RISE STEVENS
Article and photos Charles Mintzer

I was fortunate that Rise Stevens was my first `star` performer at the Metropolitan Opera when I started attending in the early 1950’s, 16 February 1952 to be exact. It was the broadcast performance of Carmen in the new Tyrone Guthrie production also starring Richard Tucker, Nadine Conner, and Paolo Silveri with Fritz Reiner in the pit. One recalls that this Carmen was an important event as it was a “new production” and Rudolf Bing, in his second year as General Manager, had invited important directors from the theater world to stage operas that had fallen into deadly routine during the previous generation. This was one of the Met’s first “concept” productions, that is a production where the hand of a strong stage director could be seen. It had not always been thus; performances had often been thrown on the stage with the singers expected to bring their own ideas of acting with them, often clashing with other artists. Performances had been notoriously under-rehearsed, especially the dramatic aspects. I recall at the time Mary Garden, on a lecture tour of North America, in an interview with the Daily News, praised Stevens’ Carmen and wistfully suggested that had she enjoyed a similarly brilliantly staged production in her day she could have achieved similar greatness. The feature about which Garden was specific was the huge stage-wide staircase in the first act which was utilized as part of a vast panorama. Guthrie had choreographed very detailed and intricate action on this staircase.

I have many visual memories of Stevens in that performance, but few vocal ones. Guthrie set last act in Escamillo’s dressing room at the bullfight stadium, and when Don Jose, who had gained entry, got angry and tried to prevent Carmen from leaving, she vigorously clutched the heavy drapery in her desperation and the drapes fell to the floor in a loud thud. It is amazing that fifty years later certain rather trivial details remain in one’s memory.

I had learned the opera the year before from the 1951 RCA complete recording under Reiner with Stevens, Albanese, Peerce, and Merrill. In 1951 complete opera recordings were not common, indeed they were very expensive, as we were only three years out of the 78rpm era. I had also known the excerpts Stevens had recorded for Columbia with Conner, Raoul Jobin, and Robert Weede in the mid nineteen-forties. I recall from that wonderful 1952 live performance that the Stevens voice was beautiful, both smoky and seductive. One does not easily forget one’s first Met performance, the atmosphere and the vigorous ovations.

In Der Rosenkavalier my lasting memory has to be her marvelously realized masculine demeanor, and in the third act, her boyish awkwardness when she is pretending to be the maid. I recall her vocalism as Octavian as silky smooth with good range, the final trio and duet an especial memory with the easy blending of her voice with Lisa della Casa and Hilde Gueden (22 November 1957). The much earlier 1950 RCA recording of the final duet with Erna Berger is truly a treasure.

(as Octavian)

In Orfeo ed Euridice (30 March 1954) she was absolutely stunning. Again her masculine bearing and her theatrical sense were of the highest order. A picture that remains in the memory is Stevens as Orfeo and Hilde Gueden as Euridice standing together in rapt transport watching Alicia Markova and the Corps de ballet dancing the ethereal ballet. Stevens enjoyed a outstanding success in this Orfeo conducted by Pierre Monteux. One recalls that this revival was originally planned to showcase the talents of the great Giulietta Simionato.
And in Samson et Dalilah (29 December 1955) she was seduction itself; I vividly remember how in the second act she spun out on an ethereal thread her “My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice” aria and her interaction with Ramon Vinay, a most handsome Samson. In the 1983 Met Centennial gala Marilyn Horne sang “Mon coeur s’ouvre ta vois” in a rather smallish voice but very smoothly with a superb legato (kind of a miniature gem). The audience was mesmerized, and gave her an especially large ovation. Horne was clearly happy with the audience response. She walked over to Rise Stevens, who was sitting on the stage with several other retired Met greats, and the two Dalilahs embraced. This gesture and the history it represented was not lost on the audience and the applause thundered. This moment is preserved on the video and dvd of that concert.

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Of course, I knew a lot less in the nineteen fifties about voice and vocal traditions than I was to acquire later . I am not now sure if I would rate Stevens as possessing a `great` voice; however, the total package of her surely very fine and richly colored voice allied to her stage sense made her an important artist, and one that I treasured. They say the great ones are unique, that their voices have a coloration that cannot be confused with any other singer, and that they remain in our memory for that reason. If thus is the criterion, then Stevens was a great artist.
The fact that she was popular and loved by a wider audience than just the opera crowd in no way diminishes her stature. The wider American public embraced this New York native for her work in the 1944 Bing Crosby hit movie “Going My Way,” her many operetta recordings, and numerous appearances over the radio and these showcases gave her very extensive name recognition and popularity.

(with Bing Crosby)

I was fortunate to meet her twice in recent years at her spacious apartment on Fifth Avenue. I was working as a volunteer at the Met’s Archives. The first time was to help deliver a bust of herself that she was giving to the Met for an exhibition, and the second time, after her husband Walter had died, to bring back to the Archives some memorabilia that she was donating. She was very gracious and remarkably together for a woman in her mid-eighties, pushing ninety. Her speaking voice was unmistakable in its timbre and her good humor very much in evidence.
She recounted some interesting stories about Toscanini who admired her, but with whom she could not work because he was an RCA artist and she was a Columbia Records artist at the time (the mid 1940’s I think was the timeframe). She also told some anecdotes about Lotte Lehmann and Marie Gutheil-Schoder. In her music room there was a small framed signed photo of Emma Calvé as Carmen, given to her many years before by an admirer. She took her responsibilities in retirement seriously. She was generosity itself when I would write to her for autographed photos. She genuinely appreciated that fans, whom she touched with her art years before, still remembered her with fondness.

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After fifty years of opera going I would rate Rise Stevens on a high notch because her voice, although perhaps not the greatest, was a very beautiful and individual instrument and also because her character realizations were simply brilliant. In the four significant roles I was fortunate to sample she was the total embodiment of all. I still judge all others in these roles against my fond memories of Stevens.

(As Marfa and Cherubino)
 
(in Gioconda and Fledermaus)