Michael Pollock (tenor)
Encyclopedia
Michael Pollock was an American opera
tic tenor
, opera director, and voice teacher. He notably worked as both a performer and director at the New York City Opera
during the 1940s and 1950s.
, Pollock began his career appearing in Off-Broadway
productions in the mid 1940s. In 1947-1948 he was a member of the chorus in the Broadway
revival of Marc Blitzstein
's The Cradle Will Rock
. In 1949 he became a member of the New York City Opera
(NYCO) at the invitation of Laszlo Halasz
, making his debut with the company as the animal vendor in Richard Strauss
's Der Rosenkavalier
. In 1953 he created the role of Kokhkaryov in the world premiere of Bohuslav Martinů
's The Marriage
with the NBC Opera Theater.
Pollock appeared as a character tenor in numerous NYCO productions up through 1956, notably creating roles in the world premieres of David Tamkin
's The Dybbuk
(1951) and Aaron Copland
’s The Tender Land
(1954). He also sang with the company in the United States premieres of Gottfried von Einem
's The Trial (1953), Frank Martin
's Der Sturm (1956), and Carl Orff
's Der Mond
(1956). Other roles for him with the company included King Kaspar in Gian Carlo Menotti
's Amahl and the Night Visitors
(1952) and Leo Hubbard in Blitzstein's Regina
.
In 1957 Pollock moved away from performance to focus on working as a stage director at the NYCO.
He notably directed the NYCO's first mountings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's Die Entführung aus dem Serail
(1957), Leonard Bernstein
's Trouble in Tahiti
(1958, conducted by the composer), the first professional production of Mark Bucci
's Tale for a Deaf Ear
(1958), and the world premiere of Robert Ward's He Who Gets Slapped (1959) among others.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, Pollock taught singing and directed opera theatre programs at various institutions; notably serving on the faculties of Florida State University
and Indiana University
among others. He died in San Diego, California
at the age of 82.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, opera director, and voice teacher. He notably worked as both a performer and director at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
during the 1940s and 1950s.
Biography
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Pollock began his career appearing in Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
productions in the mid 1940s. In 1947-1948 he was a member of the chorus in the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
revival of Marc Blitzstein
Marc Blitzstein
Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, better known as Marc Blitzstein , was an American composer. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration...
's The Cradle Will Rock
The Cradle Will Rock
The Cradle Will Rock is a 1937 musical by Marc Blitzstein. Originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project, it was directed by Orson Welles, and produced by John Houseman. The show was recorded and released on seven 78-rpm discs in 1938, making it the first cast album recording.The musical is a...
. In 1949 he became a member of the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
(NYCO) at the invitation of Laszlo Halasz
Laszlo Halasz
Laszlo Halasz was an American opera director, conductor, and pianist of Hungarian birth. In 1943 he was appointed the first director of the New York City Opera; a position he held through 1951...
, making his debut with the company as the animal vendor in Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
. In 1953 he created the role of Kokhkaryov in the world premiere of Bohuslav Martinů
Bohuslav Martinu
Bohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
's The Marriage
The Marriage (opera)
The Marriage is a comic opera in 2 acts by Bohuslav Martinů, to the composer's own libretto, after the play of the same name by Nikolai Gogol. The opera was commissioned for television by the NBC, and the NBC Opera Theatre performed the work's world premiere on their television program NBC TV Opera...
with the NBC Opera Theater.
Pollock appeared as a character tenor in numerous NYCO productions up through 1956, notably creating roles in the world premieres of David Tamkin
David Tamkin
David Tamkin was an American composer of Jewish descent. He devoted much of his professional career as an arranger, composer [uncredited] and orchestrator of film scores for Hollywood movies. He worked on more than 50 films between 1939 and 1970.-Biography:Tamkin was born in Chernihiv, Ukraine...
's The Dybbuk
The Dybbuk (opera)
The Dybbuk is an opera in three acts by composer David Tamkin. The work uses an English libretto by Alex Tamkin, the composer's brother, which is based on S. Ansky’s Yiddish play of the same name. Composed in 1933, the work was not premiered until October 4, 1951 when it was mounted by the New York...
(1951) and Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
’s The Tender Land
The Tender Land
The Tender Land is an opera with music by Aaron Copland and libretto by Horace Everett, a pseudonym for Erik Johns. The opera tells of a farm family in the Midwest of the United States. Copland was inspired to write this opera after viewing the Depression-era photographs of Walker Evans and...
(1954). He also sang with the company in the United States premieres of Gottfried von Einem
Gottfried von Einem
Gottfried von Einem was an Austrian composer. He is known chiefly for his operas influenced by the music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, as well as by jazz. He also composed pieces for piano, violin and organ.-Biography:...
's The Trial (1953), Frank Martin
Frank Martin (composer)
Frank Martin was a Swiss composer, who lived a large part of his life in the Netherlands.-Childhood and youth:...
's Der Sturm (1956), and Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
's Der Mond
Der Mond
Der Mond is an opera in one act by Carl Orff based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale with a libretto by the composer. It was first performed on 5 February 1939 by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich under the direction of Clemens Krauss...
(1956). Other roles for him with the company included King Kaspar in Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...
's Amahl and the Night Visitors
Amahl and the Night Visitors
Amahl and the Night Visitors is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer. It was commissioned by NBC and first performed by the NBC Opera Theatre on December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, where it was broadcast...
(1952) and Leo Hubbard in Blitzstein's Regina
Regina (opera)
Regina is an opera by Marc Blitzstein, to his own libretto based on the play The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman. It was completed in 1948 and premiered the next year. Blitzstein chose this source in order to make a strong statement against capitalism...
.
In 1957 Pollock moved away from performance to focus on working as a stage director at the NYCO.
He notably directed the NYCO's first mountings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
(1957), Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's Trouble in Tahiti
Trouble in Tahiti
Trouble in Tahiti is a one-act opera in seven scenes composed by Leonard Bernstein with an English libretto by the composer. The opera received its first performance on 12 June 1952 at Berstein's Festival of the Creative Arts on the campus of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts to an...
(1958, conducted by the composer), the first professional production of Mark Bucci
Mark Bucci
Mark Bucci was an American composer, lyricist, and dramatist. Influenced by Giacomo Puccini, his work is composed in a contemporary yet lyrical style which frequently employs marked rhythms and memorable harmonies and melodies.-Career:Bucci studied music composition with Tibor Serly in New York...
's Tale for a Deaf Ear
Tale for a Deaf Ear
Tale for a Deaf Ear is an opera in one act with music and lyrics by Mark Bucci, sung in three languages and based on a story by Elizabeth Enright that appeared in the April 1951 edition of Harper's Magazine. The work was commissioned by Samuel Wechsler for performance at the 1957 Tanglewood Music...
(1958), and the world premiere of Robert Ward's He Who Gets Slapped (1959) among others.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, Pollock taught singing and directed opera theatre programs at various institutions; notably serving on the faculties of Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
and Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
among others. He died in San Diego, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
at the age of 82.