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Jan Peerce was known as "Toscanini's tenor," with his clean, incisive singing, exceptional breath support, and immediately distinctive timbre (though some considered his vibrato overly rattling). Peerce did not always record well in the studio, his voice often becoming harsh with a microphone and his technique losing some of the nuances contemporary critics praised in his stage singing. However, many of his live performances are now out of copyright, so provide a more accurate overview of his singing and style. While Peerce is often compared to his brother-in-law Richard Tucker (Peerce married Tucker's sister, Sara) -- both were born in New York, both were tenors, both studied to become cantors, and neither was a strong actor -- the similarities were largely superficial. There was a good deal of animosity between the two of them, Peerce feeling his contributions towards Tucker's career were ignored, Tucker feeling Peerce was jealous of his own accomplishments, which he felt were the greater.

Peerce grew up in a musical family, where his mother opened the house to dinner guests and eventually boarders to pay for his violin lessons. He and four friends formed a band, Pinky Pearl and His Society Dance Band (Peerce was born Jacob Pincus Perelmutter and nicknamed "Pinky" at home), which became quite successful. Peerce soon discovered that when he sang, that got as much or more attention than their playing. He favorably impressed Samuel Rothafel, a major Broadway impresario, and sang first on the Radio City Music Hall of the Air and then on stage at the opening of the physical Radio City Music Hall in 1932. He rapidly became one of the most popular radio performers in both popular and cantorial music, and in 1936, first sang "The Bluebird of Happiness," which became his signature tune (and the title of his 1973 autobiography). Arturo Toscanini heard him in a broadcast of Act I of Die Walküre (Peerce's only foray into Wagner, though Toscanini himself suggested that he sing Siegmund on stage), and hired him to sing the tenor role in his broadcast of Beethoven's Ninth, with the legendary NBC Symphony Orchestra. He became Toscanini's tenor of choice, and began to study opera with Giuseppe Borgatti. He made his opera debut at the Philadelphia Opera as the Duke in Rigoletto in 1938, and sang Alfredo in La Traviata in San Francisco, where Lawrence Tibbett pushed him into taking an extra solo bow. 1941 was also the year of his Met debut as Alfredo in La Traviata, and he sang each season with that company until 1968. In the late 1940s, he had a vocal crisis, but studied with Robert Weede (with whom he had sung at the Music Hall), regaining his earlier vocal placement and projection. He made regular tours with the Bach Aria Group throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1956, he toured in the then-Soviet Union, singing a service in the Great Synagogue in Moscow, an overwhelming emotional experience for him, and one that he repeated in 1963. In 1971, he made his Broadway debut as Tevye in The Fiddler on the Roof. He retired from performing in 1982.

Warren had a remarkably well-produced voice, with a naturally wide range, with secure high notes, and smooth, rich timbre throughout. He was most associated with Verdi, which he sang with a good deal of artistry and feel for the natural line, though he also excelled in Puccini (especially Scarpia) and verismo.

He first planned on a business career, and studied for a year at Columbia College, but in 1933 decided to quit that to pursue a singing career. He first studied at the Greenwich House Music School, and in 1935, auditioned at the Radio City Music Hall. He had hoped to become a lead singer, but Robert Weede was the reigning baritone there, and Warren was just offered a place in the choir. He sang there for the next three years, augmenting his income with the occasional radio program, wedding, or funeral, and studied with Sidney Dietch, and eventually made it to the Metropolitan Auditions of the Air in 1938. When the Radio City Music Hall refused his request for a few weeks off to prepare (he knew only a few arias and had never sung on the opera stage before), he quit, and threw himself into preparations on his own. Legend has it that at the audition, the conductor Wilfred Pelletier rushed backstage, convinced that they were playing a prank on him, and Warren was lip-synching to a Ruffo or De Luca recording.

He won, rather to his own surprise, not only the auditions but a stipend to study in Italy with, among others, Giuseppe de Luca and Riccardo Picozzi. There, he learned five complete roles in less than seven months, despite having seen just one complete opera in his life. He made his Met debut, which was also his staged opera debut, as Paolo in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra in January of 1939 (Tibbett sang Boccanegra), and soon became a favorite baritone at that house, singing all the major Verdi baritone roles. At first awkward on stage, he studied acting, and while never a great operatic actor, became more at ease on stage and put a good deal of thought into his interpretations. Like many opera stars of the time he was offered film contracts, and made his film debut in 1949 in When Irish Eyes are Smiling. He created the role of Ilo in Menotti's The Island God (which Menotti withdrew shortly after the premier). Like his successor, Robert Merrill, and to a lesser extent Sherrill Milnes, as well as his predecessor, Lawrence Tibbett, his artistic home was the Met, though he did perform in other countries, making his Teatro Colon debut as Rigoletto in 1942, appearing in Il Trovatore in Mexico City in 1948, and making his La Scala debut in 1953 as Iago. In 1958, he also made a tour of the Soviet Union. He had been suffering from high blood pressure, and died on stage at the Metropolitan during a 1960 performance of La Forza del Destino.

