The Handel Society of New York (HSNY) was a New York City based musical organization that presented concert and semi-staged performances of operas and oratorios by George Frideric Handel from 1966-1974. The group mainly performed out of Carnegie Hall and was responsible for presenting the American and New York premieres of several works by Handel. The ensemble was also the first to record many of these works; releasing several LPs for RCA and Westminster Records.
The HSNY was founded in January 1966 by talent manager Arthur Judson and New York businessman and music lover James Grayson. [1] Grayson served as the group's Executive Director throughout the company's history. [2] The ensemble's first music director was conductor Brian Priestman, and the group's longtime harpsichordist was Martin Isepp. The ensemble gave its debut performance, a semi-staged production of Xerxes , at Carnegie Hall on 20 November 1966 with Maureen Forrester in the title role, Maureen Lehane as Arsamene, Janet Baker as Amastre, Teresa Stich-Randall as Romilda, Alpha Brawner as Atalanta, John Shirley-Quirk as Ariodate, and Yi-Kwei Sze as Elviro. [3] The same performers, with the additions of Regina Sarfaty as Eduige and Charles Bressler as Grimoaldo, were utilized the following week in semi-staged performances of Rodelinda . [4] Both of these works were recorded on LPs for Westminster Records. [5]
In 1966 the HSNY made their first recording for RCA Red Seal Records: the musical drama Hercules with Priestman conducting the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. [6] This was followed in 1968 with a recording of the oratorio Solomon with Shirley-Quirk in the title role. The recording was made in Austria with the orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper under conductor Stephen Simon. [7] Simon was appointed the HSNY's new director in 1970, [8] a position he remained in until the ensemble disbanded in 1974. Simon's first performance as music director was the United States premiere of Orlando presented in a concert version on January 18, 1971 at Carnegie Hall. The production starred Rosalind Elias in the title role with Camilla Williams as Angelica, Betty Allen as Medoro, Carole Bogard as Dorinda, and Justino Díaz as Zoroastro. [9]
Under Simon's leadership, the HSNY presented two more United States premieres at Carnegie Hall. On March 29, 1971 the ensemble performed the American premiere of Ariodante in a concert version with mezzo-soprano Sophia Steffan in the title role and Judith Raskin as Ginerva. [10] In March 1972 the HSNY introduced to American audiences Handel's Rinaldo in a concert version starring Beverly Wolff in the title role. [11] The HSNY presented the New York premiere of Handel's Alcina , which had been performed only once before in the United States, under the baton of Priestman on March 25, 1974 with Cristina Deutekom in the title role and Karan Armstrong as Morgana. [12]
In February 1973 Simon conducted the HSNY in their only performance of a non-Handel work, William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast , which was paired with an edited version of Handel's Belshazzar . [13] Other Handel works which Simon conducted for the HSNY were the oratorios Solomon (1971), [14] Athalia (1972), [15] Judas Maccabaeus (1972), [16] and Saul (1973); [17] and the opera Ezio (1973). [18] He conducted the HSNY's last concert, a performance of Handel's Samson , on April 23, 1974 with Richard Tucker in the title role. [19]
Year | Work | Cast | Conductor, Chorus and/or Orchestra | Label |
---|---|---|---|---|
1967 | Solomon , an oratorio in 3 acts | Saramae Endich Patricia Brooks Alexander Young John Shirley-Quirk | Stephen Simon (conductor) Vienna Youth Choir Vienna Volksoper Orchestra | RCA Red Seal Records, 1968 3 sound discs : 33 1/3 rpm, stereo ; 12 in LP LSC 6187 |
1970 | Orlando , opera in 3 acts | Sophia Steffan (Orlando) Graziella Sciutti (Angelica) Bernadette Greevy (Medoro) Carole Bogard (Dorinda) Marius Rintzler (Zoroastro) | Stephen Simon (conductor) Vienna Youth Choir Vienna Volksoper Orchestra | RCA Red Seal Records, 1971 3 sound discs : 33 1/3 rpm, stereo ; 12 in LP LSC 6197 |
1970 | Ariodante , opera in 3 acts | Sophia Steffan (Ariodante) Graziella Sciutti (Ginerva) Bernadette Greevy (Polinesso) Carole Bogard (Dalinda) Ian Partridge (Lurcanio) Marius Rintzler (King of Scotland) | Stephen Simon Vienna Academy Choir Vienna State Opera Chorus | RCA Red Seal Records, 1971 3 sound discs : 33 1/3 rpm, stereo ; 12 in LP LSC 6200 |
1972 | Rinaldo , opera in 3 acts [excerpts] | Beverly Wolff (Rinaldo) Arleen Auger (Almirena) Rita Shane (Armida) Raymond Michalski (Argante) | Stephen Simon Vienna Volksoper Orchestra | RCA Red Seal Records, 1973 1 sound disc : 33 1/3 rpm, stereo ; 12 in ARL1-0084 |
1974 | Alcina , opera in 3 acts | Cristina Deutekom (Alcina) Beverly Wolff (Ruggiero) Karan Armstrong (Morgana) Lucia Valentini-Terrani (Bradamante) John Stewart (Oronte) Paul Plishka (Melisso) | Brian Priestman Handel Society of New York Orchestra & Chorus | Gala GL 100.584 |
John Stanton Shirley-Quirk CBE was an English bass-baritone. A member of the English Opera Group from 1964 to 1976, he gave premiere performances of several operatic and vocal works by Benjamin Britten, recording these and other works under the composer's direction. He also sang and recorded a wide range of works by other composers, ranging from Handel through Tchaikovsky to Henze.
