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The vocal talents of Birgit Nilsson were first recognized when she began to sing in her church choir. She studied voice with Ragnar Blennow in Bastad and later at the Royal Music Academy Stockholm with Joseph Hislop and Arne Sunnegärdh. She made her opera debut at Stockholm where her first important role was Agatha in Der Freischütz, and in 1947 she sang Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth there. Her first important international appearance came in 1951 as Elettra in Mozart's Idomeneo at the Glyndebourne Festival. In 1952, she sang Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Florence. Her first important appearances in Wagner operas came in 1953 at Stockholm where she sang Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Isolde for the first time. This marked the start of the most important Wagnerian career of the second half of the 20th century. The following year she made her Bayrueth debut as Elsa in Lohengrin and in the same season sang Ortlinde in Die Walküre. She later appeared there as Isolde and as Brunnhilde. It was in Munich during the 1954-1955 season that she first sang Brunnhilde in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and during the same season she sang her first Salome. In 1957, she sang the complete Ring cycle in London. At the Vienna State Opera she was heard as Elsa, Sieglinde, Elisabeth, Aida, and Sent. In 1957 she sang Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio and the following season sang her first Turandot. She was also highly regarded for her interpretations of Elektra and the Barak's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten. Her other important Italian roles were Tosca, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera and Aida. She sang at all of the major opera centers of the world including Tokyo, Paris, Buenos Aires, Chicago, San Francisco, and Hamburg. Also she sang Turandot in Moscow with the Teatro alla Scala. At the age of 62, a performance of Strauss' Elektra was videotaped at the Metropolitan Opera House and broadcast around the world.

Because of her full schedule of opera performances, Nilsson did not sing in many concerts or recitals although early in her career she did sing the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven on several occasions, including one at Bayreuth. She did give some recitals including tours of Australia and Japan as well the major music centers of Europe and North America. Her recital programs concentrated on the German and Scandinavian songs, including some rarely heard pieces by Stenhammar. She often sang "I Could Have Danced All Night" as an encore.

The voice of Birgit Nilsson was like a laser beam that cut through the orchestra, unlike the voice of Kirsten Flagstad or Jessye Norman which are like a wall of sound. It was a large voice with such brilliance that at times it gave the sensation of being sharp of the intended pitch. She was a congenial colleague except for her long-standing difficulties with Franco Corelli regarding the length of the high Cs in Puccini's Turandot and with Herbert von Karjan. Happily all of her important roles have been preserved on recordings. As long as the operas of Wagner are performed, the voice of Birgit Nilsson will be remembered, and no one has sung Puccini's Turandot with more brilliance or security. Her autobiography, Mina minnesbilder, was published in 1977 at Stockholm.

For many of the record-buying public, their impression of German dramatic tenor Hans Hopf was formed upon viewing the wretched photograph that was displayed on the cover of his 1960 EMI recording of Tannhäuser. Appearing bloated and dim-witted, the tenor was sorely misrepresented by a portrait that should never have been released. While his voice had by that time grown beefier and less pliant, Hopf was too serious an artist to have been exposed to such a public relations disaster. For a truer picture, physically and aurally, turn to his Walter in EMI's live recording of Bayreuth's 1951 Die Meistersinger with Schwarzkopf, Edelmann, and Karajan. Here, before the strain of too many heroic roles took their toll, his singing was strong and highly agreeable, accomplished if somewhat short of poetic. Hopf studied with bass Paul Bender in Munich before making his debut in 1936 singing Pinkerton with the Bavarian Regional Opera. Affiliations with Augsburg, Dresden, Oslo, and Berlin preceded his extended membership at the Bavarian Staatsoper beginning in 1949. In addition to his Bayreuth debut, the 1950 -- 1951 season held a first appearance at Covent Garden, where Hopf sang his German-language Radames in an otherwise English-language Aida. He was also heard as Walter, pleasing the critics and audiences more for his sturdy singing than for his subtlety. Hopf remained with the Royal Opera through the 1952 -- 1953 season, offering his Walter all three years. At Bayreuth, Hopf worked his way to Parsifal, Tannhäuser, and Siegfried by the 1960s. In 1952, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Walter. He continued to appear for five more years, eventually amassing a total of 34 performances in the Wagnerian repertory. At Salzburg in 1954, Hopf made his debut as Max in Weber's Der Freischütz. Although most of his career was spent in Europe, Hopf made two further appearances in American opera houses singing Herodes in both Chicago (1968) and San Francisco (1974) and both times with Astrid Varnay as his consort. Although the latter production caught him rather late in the day, he was still an arresting Herod, dissolute and clearly not quite stable. In Germany, Hopf had achieved a considerable reputation as Verdi's Otello.

