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Regina Sarfaty (born 1934), later Regina Sarfaty Rickless after her marriage to Elwood A. Rickless in 1963, is an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active career during the 1950s through the 1980s. Sarfaty first rose to prominence through her work at the Santa Fe Opera and the New York City Opera during the late 1950s. She later enjoyed international success in the 1960s and 1970s, and had a particularly lengthy career singing with the Zurich Opera.
Born in November 1934 in Rochester, New York, Sarfaty grew up in Brooklyn, New York. [1] [2] She won the Margaret McGill Scholarship to The Juilliard School, [2] She matriculated there in 1952 and studied voice with Florence Kimball. [1] She graduated five years later with a Bachelor of Music. [1]
Sarfaty won several awards in her years as a young singer. These included the Florence Eaton Award from the Berkshire Music Center, the Leopold Schepp Foundation Award, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Music Fund Prize, and the Naumburg Award. [2] While a student at Juilliard, she began to perform professionally in concerts. [1] In 1956 she created the role of Zinida in the world premiere of Robert Ward's He Who Gets Slapped at the Juilliard School; a role she would later perform with the New York City Opera in 1959. [3]
Sarfaty made her professional opera debut in 1957 as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly at the Santa Fe Opera under conductor John Crosby. It was the very first production of that opera company, and Safarty was the very first singer to appear on the stage of the Santa Fe Opera. [4] She scored her first major success with that company that same season as Rosina in The Barber of Seville . [1] She gave three other performances with the company during that summer season, Suzuki in Puccini's Madama Butterfly , Baba the Turk in The Rake's Progress , and Tabitha in the world premiere of Marvin David Levy's The Tower . Sarfatay returned regularly to the SFO through 1968, portraying such roles as Clarion in Richard Strauss's Capriccio , Dorabella in Così fan tutte , Meg Page in Falstaff , Jane Seymour in Anna Bolena , Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus , and the title roles in Regina and Carmen (conducted by Robert Craft, in 1961), among others. She also sang the role of Anna in Les Troyens (conducted by Robert Lawrence, in 1959), Nelly in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights in 1958 (with Phyllis Curtin) and Agave in the United States premiere of Hans Werner Henze's The Bassarids in 1968 with the SFO. [1] [5]
In 1958 Sarfaty made her debut with the New York City Opera as the Widow Zimmerlein in Strauss's Die schweigsame Frau . She sang regularly with the NYCO through 1962, in roles like Angelina in La cenerentola , Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro , the title role in Maria Golovin , and Jocasta in Oedipus Rex . [1] She sang in two world premieres with the company, the role of "the Mezzo" in Hugo Weisgall's Six Characters in Search of an Author (opposite Beverly Sills), [6] and in Douglas Moore's The Wings of the Dove . [7] In 1960 she starred as the Secretary in the third New York City Center revival of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul alongside fellow artists Patricia Neway as Magda, Chester Ludgin as John, and Werner Torkanowsky conducting. This production which recorded and broadcast on the Telemeter network in March 1961. [8] In 2004 this recording was released by VAI. [8]
In 1959, the mezzo-soprano sang Adele in Bellini's Il pirata, opposite Maria Callas, for the American Opera Society, at Carnegie Hall, a performance that was much later issued by EMI on Compact Discs. [9] In 1960, she portrayed The Secretary in a film of Menotti's The Consul, with Patricia Neway and Chester Ludgin, conducted by Werner Torkanowsky. The film was not seen until 2004, when it was published on DVD by VAI. On the concert stage she was performed with the New York Philharmonic as the alto soloist in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in 1964 under conductor Leonard Bernstein; sharing the stage with fellow soloists Martina Arroyo, Nicholas di Virgilio, and Norman Scott. [10] The performance was recorded and released by Columbia Records in 1969. [11]
Sarfaty made her European debut as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier in 1960 at the Glyndebourne Festival, returning there twenty four years later to portray Adelaide in Arabella . [1] She sang Carmen for her debut with the Frankfurt Opera in 1963, also singing Octavian with the company that season. [1] Appearances at other major opera houses soon followed, including the Bavarian State Opera and the Vienna State Opera. In 1969 she sang Carmen at the Opéra National de Paris. [1]
Sarfatay joined the roster of principal singers at Zurich Opera in the early 1960s and remained active there up through the late 1970s. In Zurich she was particularly admired for her portrayal of Countess Geschwitz in Alban Berg's Lulu . She also appeared in the world premiere of Rudolf Kelterborn's Die Befreiung Thebens in Zurich in 1963. [1]
Sarfaty continued to appear in operas into the mid-1980s. In 1981 she sang Mrs Herring in Albert Herring at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. One of her last appearances was at the Baltimore Opera in 1984 as Madame Croissy in Dialogues of the Carmelites . [1]
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The Consul is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, his first full-length opera.