Joanna Elizabeth Simon was an American mezzo-soprano and journalist. The daughter of publisher Richard L. Simon, Joanna was an elder sister of singer and songwriter Carly Simon, singer and musical theatre composer Lucy Simon, and photographer Peter Simon.
The Oratorio Society of New York is a not-for-profit membership organization that performs choral music in the oratorio style. Founded in 1873 by conductor Leopold Damrosch, it is the third oldest musical organization in New York City. The Society had a prominent role in the building of Carnegie Hall. Throughout its history, it has premiered many new choral works.
Thomas Burt Dunn was an American musician, conductor and music editor known for his performances of Baroque music. He is considered an important figure in the development of the 20th-century early music revival and adoption of historically informed performance practices in the United States.
Beverly Wolff was an American mezzo-soprano who had an active career in concerts and operas from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. She performed a broad repertoire which encompassed operatic and concert works in many languages and from a variety of musical periods. She was a champion of new works, notably premiering compositions by Leonard Bernstein, Gian Carlo Menotti, Douglas Moore, and Ned Rorem among other American composers. She also performed in a number of rarely heard baroque operas by George Frideric Handel with the New York City Opera (NYCO), the Handel Society of New York, and at the Kennedy Center Handel Festivals.
James Billings was an American operatic baritone, librettist, and opera director. He began his career in the late 1950s in Boston and later became a member of the New York City Opera where he performed regularly from the early 1970s through the 1990s. A specialist in the comprimario repertoire, he has portrayed more than 175 opera roles on stage during his long career. Billings has also written librettos for numerous operas for children and since the mid-1990s has directed several opera productions.
Betty Allen was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active international singing career during the 1950s through the 1970s. In the latter part of her career her voice acquired a contralto-like darkening, which can be heard on her recording of Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky with conductor Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. She was known for her collaborations with American composers, such as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Ned Rorem, and Virgil Thomson among others.
William Brown was an American operatic tenor, a founding member of the Center for Black Music Repertory Ensemble and a Distinguished Professor of Voice at the University of North Florida.
John Harger Stewart is an American tenor, conductor, and voice teacher who had an active international singing career in concerts and operas from 1964 to 1990. He began his career singing regularly with the Santa Fe Opera from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s; after which he appeared only periodically in Santa Fe up through the mid-1980s. He was particularly active with the New York City Opera during the 1970s and 1980s, and with the Frankfurt Opera from the mid-1970s through 1990. He also appeared as a guest artist with several other important American opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Washington National Opera, and at other European opera houses like the De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Grand Théâtre de Genève in Switzerland, and the Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland. Now retired from singing, he is currently the Director of Vocal Activities at Washington University in St. Louis where he also teaches singing and conducts student opera productions and choirs. He also serves as the opera conductor at the Johanna Meier Opera Theater Institute at Black Hills State University.
Stephen Anthony Simon was an American conductor, composer, and arranger. He was a noted proponent of the music of George Frederic Handel, serving as music director of the Handel Society of New York and recording several of Handel's operas and oratorios for the RCA label. Simon also became known for his pioneering programming of works for orchestra and narrator for young people, including his own Casey at the Bat and The Tortoise and the Hare.
