Regina Resnik

Regina Resnik (born Regina Resnick, August 30, 1922 – August 8, 2013) was an American opera singer who had an active international career that spanned five decades.

Regina Resnick was born in The Bronx, New York City, on August 30, 1922, to impoverished Ukrainian Jewish immigrants who had just arrived in New York.

Resnik dropped the "c" out of "Resnick" at an early age.

At the age of 10 she volunteered to sing a solo in a concert at her local school.

At the age of 13 she took her first lessons from Rosalie Miller, and soon afterwards won $10 appearing on Major Bowes Amateur Hour on public radio.

A gifted student academically, Resnick skipped several school grades.

She attended Herman Ridder Junior High School and then James Monroe High School in the Bronx where she had her first experience performing on the stage, singing leading roles in school productions of operettas and performing in her school's glee club.

Resnik stated that "I owe my awareness of having a voice to the New York School system".

After graduating from high school in 1938, she studied singing with Giuseppe Danise at Hunter College, where she earned a B.A. in music in 1942.

She began her career as a soprano in 1942 and soon after began a lengthy and fruitful relationship with the Metropolitan Opera that spanned from 1944 until 1983.

Resnik made her professional singing debut at the age of 22 on October 27, 1942, giving a recital of art songs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Just two months later she made her professional opera debut with Fritz Busch's New Opera Company at the Broadway Theatre in Manhattan as Lady Macbeth in Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth with Jess Walters in the title role.

In February and March 1943 she sang Leonore in Fidelio and Micaela in Carmen at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City under Erich Kleiber.

In the spring of 1944, she portrayed both Frasquita and Micaela in Georges Bizet's Carmen in the New York City Opera's (NYCO) first season with Dusolina Giannini in the title role.

She was also seen at the NYCO that season as Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.

In April 1944 Resnik won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air, performing "Ernani, involami", and was offered a contract with that company for the 1944/45 season.

Her debut at the Met was doubly dramatic – on one day's notice she substituted on December 6, 1944, for Zinka Milanov as Leonora in Il trovatore eliciting acclaim from the public, the critics noting that all the vocal "virtuosity" and her stage presence as an actress were very impressive.

During the next decade, she offered twenty heroines: Donna Elvira and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Fidelio, Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Gutrune (Götterdämmerung), Chrysothemis (Elektra), Rosalinda and Eboli (Don Carlos), Aida, Alice Ford (Falstaff), Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Musetta (La bohème).

She was the Met's first Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes and created Delilah in the world premiere of Bernard Rogers' The Warrior.

She then also began a long association with the San Francisco Opera.

As for the voice, it was a dramatic soprano which invited comparison with Rosa Ponselle.

During these years, her teacher was Rosalie Miller and her life began with the legendary conductors Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, George Szell, Fritz Reiner, William Steinberg and Erich Leinsdorf.

Under the advice of conductor Clemens Krauss, she began retraining her voice in the mezzo-soprano repertoire in 1953 and by 1956 had completely removed soprano literature from her performance repertoire.

While the Met was Resnik's artistic home, she worked regularly as a guest artist with other major American opera companies and with the top European opera houses, including La Scala, the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera, London, the San Francisco Opera, and the Vienna State Opera.

In 1953, while singing Sieglinde at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the conductor Clemens Krauss was to forecast her future, suggesting her voice was actually a mezzo-soprano.

Despite her great success as a soprano, she realized that her entire voice was constantly darkening in color.

In 1955 she began a year of restudy with Danise.

Her first two roles were Amneris in Aida and Laura in La Gioconda.

On February 15, 1956, she debuted as a mezzo-soprano at the Metropolitan in a brilliant portrayal of Marina in Boris Godunov under Dimitri Mitropoulos.

October 1957, was the beginning of a long career in London at the Royal Opera House.

Her debut as Carmen was a success and, in time, she was heard as Amneris (Aida), Marina (Boris Godunov), Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera), the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten and the Old Prioress in Dialogues of the Carmelites.

In the Zeffirelli–Giulini production of Falstaff, her Mistress Quickly became the model for this role.

Carmen, Klytemnestra (Elektra), Mistress Quickly and the Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) became her signature parts.

In 1959 she is Didon in Les Troyens, conducted by Robert Lawrence.

From the French Press – "Hers was the most skillfully inflected Carmen with every nuance of the role and every syllable of her French set forth in a masterly manner. It was also the most beautifully sung performance of the role. From the dramatic standpoint, this was the ideal Carmen – ferocious, sultry, unpredictable; never banal, never vulgar."

But with Klytemnestra, Resnik met her greatest challenge – "a dramatic conception that is unforgettable and a vocal prowess without limit."

Surely among the happiest memories are three comic masterpieces – her Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus, the Marquise in La fille du régiment (with Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti) and her Mistress Quickly in the Bernstein–Zeffirelli Falstaff of 1964.

In addition to performing, Resnik worked as a stage director at several European opera houses during the 1970s and 1980s, usually in collaboration with her husband, scenic and costume designer Arbit Blatas.

She was also highly active as a voice teacher, teaching on the voice faculties of several music conservatories, including the Juilliard School.

After the mid-1980s, her performance career transitioned away from opera towards musical theater.