Robert Merrill (New York, 4 giugno 1917 – New Rochelle, 23 ottobre 2004)

Nacque a Brooklyn da Abramo Miller (il cui cognome originario era Milstein) e Lilian, immigrati da Varsavia. L'avvicinamento al canto avvenne grazie alla madre, che era stata anch'essa cantante e che per prima capì le sue doti, ma la decisione di intraprendere i primi studi artistici venne dopo aver assistito a una performance del baritono Richard Bonelli nel Trovatore.
Nel 1944 debuttò a Newark nell''Aida, affiancato dal tenore Giovanni Martinelli, e l'anno successivo esordì al Metropolitan Opera nella Traviata.
Agli inizi della carriera si esibiva anche come crooner con lo pseudonimo di Merrill Miller, mentre nel tempo libero si dedicava a cantare nei matrimoni e in locali estivi; fu in una di queste occasioni che incontrò un agente che gli diede l’opportunità di esibirsi alla Radio City Music Hall, dalla quale poté approdare successivamente alla NBC Symphony Orchestra diretta da Arturo Toscanini. Con il celebre direttore interpretò due opere di Verdi: La traviata nel 1946, grazie alla quale iniziò ad acquisire notorietà, e Un ballo in maschera nel 1954, entrambe trasmesse dalla NBC e in seguito riversate su disco.

Continuava intanto l'attività al Metropolitan, teatro al quale rimase legato per oltre venticinque anni. Nel 1952 sposò il soprano Roberta Peters, ma l'unione durò solo pochi mesi. Nello stesso periodo la sua fama aumentò grazie soprattutto a duetti discografici con Jussi Bjorling (grande successo ebbe in particolare negli Stati Uniti quello da I pescatori di perle), all'incisione di opere complete per la RCA e alla partecipazione a commedie musicali. Successivamente, con la morte di Leonard Warren nel 1960, diventò primo baritono del Metropolitan Opera. Oltre all'attività operistica, furono famose le apparizioni al Lewisohn Stadium di New York in una serie di concerti all'aperto, in cui presentava un repertorio esclusivamente italiano ("Notte italiana").

Si ritirò dalle scene nel 1976, ma continuò a lavorare in radio e televisione e ad esibirsi in famosi locali e sale da concerto. Nello stesso anno scrisse un libro intitolato Between Acts, due anni dopo The Divas e nel 1985 Once More from the

Beginning.

Si dedicò anche al volontariato, impegnandosi a favore di Telethon nella lotta alla paralisi cerebrale. Nel 1993 gli fu assegnata la National Medal of Arts.

Discografia
La traviata, con Licia Albanese, Jan Peerce - dir. Arturo Toscanini - RCA 1946
Carmen, con Risë Stevens, Jan Peerce, Licia Albanese, dir. Fritz Reiner - RCA 1951
Cavalleria Rusticana, con Zinka Milanov, Jussi Bjorling - dir. Renato Cellini - RCA 1953
Pagliacci (Silvio), con Jussi Bjorling, Victoria de los Angeles, Leonard Warren - dir. Renato Cellini - RCA/HMV 1953
Un ballo in maschera, con Herva Nelli, Jan Peerce, Claramae Turner - dir. Arturo Toscanini - RCA 1954
Manon Lescaut, con Licia Albanese, Jussi Bjorling - dir. Jonel Perlea - RCA 1954
Rigoletto, con Roberta Peters, Jussi Bjorling, Giorgio Tozzi, Anna Maria Rota - dir. Jonel Perlea - RCA 1956
La Bohème, con Victoria de los Angeles, Jussi Bjorling, Lucine Amara, Giorgio Tozzi, - dir. Thomas Beecham - RCA/HMV 1956
Il Barbiere di Siviglia, con Roberta Peters, Cesare Valletti, Giorgio Tozzi, Fernando Corena - dir. Erich Leinsdorf - RCA 1958
La traviata, con Anna Moffo, Richard Tucker - dir. Fernando Previtali - RCA 1960
La Boheme, con Anna Moffo, Richard Tucker, Giorgio Tozzi, Mary Costa, Philip Maero - dir. Erich Leinsdorf - RCA 1961
Lucia di Lammermoor, con Joan Sutherland, Renato Cioni, Cesare Siepi - dir. John Pritchard - Decca 1961
La traviata, con Joan Sutherland, Carlo Bergonzi - dir. John Pritchard - Decca 1962
Aida, con Leontyne Price, Jon Vickers, Rita Gorr, Giorgio Tozzi - dir. Georg Solti - RCA/Decca 1962
Il tabarro, con Mario Del Monaco, Renata Tebaldi - dir. Lamberto Gardelli - Decca 1962
Falstaff (Ford), con Geraint Evans, Ilva Ligabue, Giulietta Simionato, Mirella Freni, Alfredo Kraus, Rosalind Elias - dir. Georg Solti - RCA 1963
Rigoletto, con Anna Moffo, Alfredo Kraus, Ezio Flagello, Rosalind Elias - dir. Georg Solti - RCA 1963
Carmen, con Leontyne Price, Franco Corelli, Mirella Freni - dir. Herbert Von Karajan RCA 1963
La forza del destino, con Leontyne Price, Richard Tucker, Giorgio Tozzi, Shirley Verrett - dir. Thomas Schippers - RCA 1964
Il trovatore, con Franco Corelli, Gabriella Tucci, Giulietta Simionato, Ferruccio Mazzoli - dir. Thomas Schippers - EMI 1964
Un ballo in maschera, con Leontyne Price, Carlo Bergonzi, Shirley Verrett - dir. Erich Leinsdorf - RCA 1966
La Gioconda, con Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi, Marilyn Horne, Nicolai Ghiuselev - dir. Lamberto Gardelli - Decca 1967
Pagliacci, con James McCracken, Pilar Lorengar, Tom Krause - dir. Lamberto Gardelli - Decca 1969

fonte da http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Merrill

Lawrence Tibbett (Bakersfield, 16 novembre 1896 – New York, 15 luglio 1960)