In the years between the prime of Ludwig Weber and the emergence of Kurt Moll, Gottlob Frick reigned as the leading bass in the Austro-German repertory, wielding a powerful, compact black bass of unchallenged cutting power. A quick and steady vibrato set his voice apart from other bass instruments, which were softer in timbre, offering lumbering oscillations in place of spin. Sir Thomas Beecham, having long delayed recording his enchanting interpretation of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, found in Frick a deep bass capable of executing Osmin's runs cleanly and managing handily the requisite trills. Frick's recorded interpretations made his name a familiar one throughout the world, even though he confined most of his work to Europe. During the decade from the early '50s onward, Frick was a peripatetic visitor to the recording studio, preserving some roles on multiple sets.

After studies at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, Frick joined the Stuttgart Staatstheater as a member of the chorus from 1927 to 1931. In 1934, he was engaged by Coburg, making his debut as Daland in Wagner's Fliegende Holländer. Following contracts with Freiburg and Königsberg, Frick became a member of the Dresden Staatsoper in 1938, remaining with that company until 1952 and steadily advancing through the Wagnerian bass roles and other specialties, such as Falstaff in Nicolai's Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor and Prince Gremin. In 1942, he created the role of Caliban in Heinrich Sutermeister's ill-fated Die Zauberinsel and, two years later, the Carpenter in Die Hochzeit des Jobs by Joseph Haas. In Dresden, Frick remained outside the centers of international activity found elsewhere in post-WWII Europe; it was not until he joined the Berlin Stadtische Oper in 1950 that his work began to attract widespread attention. In 1953, when he was engaged at both Munich and Vienna, he was already 46, but in prime voice. Covent Garden heard him for the first time in 1951, when his Hunding, Fafner, and Hagen were hailed as "somber and magnificent-voiced." London's determination to grow a home-theater crop of singers limited further appearances in the short term, but Frick was to return between 1957 and 1967 and again in 1971, even after his official retirement, to sing a memorable Gurnemanz.

Scheduling and contract difficulties kept Frick from the Metropolitan Opera until 1961. In his solitary season there, he appeared first as Fafner in Das Rheingold, then sang Hunding, the Siegfried Fafner, and Hagen. Meanwhile, he had made his Salzburg debut in 1955 (as Sarastro and in the premiere of Werner Egk's Irische Legende) and had appeared at Bayreuth as Pogner in 1957, returning there for Ring performances from 1960 to 1964. Officially, Frick retired from the stage in 1970, but he continued to undertake occasional guest appearances in Vienna and Munich (aside from his 1971 London Gurnemanz). To celebrate his 70th birthday, Stuttgart mounted Die Lustigen Weiber for him in 1976. Frick's recorded legacy is substantial enough to assure his continuing reputation. In addition to Osmin and Rocco, his Commendatore in Giulini's Don Giovanni, his Hunding, and Hagen in the Solti Ring were all captured in good form and sound. His Sarastro for Klemperer and Keèal for Kempe find him in rougher voice, although his Gurnemanz for Solti, recorded when he was 66, is a remarkable performance.

Martina Arroyo was one of the major American singers who suddenly appeared on the international vocal scene in the 1950s and 1960s. She was also a leader in a pioneering generation of black American singers who followed the example of Marian Anderson in breaking barriers on the opera and concert stages.