His Macbeth under Erich Leinsdorf, with Leonie Rysanek (BMG/RCA GD 84516), is excellent, and he and Bjoerling are both at their best on a recording, also with Leinsdorf, of Tosca (BMG/RCA GD 84514), though Milanov's vocal difficulties are something of an impediment to the complete success of the recording. ~ Ann Feeney

The Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera has been instrumental in the establishment and continuation of excellence that has marked the Met as one of the premier opera houses in the world. With a flexible roster of professional singers, the Chorus is able to adapt to meet the demands of one of the integral parts of opera performance since the genre's birth. With the Met's continued outreach and ability to incorporate new media, the Chorus has been heard on hundreds of recordings and seen by audiences around the world on video, including a groundbreaking live-broadcast stream to movie theaters.

The Metropolitan Opera was founded in 1883 after an effort led by New York's Roosevelt, Morgan, and Vanderbilt families to establish a world-class company. Right from the start, the new company was a success, and its Orchestra and Chorus have remained vital to its mission. Auguste Vianesi was the company's first music director, and a long list of notable names have followed, including Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, and James Levine, among many others. The role of chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus has also been held by a distinguished list, most notably Kurt Adler, who held this title, as well as that of principal conductor for a time, from 1943 until 1973.

The Metropolitan Opera has been on the leading edge of technology practically since its founding. In the first years of the 20th century, around 140 recordings of the Met were made on phonograph cylinders, named the Mapleson Cylinders, between 1901 and 1903. In 1910, the company began broadcasting, with live performances transmitted to a relatively nearby area. However, in the 1930s, these live productions were broadcast nationally by several major networks and eventually by the Met itself on its Metropolitan Opera Radio Network. Similarly, with the advent and wider preponderance of television, the Met began broadcasting live performances to households in the 1940s while also dabbling in distributions to movie theaters. These traditions have continued and evolved with technology and, as of the early 2020s, include live performances simulcast in high definition to movie theaters, taped performances broadcast on television, a dedicated streaming radio station, and a litany of well-regarded recordings. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has served as the Met's music director since 2018, and as of 2023, Donald Palumbo held the title of chorus master. ~ Keith Finke

New York's Metropolitan Opera Orchestra dates back as an established ensemble almost to the Metropolitan Opera's founding in the 1880s. The orchestra has been led by legendary conductors of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Arturo Toscanini, George Szell, and James Levine.

New York upper-crust families launched an effort to establish a world-class opera company in 1880, and the Metropolitan Opera was launched with the 1883-1884 season. August Vianesia was the music director but was soon replaced in 1886 by Anton Seidl, a protégé of Wagner who molded the orchestra into a first-class group along German lines before departing in 1897. Other important early conductors included Alfred Hertz, Gustav Mahler (1908-1910), and Toscanini, who headed the orchestra from 1908 to 1915. Orchestra members by the 1930s earned starting salaries of some $10,000, less than the superstar singers the company engaged but more than what most other orchestras paid, and ever since then, a seat in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra has been a plum assignment for orchestral musicians.

Through the middle of the 20th century and beyond, the Metropolitan Opera was led by European-born conductors who were also prominent in the field of orchestral music, including Szell, Bruno Walter (1941-1951), Fritz Reiner, Erich Leinsdorf, and Dmitri Mitropoulos. The company pioneered operatic broadcasts on radio (from 1930) and television (from 1940), which arguably increased the prominence of the orchestra since audiences experienced no visual component; broadcasts, now including those via the Internet, have remained important to the Met's mission. Doubtless, the most significant of the orchestra's more recent conductors has been James Levine, whose career ended under a cloud but who shaped bold interpretations, many of them in part orchestrally based, for decades. Levine was succeeded by Fabio Luisi and by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director since 2018. The orchestra has issued several recordings independent of operatic productions, including one of Wagner's orchestral music and, in 2022, A Concert for Ukraine. ~ James Manheim