william merrill peters township school district

She quickly established herself in the standard soubrette and coloratura repertoire. Her performance was received with great enthusiasm, and her career was established.Ĭombining an attractive voice with sparkling coloratura agility and good looks, Peters became a favorite of American audiences and a great proponent of opera for the masses.

Despite a reputation for being distant and reserved, Reiner made a point of coming to Peters's dressing room to encourage her and guided her through the performance. Fritz Reiner was the conductor that night. Peters knew the role, but had not yet ever performed on stage or even sung with a full orchestra nevertheless, she accepted. On November 17, 1950, Bing phoned her asking if she could step in to replace Nadine Conner, who was ill, as Zerlina in Don Giovanni. Peters however made her debut earlier than planned. He scheduled her to sing the role in February 1951. Bing asked her to sing the Queen of the Night's second aria from The Magic Flute (with its four Fs above high C), several times, listening from all parts of the hall to make sure she could fill the hall with sound. After six years of training, Herman introduced her to impresario Sol Hurok, who arranged for an audition with Rudolf Bing, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. Under Herman's training, Peters studied the French, German and Italian languages and practiced singing scales from a clarinet method.

Encouraged by tenor Jan Peerce, she started her music studies at age 13 with William Herman, a voice teacher known for his exacting and thorough teaching method. Peters was born Roberta Peterman in The Bronx, New York City, the only child of Ruth (née Hersch), a milliner, and Solomon Peterman, a shoe salesman. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1998. One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, among the longest such associations between a singer and a company in opera. Roberta Peters (– January 18, 2017) was an American coloratura soprano.

William merrill peters township school district