She attended Hunter College in New York, taking a Bachelor of Arts in Romance Languages. She won the 1958 Metropolitan Opera Auditions (sharing first prize with the similarly illustrious Grace Bumbry). Arroyo was immediately invited to participate in a Carnegie Hall concert performance of Ildebrando Pizzetti's L'Assassinio nella cattedrale, a new opera based on T.S. Eliot's play about the murder of St. Thomas à Beckett. This was followed by a period of singing minor roles at the Metropolitan Opera.

She went to Europe, which at that time was better disposed to ignore the skin color of singers portraying nominally "white" roles in operas, and immediately took the leading roles in operas in Vienna, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Zurich, accepting a contract to join the company of the Zurich Opera from 1963 to 1965.

She was a classic spinto soprano, tailor-made for the most powerful Verdi roles, yet was able to handle Mozart parts with the necessary lightness and flexibility. Among her best-known roles were Gioconda, Santuzza, Donna Anna, Butterfly, Liù (Turandot) and Wagner's Elsa, and most of the major roles of Strauss, Verdi, Mozart, and Puccini.

She was invited to sing her first leading role at the Metropolitan in 1965, as a last-minute substitute for Birgit Nilsson as Aïda. She went on to become one of the favorite stars of the Metropolitan, where she sang all the major Verdi parts. She was asked to sing in the season opening performance at the Met three times. She remains associated with the Metropolitan as a frequent participant on the "Singer's Roundtable" feature on Metropolitan Saturday matinee broadcasts and sang over 20 times on the popular Tonight Show on America's NBC television.

She made her debut in Britain at a concert performance of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots in 1968 as Valentine and in the same year made her operatic debut in that country at Covent Garden, singing Aïda. Her Paris Opéra debut was in 1973. Arroyo also appeared regularly on the concert platform in a wide variety of repertory that ranged from Handel oratorios such as Judas Maccabeus and Samson to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, Rossini's Stabat Mater, the requiems of Verdi and Fauré, and such modern compositions as Barber's Andromache's Farewell (which she premiered), Karlheinz Stockhausen's Momente, William Bolcom's Simple Stories, and African Oratorio by Carlo Franci.

Arroyo has taught at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Delaware, Wilberforce University, and the International Sommerakademie-Mozarteum in Salzburg. She is now a Distinguished Professor of Voice at the School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. She is co-author (with Dr. Willard Boyd) of the National Endowment of the Arts' Task Force Report of Music Education in the United States.

Arroyo was appointed by President Gerald Ford as a member of the National Endowment of the Arts, served twenty years as a member of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall (and was subsequently named a lifetime Honorary Trustee), is a member of the Board of Trustees of Hunter College of the City of New York University, and won honors from the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation. She made over 50 recordings in a wide variety of repertory from oratorio to spirituals.

Mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias had a long, leading career in opera on the international scene. She was most often heard at the Metropolitan Opera, where she spent more than 40 years as part of its company. There, and elsewhere, she performed in many American and world premieres.

Elias was born on March 13, 1931, in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her professional life began while she was still a student at the New England Conservatory of Music when she was invited to sing in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, as Poppea, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She also studied at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood. She joined the New England Opera Company in 1948, remaining through 1952. She moved to Italy for further studies with Luigi Ricci and Nazzareno de Angelis. She began attracting major attention with appearances at the leading opera houses of San Carlo in Naples and La Scala in Milan before she joined the company of the Metropolitan Opera in 1954.

