Rosalind Elias
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Rosalind Elias (March 13, 1929) is an American mezzo-soprano, a rich-voiced singer of fine musicianship who enjoyed a long and distinguished career at the Metropolitan Opera.
Rosalind Elias was born in Lowell, Massachusetts and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. She appeared with the New England Opera from 1948 to 1952. She then left for Italy to complete her vocal studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, with Luigi Ricci and Nazzareno de Angelis.
Elias made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Grimgerde in Richard Wagner's Die Walkure, on February 23, 1954. She sang more than 450 performances of some 45 roles there, including Bersi in Andrea Chenier, Laura in La Gioconda, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Siebel in Faust, Nancy in Martha, Cherubino in Nozze di Figaro, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Olga in Eugene Onegin, Marina in Boris Godunov, Fenena in Nabucco, Azucena in Il Trovatore and Amneris in Aida. On tour with the Met she also sang Carmen and Charlotte in Werther. She created the role of Erika in Samuel Barber's opera Vanessa on January 15, 1958, and the role of Charmian in Antony and Cleopatre by the same composer, for the opening of new Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Centre, on September 16, 1966.
Elias also performed abroad, notably as La Cenerentola with the Scottish Opera in 1970, as Carmen at the Vienna State Opera in 1972, and as Baba the Turk in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1975.
Elias made several recordings, including Cherubino in Nozze di Figaro under Erich Leinsdorf, Preziosilla in La forza del destino and Laura in La Gioconda, both opposite Zinka Milanov, Giuseppe di Stefano and Leonard Warren, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly twice, first opposite Anna Moffo in 1957, and then opposite Leontyne Price in 1962, Azucena in Il Trovatore opposite Leontyne Price, Richard Tucker, Giorgio Tozzi, as well as Maddalena in Rigoletto and Meg Page in Falstaff both under Georg Solti in 1963.
In recent years, Elias has assumed the role of the Old Baroness in Vanessa, both at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo and at the Los Angeles Opera, a production that also marked Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's farewell to the stage in 2004.
[edit] Sources
- D. Hamilton (ed.),The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia: A Complete Guide to the World of Opera (Simon and Schuster, New York 1987). ISBN 0-671-16732-X
- The Complete Dictionary of Opera & Operetta, James Anderson. ISBN 0-517-09156-9
- The Metropolitan Opera Archives
