Janice Brooks
From:
Pleasant Gap Pa
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Posted 26 Oct 2004 2:25 pm |
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October 26, 2004
Robert Merrill, a Favorite Baritone at the Met for 30 Years,
Is Dead at 87
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Robert Merrill, whose smooth, powerful baritone voice and
vigorous interpretations helped make him a favorite singer
at the Metropolitan Opera for 30 years, died at his home on
Saturday. He was 87.
He died, apparently of natural causes, while watching the
first game of the World Series on television, said his wife,
Marion.
During his tenure with the Met, Mr. Merrill sang leading
roles in much of the standard repertory, including the title
role in "Rigoletto," Germont in "La Traviata," Figaro in "Il
Barbiere di Siviglia," Escamillo in "Carmen" and Tonio in
"Pagliacci"; he appeared in most of these many times.
Regarded as one of the greatest Verdi baritones of his
generation, he was known for the security and strength of
his sound, as well as for the precision and clarity with
which he could hit pitches across his two-octave range.
"Although he occasionally appeared in Europe and South
America, he preferred to base his career at the Metropolitan
Opera, where he sang all the major baritone roles of the
Italian and French repertories," Peter G. Davis wrote of Mr.
Merrill in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. "In
terms of vocal endowment, technical security and longevity,
he was unequaled among baritones of his generation at the
Metropolitan."
Mr. Merrill made his Metropolitan debut as Germont on Dec.
15, 1945, and celebrated his 500th performance there on
March 5, 1973. He remained on the Met roster until 1976.
During his first 15 years at the house, Mr. Merrill was
overshadowed to some extent by Leonard Warren, who was then
at the height of his powers, and was the baritone of choice
for the heavier Verdi roles. Still, Mr. Merrill quickly
found a niche in roles that Warren either found unsuitable
(Figaro in "Barbiere," for example) or had stopped singing
(Enrico Ashton in "Lucia di Lammermoor," Marcello in "La
Bohème" and Escamillo among them).
"After Leonard Warren's tragic death onstage at the
Metropolitan in 1960, Merrill became more or less
indisputably America's principal baritone and perhaps the
best lyricist since Giuseppe de Luca," the critic J. B.
Steane wrote in his book "The Grand Tradition." "The easy
and even production of a beautifully well-rounded tone is
not common, especially when the voice is also a powerful
one; yet this is, after all, the basis of operatic singing,
and Merrill's records will always commend themselves in
these terms.
"On the other hand, the repertory and the interpretations
are as 'central' as the voice itself. His records are not
stamped with the sort of individuality that lodges
immediately in a listener's memory; they are simply the work
of a very good opera singer and source of unfailing pleasure
to the ear."
But Mr. Merrill was more than just an opera singer. His
career extended to radio, television and film, and he made
occasional appearances in nightclubs and in Las Vegas; he
was also a prolific recitalist. And his performing extended
to singing the national anthem at Yankee Stadium; his
recording was used for many years to open home games by the
Yankees.
"It's strange," he said in an interview with The New York
Times after his 500th appearance at the Met, "but I keep
feeling that I'm just beginning, that I'm just a beginner.
I've never taken the Met for granted. At the old house,
whenever I walked in, I had that marvelous feeling - what am
I doing here, a kid from Brooklyn?"
Mr. Merrill's parents, Abraham and Lotze Millstein, met and
married in Warsaw and changed their name to Miller after
they emigrated to the United States. They settled in the
Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where their first son,
Moishe - who changed his name to Robert Merrill at the start
of his singing career - was born on June 4, 1917. He was, by
his own account, an unhappy child. He was overweight, and he
stuttered, except when he sang. His mother, who was said to
have a lovely, pure soprano, but who was discouraged by her
family from making a career, began to mold Mr. Merrill's
singing voice before it changed from that of a boy soprano
to its mature baritone.
