he had never ventured a major role on a professional opera stage.

That wasn’t all.

“They gave me only 3 1/2-days’ rehearsal,” he says, “with no guarantee of other cast members being available (since he was the only newcomer to the production). Also my first meeting with the stage and the orchestra was to be at the performance.”

Gilfry apparently survived his trial by operatic fire. But he admits that “feeling settled” in the role only came about last month. In the last three years, he says that the responsibility of a major career has unwittingly made an impact on his personal life.

“Being a regular guy, as opposed to a glamorous celebrity, is natural to me,” he says. “I am very married and a full-time father--someone who changes a diaper before going on stage for a premiere. It’s a conscious, deliberate way of life. Most stars, on the other hand, are self-centered people who wrap scarves around their throats and shake hands at a distance instead of kissing and think only of their voices, their careers.”

Breaking into a joke, he asks, “How many opera singers does it take to change a light bulb? Only one. He (she) holds it and the world revolves around him (her).

“Seriously, though, it’s interesting to see myself change. Sure, the kids still sniffle in my face, but the night before ‘Figaro’ opened here I slept in the living room. They were very sick and my wife had strep throat.”

There’s a difference, however, between taking professional responsibility and indulging petty self-interest. Back in the “Falstaff” rehearsal, Gilfry’s first venture into Verdi, he picks apart his monologue scene with director Jeannette Aster, searching for the fine points that reveal Ford’s character--”the vulnerability inside that shrewdly controlled exterior, the deeply loyal man so devastated at the thought of his wife cheating.”

Sometimes art and life converge.