Robert Merrill

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Robert Merrill caricature by Sam Berman for 1947 NBC promotional book
Robert Merrill caricature by Sam Berman for 1947 NBC promotional book

Robert Merrill (June 4, 1917 – October 23, 2004) was an American operatic baritone. While there has been dispute of his birth year (some claim he was born in 1919), the social security index, his family, and his gravestone state that he was born in 1917.

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[edit] Early life

Merrill was born Morris (Moishe) Miller in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to shoe salesman Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland. Lillian claimed to have had an operatic and concert career in Poland (a fact denied by her son in his biographies) and encouraged her son to have early voice training: he had a tendency to stutter, which disappeared when singing. Merrill was inspired to pursue professional singing lessons when he saw the baritone Richard Bonelli singing Count Di Luna in a performance of Il Trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera, and paid for them with money earned as a semi-professional pitcher.

[edit] Career

In his early radio appearances as a crooner he was sometimes billed as Merrill Miller. While singing at bar mitzvahs and weddings and Borscht Belt resorts, he met an agent, Moe Gale, who found him work at Radio City Music Hall and with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. With Toscanini conducting, he eventually sang in two of the famous maestro's NBC broadcasts of famous operas, La traviata (with Licia Albanese, in 1946), and Un ballo in maschera (with Herva Nelli, in 1954). Both of those broadcasts were eventually released on both LP and CD.

Merrill's 1944 operatic debut was in Verdi's Aida at Newark, New Jersey, with the famous tenor Giovanni Martinelli, then at the end of his long stage career.

Merrill, who had continued his vocal studies under Samuel Margolis made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1945, as Germont in La Traviata. Also in 1945, Robert Merrill recorded a 78rpm record set with Jeanette MacDonald featuring selections from the operetta Up In Central Park; MacDonald and Merrill did two duets together on this album. In 1952, his role in the musical comedy film Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick led to conflict with Sir Rudolf Bing and a brief departure from the Met in 1951. Merrill sang many different baritone roles, becoming, after the on-stage death of Leonard Warren in 1960, the Met's principal baritone. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he appeared under the direction of Alfredo Antonini in performances of arias from the Italian operatic repertoire for the open air Italian Night concert series at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City. [1] [2] [3] [4]. He was described by Time as "one of the Met's best baritones". The tenor-baritone duet "Au fond du temple saint" from the opera The Pearl Fishers by Georges Bizet, which he recorded with Jussi Bjorling, was always top of listener's polls[5] for the BBC's Your Hundred Best Tunes. It was also No 1. in ABC's "The Classic 100 Opera", a poll in which Australians voted for the one moment in opera they could not live without. It is regarded as one of the most perfect tenor/baritone performances of all time. Merrill also continued to perform on radio and television, in nightclubs and recitals. He retired from the Met in 1976. For many years, he led services, often in Borscht Belt hotels, on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Relatively late in his singing career, Merrill also became known for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Yankee Stadium. He first sang the national anthem to open the 1969 baseball season, and it became a tradition for the Yankees to bring him back each year on Opening Day and special occasions. He sang at various Old Timer's Days (wearing his own pinstriped Yankee uniform with the number "1 1/2" on the back) and the emotional pre-game ceremony for Thurman Munson at Yankee Stadium on August 3, 1979, the day after the catcher's death in a plane crash. A recorded Merrill version is sometimes used at Yankee Stadium today. He preferred a traditional approach to the song devoid of additional ornamentation, as he explained to Newsday in 2000, "When you sing the anthem, there's a legitimacy to it. I'm extremely bothered by these different interpretations of it." Merrill received the National Medal of Arts in 1993.

[edit] Personal life

Merrill married soprano Roberta Peters in 1952. They parted amicably; he had two children, a son David and a daughter Lizanne, with his second wife, Marion, née Machno, a pianist. Merrill liked to play golf and was a member of the Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, for many years.

He wrote two books of memoirs, Once More from the Beginning (1965) and Between Acts (1976), and he co-authored a novel, The Divas (1978). Merrill toured all over the world with his arranger and conductor, the world famous Angelo DiPippo who wrote most of his act and performed at concert halls throughout the world. He always donated his time on the Cerebral Palsy telethon with Dennis James.

[edit] Death

Robert Merrill's headstone in Kensico Cemetery
Robert Merrill's headstone in Kensico Cemetery

Robert Merrill died at home in New Rochelle, NY, while watching Game 1 of the 2004 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. He is interred at the Sharon Gardens Cemetery in Valhalla, NY, which is a subdivision of the Kensico Cemetery. His headstone features an opera curtain that has been drawn open. In keeping with Jewish tradition, small rocks rest on top of the headstone.

His epitaph states:

Like a bursting celestial star, he showered his family and the world with love, joy, and beauty. Encore please.

[edit] Listen to

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ The New York Times, May 14, 1959, pg. 29
  2. ^ The New York Times, May 19, 1959, pg. 28
  3. ^ The New York Times, July 10, 1959, pg. 28
  4. ^ The New York Times, July 21, 1960, pg. 17
  5. ^ "Bizet's The Pearl Fishers named nation's favourite tune". BBC Press release
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