Among her major roles were Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Carmen, Baba the Turk in The Rake's Progress, Rossini's Cenerentola, and the leading mezzo roles in both full-length Samuel Barber operas: Erika in Vanessa and Charmian in Antony and Cleopatra, both of which she created at the Metropolitan Opera world premieres in 1958 and 1963, respectively. She was known for a rich, dramatic voice and good stage presence. She made many recordings and frequently appeared on television and radio. At the turn of the 21st century, she was still singing occasionally, mostly in smaller parts, including as the Mother in Hugo Weisgall's Six Characters in Search of an Author and the Old Prioress in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites, as well as continuing to appear as Barber's Erika. In 2007, Elias performed in the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's The Grapes of Wrath and, in 2008, David Carlson's Anna Karenina. Another late role, at the age of 82, was as Heidi in a revival of Follies in 2011, which also marked her Broadway debut. Elias, suffering from congestive heart failure, died May 3, 2020, in Manhattan. ~ Patsy Morita & Joseph Stevenson

Born Jean Browning in Central Illinois, this contralto established for herself a singular identity among singers of the deepest, darkest roles for female voice. Tall and strikingly attractive, she possessed both the physical and vocal allure for Carmen and created a riveting portrait of Klytemnestra, both addled and imperious. The later role, perhaps the one with which she was most closely identified, was captured on disc in both studio (with Böhm) and on-stage at Salzburg (with Mitropoulos). Her Rheingold Erda in Solti's Ring was likewise striking, voiced with steady, earth-deep tones, a sound once likened to "gleaming anthracite."

Browning's father, half American Indian, half English, was a coal miner; her mother taught piano and soon included her daughter among her pupils. Upon her father's death, Browning moved with her family to St. Louis, where she won a scholarship to the Leo C. Miller School of Music. While a student there, she placed first in a competition whose prize was an appearance with the St. Louis Symphony. Under Vladimir Golschmann's direction, she performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3. In 1941, Browning entered the Juilliard School of Music, where she majored in piano, but also pursued singing, making her debut as Nancy in von Flotow's Martha in a 1943 Chautauqua Summer Opera production. At Juilliard, she met and subsequently married a piano student, Francis Madeira, who later became conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, a faculty member at Brown University, and occasionally accompanied his wife following her transition to a full-time singing career.

Olga Samaroff urged the young woman in 1946 to concentrate on becoming a professional singer. While still studying voice at Juilliard, Jean Madeira (as she was now known) began making appearances with such other groups as the (American) San Carlo Opera Company. Gian Carlo Menotti chose her in 1947 to alternate with Marie Powers in the title role of his The Medium on its European tour. That same year, she was the recipient of the St. Louis Woman of Achievement Award. In 1948, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as the First Norn in a November 2 performance of Die Götterdämmerung, beginning her steady progress through such roles as Amneris, Azucena, Ulrica, Orfeo, and Dalila. In 1954, she began a series of European appearances taking her to Covent Garden, Stockholm, Munich, and Salzburg.

The fall of 1955 brought Madeira's debut at the Vienna Staatsoper in the role of Carmen, a triumph resulting in 45 curtain calls. When she sang Carmen at the Metropolitan in February 1956, critic Irving Kolodin, writing in the Saturday Review, described her as "an intelligent artist who gives thought to what she undertakes" and noted her effective use of her striking height. He also praised her portrayal by commenting, "Mostly it was done with a suggestion of youthful suppleness not often seen."

In addition to her almost 300 Metropolitan performances in some 41 roles, Madeira continued to appear elsewhere in America and Europe, offering her Carmen at Chicago, where critic Claudia Cassidy praised her as "svelte, darkly beautiful, with a mezzo soprano streaked in burnt umber and edged with a threat" and at Aix-en-Provence. Her authoritative Erda was heard at Munich, London, and Bayreuth. In 1968, she took part in the premiere of Dallapiccola's Ulisse in Berlin, creating the role of Circe. She retired in 1971.

Erich Leinsdorf was one of the most respected (if not always well-liked) European-born conductors and music directors to achieve prominence in America after World War II. An acclaimed operatic conductor, whose recordings of Turandot and Madame Butterfly from the end of the 1950's remain among the most popular in the catalog, his reputation as a conductor of orchestral music hasn't survived quite as well.

