Betsy Norden (born October 17, 1945) is an American soprano who appeared with the Metropolitan Opera over 500 times.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, she studied at Boston University, and began her career in musical comedy. Norden joined the Met chorus in 1969, and sang her first solo role there on January 27, 1972, as the Peasant Girl in Le nozze di Figaro , opposite Cesare Siepi in the name part, with Karl Böhm conducting. The lyric soprano went on to sing thirty-nine different roles at the Met, including Despina in Cosi fan tutte , Zerlina in Don Giovanni , Oscar in Un ballo in maschera , Musetta in La bohème , Liu in Turandot , Sophie in Werther , Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel , and Constance in Dialogues des Carmélites , as well as numerous secondary roles.
On December 27, 1975, she sang four different roles on the same day (possibly a Met record) during the matinee and evening performances of Hänsel und Gretel and Il trittico .
Norden was seen in several of the Met's telecasts, including Don Carlos (conducted by James Levine), Lulu (directed by John Dexter), Il trittico (with Renata Scotto), Rigoletto , Hänsel und Gretel, Don Carlos again (with Plácido Domingo and Mirella Freni), and Dialogues des Carmélites (as Sister Constance of St Dénis, possibly her most successful role).
Her final appearances at the Metropolitan were in the 1992 world-premiere production of The Ghosts of Versailles (with Teresa Stratas and Marilyn Horne), the televised performance of which was her last Met appearance.
Norden has also appeared with various American opera companies, including those of Philadelphia and San Francisco. She has appeared as concert soloist with various ensembles including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the New York Chorale Society.
In 1977, she recorded Arthur Shepherd's Triptych, for High Voice and String Quartet with the Emerson String Quartet for New World Records. In 1987, she recorded an album of "Cantatas & Arias," with trumpeter Bob Haley, for Crystal Records.
Norden married Bob Haley on December 10, 1972, and has two sons.
Ileana Cotrubaș is a Romanian operatic soprano whose career spanned from the 1960s to the 1980s. She was much admired for her acting skills and facility for singing opera in many different languages.
Renata Scotto was an Italian soprano, opera director, and voice teacher. Recognised for her sense of style, her musicality, and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered to have been one of the preeminent opera singers of her generation.
Sherrill Milnes is an American dramatic baritone most famous for his Verdi roles. From 1965 until 1997 he was associated with the Metropolitan Opera. His voice is a high dramatic baritone, combining good legato with an incisive rhythmic style.
Mirella Freni, OMRI was an Italian operatic soprano who had a career of 50 years and appeared at major international opera houses. She received international attention at the Glyndebourne Festival, where she appeared as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni and as Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore.
Teresa Stratas is an operatic soprano and actress from Canada of Greek descent. She is especially well known for her award-winning recording of Alban Berg's Lulu. She has now formally retired.
Louis Quilico, was a Canadian opera singer. One of the leading dramatic baritones of his day, he was an ideal interpreter of the great Italian and French composers, especially Giuseppe Verdi. He was often referred to as "Mr Rigoletto" in reference to the Verdi opera. During his 45-year-long career he shared performing credits with opera's greatest stars. He spent 25 consecutive years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. After his retirement from the stage in 1998 he continued to perform and record, most often with his second wife, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico,, with whom he made four CDs. The couple also toured together extensively in concerts until Quilico's death in 2000. Quilico received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, Canada's highest honour in the performing arts, in November 1999 for his lifetime contribution to classical music.
Judith Doris Forst is a Canadian mezzo-soprano.
Paul Plishka is an American operatic bass.
Charles Anthony Caruso, better known by his stage name of Charles Anthony, was an American actor and tenor noted for his portrayal of comprimario characters in opera. Anthony had the distinction of appearing in more performances at the Metropolitan Opera than any other performer. He celebrated his fiftieth anniversary with the company in 2004, and gave his farewell in the role of the aged Emperor Altoum in Turandot, at the Met, on January 28, 2010.
Susanne Marsee is an American mezzo-soprano of note, particularly acclaimed as a singing-actress.
Ferruccio Furlanetto is an Italian bass. His professional debut was in 1974 in Lonigo, he debuted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1979, in a production of Verdi's Macbeth, conducted by Claudio Abbado. He has gone on to sing numerous roles, including both Don Giovanni and Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Philip II in Verdi's Don Carlos, Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Gremin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Zaccaria in Verdi's Nabucco, Méphistophélès in Gounod's Faust, Orestes in Strauss' Elektra, Fiesco in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, the title role of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, as well as many other roles.
Dolora Zajick is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer who specializes in the Verdian repertoire. Zajick has been described as having "one of the greatest voices in the history of opera".
Cornell MacNeil was an American operatic baritone known for his exceptional voice and long career with the Metropolitan Opera, which spanned 642 performances in twenty-six roles. Opera News opined he "was a great baritone in era of great baritones — Warren, Gobbi, Merrill, Milnes — and in the contemporary press, comparisons to his colleagues were frequent. But MacNeil's performances had singular musical richness, and moral and intellectual complexity that were his alone. MacNeil may have had rivals, but he had no equals."
Rosalind Anne Plowright is an English opera singer who spent much of her career as a soprano but in 1999 changed to the mezzo-soprano range.
Joy Clements was an American lyric coloratura soprano who had a substantial opera and concert career from 1956 through the late 1970s. She notably sang regularly with both the New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera during the 1960s through the early 1970s. She also traveled regularly for performances with opera companies and orchestras throughout the United States but only appeared in a relatively few number of performances internationally.
Gail Robinson was an American operatic soprano who sang with many of the world's leading opera companies during the 1970s and 1980s. She spent most of her career singing lyric coloratura roles at the Metropolitan Opera. After her performance career ended she taught singing to young artists and also directed the Metropolitan Opera's Young Artist Program for over ten years. Upon leaving the Met, she joined the voice faculty at the University of Kentucky.
Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz is a Norwegian-Italian operatic soprano.
Jean Kraft was an American operatic mezzo-soprano. She began her career singing with the New York City Opera (NYCO) during the early 1960s, after which she embarked on a partnership with The Santa Fe Opera from 1965 through 1987. In 1970 she joined the roster of singers at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City where she remained a fixture until 1989. She also performed as a guest of many other opera companies throughout the United States. In 2005 Opera News called her "a gifted mezzo and observant, imaginative actress who lent distinction to a wide range of character roles. By the end of her Met tenure, she had sung nearly 800 performances and become a solid audience favorite."
Vasile Moldoveanu is a Romanian tenor.
The soprano Renata Scotto made many recordings, some of complete operas, others of collections of arias. Some of her performances can be seen on video, recorded live, especially in Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.