Leonard Warren
Encyclopedia
Leonard Warren was a famous American
opera singer. A baritone
, he was a leading artist for many years with the Metropolitan Opera
in New York.
. In 1938, he entered the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air. Despite the fact Warren was obviously a novice, his natural gifts were apparent, and he was immediately given a contract. The Met sent him to Italy that summer with a stipend to study.
Returning to America, Warren made his concert debut at the Metropolitan Opera in excerpts from La traviata
and Pagliacci
during a concert in New York in November 1938. His formal operatic debut took place there in January 1939, when he sang Paolo in Simon Boccanegra
. A recording contract with RCA Victor soon followed.
Warren later sang in San Francisco, Chicago, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires, he appeared at La Scala
in Milan in 1953, and in 1958, he made a highly successful tour of the Soviet Union, but for most of his career he remained in New York and sang at the Met. Sometime during that period, he converted to Roman Catholicism, the faith of his wife Agatha, and became extremely devout.
Although he sang Tonio in Pagliacci, Escamillo in Carmen
, and Scarpia in Tosca
, he was particularly acclaimed as one of the finest interpreters of the great Verdi baritone roles, above all the title role of Rigoletto
, which was captured in 1950 in an RCA recording with soprano Erna Berger
and tenor Jan Peerce
, conducted by Renato Cellini
. This was the first complete operatic recording to be released by RCA Victor on LP records. He also sang the role in a Madison Square Garden
Red Cross benefit concert in 1944, in which only the final act of the opera was featured. Jan Peerce again sang the Duke, but this time Zinka Milanov
was Gilda, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra
was conducted by Arturo Toscanini
. This Rigoletto excerpt was later released on records and CD by RCA Victor, and the entire concert was released years later on an unofficial CD 2-disc album. His other published complete opera recordings included La traviata with Rosanna Carteri, Cesare Valletti, and conductor Pierre Monteux
, Pagliacci with Victoria de los Ángeles
, Jussi Björling
and Robert Merrill
; Tosca, Aida
, and Il trovatore
, each with Zinka Milanov and Jussi Björling; a second recording of Il trovatore with his friend and final tenor co-star, Richard Tucker
, featuring a young Leontyne Price
in her Met debut role of Leonora; and Verdi's Macbeth
, with Leonie Rysanek
and Carlo Bergonzi
. Private recordings exist of his Simon Boccanegra
and Iago in Otello
. He also was the Renato in an album of highlights from Un ballo in maschera
made with Marian Anderson
as Ulrica on the occasion of her Met debut.
Warren took part in an historic television milestone in 1948, when he sang in the first-ever live telecast from the Metropolitan Opera. Giuseppe Verdi
's Otello was broadcast complete by ABC-TV
on November 29, 1948, the opening night of the season. Ramon Vinay
was Otello, Licia Albanese
was Desdemona, and Warren sang the role of Iago.
In 1958 Warren toured the USSR. He was one of the few American artists allowed to do so and had great success at concerts in Leningrad
and Kiev
. The concerts were recorded and excerpts have been released on the RCA LP and later CD Leonard Warren: On Tour in Russia.
In his book The American Opera Singer (1997, ISBN ), Peter G. Davis wrote of Warren:
Soprano Renata Tebaldi
said of his voice: "it was a very, very soft, velvety voice...He was truly stupendous." The actor and opera fan Tony Randall said Warren's voice was "huge" and it filled the Metropolitan Opera theatre "like black smoke."
on March 1, 1960 at the Met. Three days later, in a performance of La forza del destino
with Renata Tebaldi
, he died on stage. Eyewitnesses including Rudolf Bing report that Warren had completed La Forza's Act III aria, which begins Morir, tremenda cosa ("to die, a momentous thing"), and was supposed to open a sealed wallet, examine the contents and cry out "E salvo, o gioia" (He is safe, oh joy), before launching into the vigorous cabaletta
. While Bing reports that Warren simply went silent and fell face-forward to the floor, others state that he started coughing and gasping, and that he cried out "Help me, help me!" before falling to the floor, remaining motionless. A few minutes later he was pronounced dead and the rest of the performance was canceled. Cause of death was determined to be a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Warren was only forty-eight. His death impacted the Met schedule for several years following; he had been cast in the title role for a future Met premiere of Verdi's Nabucco
during the 1960-61 season.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
opera singer. A baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
, he was a leading artist for many years with the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York.
Biography
Born Leonard Warenoff in New York to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Warren was first employed in his father's fur business. In 1935, he joined the chorus at Radio City Music HallRadio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
. In 1938, he entered the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air. Despite the fact Warren was obviously a novice, his natural gifts were apparent, and he was immediately given a contract. The Met sent him to Italy that summer with a stipend to study.
Returning to America, Warren made his concert debut at the Metropolitan Opera in excerpts from La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
and Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
during a concert in New York in November 1938. His formal operatic debut took place there in January 1939, when he sang Paolo in Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
. A recording contract with RCA Victor soon followed.
Warren later sang in San Francisco, Chicago, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires, he appeared at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan in 1953, and in 1958, he made a highly successful tour of the Soviet Union, but for most of his career he remained in New York and sang at the Met. Sometime during that period, he converted to Roman Catholicism, the faith of his wife Agatha, and became extremely devout.
Although he sang Tonio in Pagliacci, Escamillo in Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, and Scarpia in Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, he was particularly acclaimed as one of the finest interpreters of the great Verdi baritone roles, above all the title role of Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, which was captured in 1950 in an RCA recording with soprano Erna Berger
Erna Berger
Erna Berger , was a prominent German coloratura lyric soprano. She is most famous for her Queen of the Night and her Konstanze....
and tenor Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce....