Mr. Merrill's role model, at first, was Bing Crosby. But a
new world opened to him as a teenager when a job pushing
racks of clothing in Manhattan's garment district brought
him past the old Metropolitan Opera House. One afternoon, he
wandered in during a rehearsal of "La Traviata." Lawrence
Tibbett was singing Germont, with Lucrezia Bori as Violetta.
He was awestruck, and he resolved, with his mother's
encouragement, to undertake serious vocal studies. He sought
out Samuel Margolis, one of the leading voice teachers in
New York, who offered to teach him free of charge.
While pursuing his vocal studies, Mr. Merrill (who tried an
intermediate name change, to Merrill Miller) made occasional
appearances on WFOX radio, singing ballads. "I moaned my
romantic imitations of the crooners without mercy or
humility, and received a few letters from girls who could
not spell," Mr. Merrill later said. He also sang at bar
mitzvahs and weddings and at hotels in the Catskills. A
first try at a Met audition, in 1941, was a failure. But
during one of his hotel jobs, he met an agent, Moe Gale, who
found him work at Radio City Music Hall and with the NBC
Concert Orchestra, as well as an operatic debut - now under
the name Robert Merrill - in a production of Verdi's "Aida"
in Newark.
When he entered the Metropolitan Opera auditions again, in
1944, he shared first prize with Thomas Hayward, and was
engaged for his debut. From the beginning, he was intent on
combining high art with old-fashioned show business.
Beginning in June 1946, he was a featured soloist on the
Sunday afternoon RCA Victor Show, which was broadcast
nationwide. And in 1950, he signed a contract with Paramount
to make a film, "Aaron Slick From Punkin Crick."
The film briefly put Mr. Merrill's Met career in jeopardy:
when it turned out that the filming was to take place at the
same time as the Met's spring tour, Mr. Merrill asked the
Met's imperious general manager, Rudolf Bing, to be released
from his touring obligations. Bing refused, and when Mr.
Merrill did not appear for the tour, Bing charged him with
breach of contract and declared him no longer a member of
the company.
Mr. Merrill quickly realized that he had made the wrong
decision. "After 'Aaron Slick' was released in April 1952,
it had the peculiar distinction of filling box offices from
coast to coast with patrons demanding refunds," he wrote in
an autobiography. "The film continues to bedevil me on late,
late television. Half the Met chorus and many of the
soloists blame me for keeping them up late, but they swear
they enjoy it."
Mr. Merrill made several formal and public apologies to
Bing, who reinstated him in time for the 1952 spring tour.
That year, he married the soprano Roberta Peters, who had
made her debut with the company two years earlier and, like
Mr. Merrill, was part of the first generation of American
singers to put a thumbprint on the opera world. That union
lasted only three months. In 1954 Mr. Merrill married Marion
Machno, a pianist. She survives him, as do a son, David; a
daughter, Lizanne; and three grandchildren.
Mr. Merrill continued to sing at the Met through 1976, and
even then, he retained a strong, fairly flexible voice. "By
1976 he finally just wandered away from the Met," Mr. Davis
wrote in "The American Opera Singer." "It seemed as if he
had become bored with the limited repertory he was given,
but he made no serious efforts to broaden his artistic
horizons."
After his retirement, he made occasional concert
appearances, and he sang in the eight-hour Metropolitan
Opera centennial concert in 1983.
Mr. Merrill made many recordings for RCA. He sang in two
complete opera broadcasts on radio under Toscanini - "La
Traviata" in 1946 and "Un Ballo in Maschera" in 1953 - both
of which were later issued on CD. He wrote two
autobiographies, "Once More From the Beginning" (1965) and
"Between Acts" (1976), as well as a novel, "The Divas"
(1978). He received a number of honorary doctorates and
awards.
"Vocally, there is no reason why you cannot sing for 30 or
40 years," Mr. Merrill said in 1973. "I'm going to go on as
long as I'm enjoying it, as long as I'm having a ball."
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