He was born Erich Landauer in Vienna, Austria, and by the age of five was enrolled in a local music school, beginning piano studies at age eight. He subsequently studied at the music department of the University of Vienna, and from 1931 until 1933 took courses at the Vienna Conservatory, making his debut at the podium at the Musikvereinsaal upon graduation. He became the assistant conductor of the Workers' Chorus in Vienna in 1933, and a year later successfully auditioned before Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival, where he was appointed an assistant, serving under Toscanini.

Leinsdorf was engaged by the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1937, and his American debut took place there, at age 25, when he conducted Wagner's Die Walkure on Jan. 21 of 1938. His success with other Wagner operas led to his appointment at the Met in 1939 as head of the company's German repertoire. It was while at the Met that he began developing a reputation as a strict taskmaster, demanding more rehearsal time from his singers and extremely precise fidelity to the written score by his orchestras--although the audiences appreciated the results he achieved, many of the singers he worked with were highly critical of his work and the demands he made upon them.

He took American citizenship in 1942, and the following year he was appointed music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. He had no time to achieve much in the new post, however, as Leinsdorf was inducted into the United States Army in December of that year. He was discharged in 1944, and returned to the Met, where he conducted during the 1944-45 season. During 1945 and 1946, he also conducted the Cleveland Orchestra on several occasions, and returned to Europe where, as one of a group of major Austrian-born conductors who had no connections with the Nazis, he was engaged to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. He found his reception in the city of his birth, first overrun by the Nazis, then bombed and invaded by the Allies and starved in the immediate wake of World War II, however, to be less than entirely cordial.

By 1947, he was back in the United States as music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in upstate New York, a post he held until 1955. Leinsdorf served as music director of the New York City Opera for part of 1956, before returning to the Met as a conductor and musical consultant, amid numerous guest conductor assignments in America and Europe. In 1962, Leinsdorf succeeded to one of the most prestigious musical posts in America, as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, succeeding Charles Munch. Leinsdorf's tenure at Boston was extremely productive but stormy. He found the political considerations of a music directorship, juggling the demands of individual musicians, their unions and existing work and rehearsal rules, and the board of directors, to be a distraction from his musical goals. Additionally, it was during this period that Leinsdorf became known for being openly critical of the shortcomings, in terms of education, of the musicians working under him (especially gaps in their cultural educations), errors in published scores of established musical works, and the errors made by his fellow conductors.

He resigned the Boston post with the 1968-69 season, happy to have served in one of the most exalted musical positions in the United States, but equally happy, in his own words, to have exited with his health intact. Leinsdorf conducted opera and concert performances throughout the United States and Europe for the next two decades, including work with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. In 1978, he took up his first permanent post in Europe, was principal conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in West Berlin, a post he held until 1980. In 1976, he published Cadenza: A Musical Career, a memoir that was as noted for its candid, brutally honest assessments of himself and his fellow musicians as for the biographical details it offered. He continued recording until the final years of his performing career, at the end of the 1980's, including audiophile digital performances of Wagner orchestral music for the Sheffield Labs label.

Erich Leinsdorf's greatest operatic achievements on record, Turandot and Madame Butterfly, remain in print on compact disc more than 30 years after they were recorded, but his orchestral recordings haven't fared as well. Mostly confined to RCA/BMG with the Boston Symphony, a relative handful of these have appeared on budget CD reissues (mostly BMG's "Silver Seal" label), including a Mahler Fifth Symphony that is no longer really competitive with other versions out there (at the time it was recorded in the mid-1960's, it was one of perhaps four or five versions, not one of 60 as it is today); ironically, his Mahler Symphony No. 3, one of the finest things he ever did, and one of the better performances of this monumental work ever done, remains out-of-print, and well worth owning on vinyl. ~ Bruce Eder

Mahler Symphony No. 5 RCA/BMG [5]

Symphony No. 3 RCA [8] (out-of-print)

Mozart Don Giovanni London [7]

Puccini Madame Butterfly RCA/BMG [7]

Turandot RCA/BMG [8]

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