Patricia Neway was an American operatic soprano and musical theatre actress who had an active international career during the mid-1940s through the 1970s. One of the few performers of her day to enjoy equal success on both the opera and musical theatre stages, she was a regular performer on both Broadway and at the New York City Opera during the 1950s and 1960s.
Chester Ludgin was an American operatic baritone.
Nancy Maultsby is an American operatic mezzo-soprano.
Nancy Shade is an American spinto soprano, best known as a singing-actress. She made her formal debut as Leonora in Il trovatore, in Louisville, in 1967. In 1971, she made her first of many appearances at the New York City Opera, as Musetta in La bohème. She also sang there in Mefistofele, Madama Butterfly, Pagliacci, Susannah, and Die tote Stadt.
Werner Torkanowsky was a German-American conductor, composer and violinist.
Arianna Zukerman is an American lyric soprano who has performed with some of the world's finest orchestras and opera companies. Her voice was described in The Washington Post as "remarkable" combining the "range, warmth and facility of a Rossini mezzo with shimmering, round high notes and exquisite pianissimos."
Rosemary Kuhlmann was an American operatic mezzo-soprano and Broadway musical actress best known for originating the role of the Mother in Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera commissioned for television. Kuhlmann portrayed the role on the annual live NBC broadcast of the production from 1951 through 1962.
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.
William L. Lewis is an American operatic tenor and academic.
Mildred Allen was an American operatic soprano who had an active career during the 1950s and 1960s. She notably was a regular performer at the Metropolitan Opera between 1957 and 1962. She later became a member of the voice faculty at Birmingham-Southern College where she taught from 1987–2009.
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."
Lee Venora is an American operatic soprano and musical theater actress. She was highly active with the New York City Opera between 1957 and 1967 and a regular performer at the San Francisco Opera between 1961 and 1966. She also appeared in a few Broadway musicals, Lincoln Center revivals, and national tours of musicals during her career. Composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein was an admirer of her voice, and she performed with him and the New York Philharmonic on a number of occasions during the late 1950s and early 1960s. She also sang with the orchestra on a couple of recordings and appears on a few musical recordings as well.
Joshua Hecht was an American operatic bass.
Elisabeth Carron, was an American operatic soprano from Newark, New Jersey, who had an active international career from the 1940s through the 1980s. In 1954 she portrayed the Young Woman in the world premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street. From 1988 to 1996 she taught on the voice faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in New York.
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.
Joy Davidson was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, actress, and pedagogue. She performed internationally in many of the world's great opera houses.
Heidi Stober is an American operatic soprano who has performed leading roles in major opera houses internationally, including the Dutch National Opera, the Garsington Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the Municipal Theatre of Santiago, the Semperoper, and the Vienna State Opera. She has been particularly active with the Houston Grand Opera where she has performed in more than a dozen operas since 2004, including the world premieres of Daniel Catán's Salsipuedes: a Tale of Love, War and Anchovies (2004), Mark Adamo's Lysistrata (2005), and Ricky Ian Gordon's The House without a Christmas Tree (2017). She has also performed in more than ten operas with the San Francisco Opera since 2010. Since 2008 she has been a resident artist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin where she has primarily performed roles from the lyric soprano repertoire. Also active as a concert soprano on the international stage, she has performed with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest among other orchestras. She is particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of George Frideric Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Joanna Mary Bruno, also known as Joanna Bruno-Clarke, is an American operatic soprano who had an active international career during the 1960s and 1970s. A lyric soprano, she often performed in operas by Giacomo Puccini and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Helen Vanni was an American opera singer who performed mezzo-soprano and soprano roles.