Lawrence Tibbett was born Lawrence Mervil Tibbet, (with a single final "t") on November 16, 1896 in Bakersfield, California. His father was a part-time deputy sheriff, killed in a shootout with desperado Jim McKinney in 1903. Tibbett grew up in Los Angeles, earning money by singing in church choirs and at funerals. He graduated from Manual Arts High School in 1915. A year later he met his future wife, Grace Mackay Smith, who rented a room in his mother's house. During World War I he served in the Merchant Marine, after which he found employment singing as prologue to silent movies at the Grauman "Million Dollar" Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
Tibbett studied in New York City with Frank La Forge and in 1923 at the age of 26, he signed his first contract, for $60 per week, with the New York Metropolitan Opera, using the name "Tibbett" (a spelling he had used occasionally in his youth). Over the ensuing years, with the Met, he built a hugely successful career, displaying an outstanding voice, immaculate musicianship, and a strong stage presence.
His Met roles included Valentin in Charles Gounod's Faust, Silvio, and later, Tonio, in Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and the King's Herald in Richard Wagner's Lohengrin. He first achieved national recognition playing Ford in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff. Tibbett traveled to California in 1927 to sing the lead role in the Grove Play St. Francis of Assisi, and it was during that trip to San Francisco when he met ex-New Yorker Jennie Marston Burgard, whom he married in 1932. During the 1930s, Tibbett toured Europe and Australia, performing on stage or giving recitals in London, Paris, Prague and Vienna as well as in Sydney and Melbourne.

In the early 1930s, Tibbett also appeared in movies. His Hollywood sojourn proved brief, although he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his first film, The Rogue Song, a 1930 MGM production with Laurel & Hardy, shot in two-color Technicolor. (Only a few minutes of footage of the film, as well as the complete soundtrack, have been found.) Soon afterward, he starred in another MGM musical film, New Moon, opposite Grace Moore and The Cuban Love Song (1931), with the Mexican Spitfire, Lupe Vélez. In 1935, he made Metropolitan for 20th Century Fox. This film is notable for its extensive segments of Tibbett performing operatic arias in a stage setting. His final film was Under Your Spell in 1936. Also during the 1930s, Tibbett had a domestic radio program sponsored by the Packard Motor Car Company of America on which he sang formal music. The company chose him to announce the Packard 120 to the world on air; he drove one. When the firm wanted to sell less expensive cars, they persuaded him to add popular tunes to his repertoire in order to boost sales. He also appeared on Your Hit Parade.
Together with violinist Jascha Heifetz, in 1936 he founded the American Guild of Musical Artists, the most important labor union for solo performing artists. He was the Guild's proactive president for 17 years. His forceful and articulate advocacy of artistic causes was unique in its day.
After his operatic career concluded, in the early 1950s Tibbett performed in musicals and plays. He spent a summer in stock as the Reverend Davidson in Rain and played Captain Hook in a short-lived tour of the John Burrell staging of Peter Pan that was mounted for Jean Arthur and featured a musical score by the young Leonard Bernstein. Veronica Lake played Peter. Most notably, Tibbett took over the Italian operatic bass Ezio Pinza's role in Fanny during its original Broadway run.



with Esther Ralston in The Prodigal (film, 1931)


In later years Tibbett served as host of a radio show featuring recordings of operatic singers. He leavened matters with reminiscences of his own stage experiences. Plagued by severe arthritis and a severe drinking problem, he aged prematurely as his health worsened. He died on July 15, 1960, after hitting his head on a table during a fall in his apartment. The Time obituary said of him: "Tibbett had a big, bronzelike, dramatically eloquent voice that combined ringing power with remarkable agility ... he left behind not only the echoes of a great voice but the memory of a performer who could feel equally at home with high art and popular entertainment, suggesting that there is a magical link between the two.

Tibbett's operatic recordings made in the United States during the 1920s and '30s are regarded as among the finest of that period. Many of them are available on CD re-issues. A comprehensive story of his personal life and musical career, Dear Rogue: A Biography of the American Baritone Lawrence Tibbett, by Hertzel Weinstat and Bert Wechsler was published in 1996 by Amadeus Press of Portland, Oregon.
Although regarded as a dashing, compelling actor as well, Tibbett's true fame stems from the fact that he has long been considered to be, in terms of sheer voice, one of the finest baritones ever to appear at the Metropolitan Opera. His voice was large, with a dark timbre approaching that of a bass, and he commanded a full range of dynamics in his prime, from powerful fortes to delicate pianissimos. He was renowned for his affinity with the works of Verdi, notably his breakthrough role of Ford in Falstaff, Simon Boccanegra in Simon Boccanegra and Iago in Otello. He was also an imposing, sinister Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca, a swaggering Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen and a powerful Tonio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.
In addition, Tibbett created leading roles in a number of American operas, including Louis Gruenberg's The Emperor Jones, based on Eugene O'Neill's play. (He sang this in blackface; the character of Brutus Jones is an African-American). He starred in Howard Hanson's Merry Mount, as well as operas by Deems Taylor, The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson. Tibbett performed the roles of Porgy and Jake in the first album of selections from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, two roles which, on stage, are usually performed by black singers. Gershwin himself was present at the recording sessions. Continuing in this vein, Tibbett made a recording of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's song, Ol' Man River, from Show Boat.

Fonte da http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Tibbett