Elaine Bonazzi was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active international career from the 1950s through the 1990s. A singer with an unusually broad repertoire that encompassed both classical and contemporary works, she notably created roles in the world premieres of operas by composers Dominick Argento, David Carlson, Carlisle Floyd, Gian Carlo Menotti, Thomas Pasatieri, and Ned Rorem. In the United States she was particularly active with the New York City Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, and the Washington National Opera.
Beverly Hoch is an American coloratura soprano and music educator who has had an active performance career in operas, concerts, and on recordings since the late 1970s. She has been teaching at Texas Woman's University since 2007.
Kathryn Day is an American opera singer who has had an active international career spanning five decades. She began her career as a leading soprano under the name Kathryn Bouleyn in the 1970s and 1980s with companies like the New York City Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. With the latter institution she created the role of Cora in the world premiere of Stephen Paulus' The Postman Always Rings Twice (1982).
Robert White is an American tenor and voice teacher who has had an active performance career for eight decades. If he is not better known to the general public, it is because his career, confined to art song and the concert stage, has not brought him the wider renown of singers who make their careers in opera; but he has long been cherished by connoisseurs of vocal music for the pure lyric sweetness of his voice and his scrupulous musicianship.
Günther Leib was a German operatic baritone and professor of voice. A Kammersänger of the Dresden State Opera, he sang leading baritone roles both in his native Germany and internationally during the course of his stage career. In 1971 he was awarded the Robert Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau and in 2017 on the occasion of his 90th birthday the "Gotha-Medaille", honoring him for his international career as "Gotha's most famous voice". He appeared in a number of complete opera and oratorio recordings on the Eterna, Supraphon, and Deutsche Grammophon labels.
John Lankston was an American tenor and actor who had a career in opera and musical theatre from the 1950s through the 2000s. After making his Broadway debut in Redhead (1959), he went on to create the roles of Adolph and the Ziegfeld Tenor in Jule Styne's Funny Girl (1963) in which he was a featured soloist with Barbra Streisand. For his work, he and the rest of the main cast were awarded the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album at the 7th Annual Grammy Awards. He was a regular performer with the New York City Opera from 1966 to 2001. His greatest success with the NYCO was his creation of the quintuple role of Voltaire/Pangloss/Businessman/Governor/Gambler in the 1982 revival of Leonard Bernstein's Candide which was directed by Hal Prince and filmed for national broadcast on PBS's Live from Lincoln Center. The company later recorded the production on disc, and Langston and the rest of the artists involved were awarded the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 1987.
Thomas Jamerson is an American baritone who had an active international career as an opera and concert performer from the 1960s through the 1990s. He first drew distinction in the field of opera in 1968 when he recorded the role of Baron Douphol in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata for RCA with conductor Georges Prêtre, the RCA Italiana Orchestra, and Montserrat Caballé as Violetta and Carlo Bergonzi as Alfredo. In 1969 he portrayed roles in the United States premieres of two operas at the Santa Fe Opera: Der Auserwählte in Arnold Schoenberg's Die Jakobsleiter and Captain of the Royal Guard in Hans Werner Henze's The Bassarids. He was a principal artist with the New York City Opera from 1969 to 1984. In 1971 he notably created the role of Professor Bolental in the world premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Most Important Man. He currently teaches voice on the faculty at the Music Conservatory of Westchester in White Plains, New York.
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Joyce Mathis was an American soprano who was a concert artist, recitalist, and opera singer from the 1960s into the early 1990s. She is considered a part of the first generation of black classical singers to achieve success in the United States; breaking down racial barriers within the field of classical music. She won several notable singing competitions, including the Marian Anderson Award in 1967 and the Young Concert Artists in 1968. In 1970 she recorded the role of the High Priestess in Verdi's Aida alongside Leontyne Price and Plácido Domingo. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ned Rorem wrote his song cycle Women's Voices for her in 1975. In 1976 she created the role of Celestina in Roger Ames's opera Amistad at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She appeared frequently in performances with Opera Ebony and the Boys Choir of Harlem in addition to touring widely as a recitalist and concert soprano.
Thomas Paul is an American bass and voice teacher who had an active performance career during the second half of the 20th century. While more frequently heard in oratorios and other concert literature, Paul also appeared in operas during his career with companies like the New York City Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and Washington National Opera. In 1964 he created the role of Jack Spaniard in the world premiere of Robert Ward's The Lady From Colorado at the Central City Opera. In 1976 he portrayed Jared Bilby in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd's Bilby's Doll at the Houston Grand Opera. He was a full time professor of voice at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester from 1973 through 1998, and also taught at the Aspen Music Festival and School.