, conducted by Renato Cellini
Renato Cellini
Renato Cellini was a celebrated Italian opera conductor. His father was Enzio Cellini, who was a stage director who worked with Arturo Toscanini.- Metropolitan Opera :...
. This was the first complete operatic recording to be released by RCA Victor on LP records. He also sang the role in a Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
Red Cross benefit concert in 1944, in which only the final act of the opera was featured. Jan Peerce again sang the Duke, but this time Zinka Milanov
Zinka Milanov
Zinka Milanov was a Croatian-born operatic spinto soprano who had a major career centred on the New York Metropolitan Opera.-Biography:...
was Gilda, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra
NBC Symphony Orchestra
The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra established by David Sarnoff of the National Broadcasting Company especially for conductor Arturo Toscanini...
was conducted by Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
. This Rigoletto excerpt was later released on records and CD by RCA Victor, and the entire concert was released years later on an unofficial CD 2-disc album. His other published complete opera recordings included La traviata with Rosanna Carteri, Cesare Valletti, and conductor Pierre Monteux
Pierre Monteux
Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...
, Pagliacci with Victoria de los Ángeles
Victoria de los Ángeles
Victoria de los Ángeles was a Spanish Catalan operatic soprano and recitalist whose career began in the early 1940s and reached its height in the years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Her obituary in The Times noted that she must be counted “among the finest singers of the second half...
, Jussi Björling
Jussi Björling
Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th Century, Björling appeared frequently at the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as well as at other major European opera...
and Robert Merrill
Robert Merrill
Robert Merrill was an American operatic baritone.-Early life:Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland.His mother...
; Tosca, Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, and Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
, each with Zinka Milanov and Jussi Björling; a second recording of Il trovatore with his friend and final tenor co-star, Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker was an American operatic tenor.-Early life:Tucker was born Rivn Ticker in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of Romanian immigrants from Bessarabia. His father, Shmul Ticker, and mother Fanya-Tsipa Ticker had already adopted the surname "Tucker" by the time their son entered first...
, featuring a young Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
in her Met debut role of Leonora; and Verdi's Macbeth
Macbeth (opera)
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...
, with Leonie Rysanek
Leonie Rysanek
Leopoldine "Leonie" Rysanek was an Austrian dramatic soprano.-Biography:Rysanek was born in Vienna and made her operatic debut in 1949 in Innsbruck. In 1951 the Bayreuth Festival reopened and the new leader Wieland Wagner asked her to sing Sieglinde...
and Carlo Bergonzi
Carlo Bergonzi
Carlo Bergonzi is an Italian operatic tenor. Although he performed and recorded some bel canto and verismo roles, he is above all associated with the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, including a large number of the composer's lesser-known works that he helped revive...
. Private recordings exist of his Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
and Iago in Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
. He also was the Renato in an album of highlights from Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
made with Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...
as Ulrica on the occasion of her Met debut.
Warren took part in an historic television milestone in 1948, when he sang in the first-ever live telecast from the Metropolitan Opera. Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Otello was broadcast complete by ABC-TV
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
on November 29, 1948, the opening night of the season. Ramon Vinay
Ramón Vinay
Ramón Vinay was a famous Chilean operatic tenor with a powerful, dramatic voice. He is probably best remembered for his appearances in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's tragic opera Otello....
was Otello, Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese is an Italian-born American operatic soprano. Noted especially for her portrayals of the lyric heroines of Verdi and Puccini, Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera of New York from 1940 to 1966...
was Desdemona, and Warren sang the role of Iago.
In 1958 Warren toured the USSR. He was one of the few American artists allowed to do so and had great success at concerts in Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
and Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
. The concerts were recorded and excerpts have been released on the RCA LP and later CD Leonard Warren: On Tour in Russia.
In his book The American Opera Singer (1997, ISBN ), Peter G. Davis wrote of Warren:
- The rich, rounded, mellow quality of [Warren's] voice, fairly bursting with resonant overtones, may not have been to every taste, particularly those preferring a narrower baritonal focus that "speaks" more quickly on the note. But by any standards it was a deluxe, quintessentially "Metropolitan Opera sound", one that seemed to take on a special glow and lustrousness as it opened up and spread itself generously around the big auditorium. And of course the easy top was its special glory -- when relaxing with friends Warren would often tear into tenor arias like "Di quella pira" and toss off the high Cs that many tenors lacked. He could have, but never did, overindulge that applause-getting facility.
Soprano Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period...
said of his voice: "it was a very, very soft, velvety voice...He was truly stupendous." The actor and opera fan Tony Randall said Warren's voice was "huge" and it filled the Metropolitan Opera theatre "like black smoke."
Death
Warren's last complete performance was in the title role of Simon BoccanegraSimon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
on March 1, 1960 at the Met. Three days later, in a performance of La forza del destino
La forza del destino
La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...
with Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period...
, he died on stage. Eyewitnesses including Rudolf Bing report that Warren had completed La Forza's Act III aria, which begins Morir, tremenda cosa ("to die, a momentous thing"), and was supposed to open a sealed wallet, examine the contents and cry out "E salvo, o gioia" (He is safe, oh joy), before launching into the vigorous cabaletta
Cabaletta
Cabaletta describes the two-part musical form particularly favored for arias in 19th century Italian opera, and is more properly the name of the more animated section following the songlike cantabile. It often introduces a complication or intensification of emotion and/or plot. Some sources...
. While Bing reports that Warren simply went silent and fell face-forward to the floor, others state that he started coughing and gasping, and that he cried out "Help me, help me!" before falling to the floor, remaining motionless. A few minutes later he was pronounced dead and the rest of the performance was canceled. Cause of death was determined to be a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Warren was only forty-eight. His death impacted the Met schedule for several years following; he had been cast in the title role for a future Met premiere of Verdi's Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
during the 1960-61 season.