photo submitted by Bruce-Michael Gelbert
Shirley Verrett
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Early on the evening of February 23, in the Juilliard School’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Juilliard and the Metropolitan Opera invited luminaries of the classical music world, as well as the diva’s public, to remember their beloved alumna, singer Shirley Verrett, who passed away on November 5, 2010.

After remembrances from the leaders of these respective institutions, Joseph W. Polisi, President of Juilliard, from which Verrett graduated in 1961 and received an Honorary Doctorate in 2002, and Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Met, where Verrett sang many mezzo-soprano and soprano roles, making her debut as Carmen on September 21, 1968 and farewell as Azucena in “Il Trovatore” on April 27, 1990, Warren George Wilson, Verrett’s pianist and coach for 45 years, offered his moving remembrance of “someone I loved very, very dearly.” He recalled an all-Lieder recital, made up of songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Strauss, saying, “We fought over the program,” particularly about starting it with her first-ever performance of Schubert’s “Die junge Nonne.” “She was magnificent,” he declared. “She sang her heart out in ‘junge Nonne’” and received “a standing ovation for the first piece! It was a glorious concert.” He also focused on a Mozart Requiem, which he conducted, in which she was soprano soloist, for which she helped shape his ideas about conducting; a concert in New Orleans, which he conducted; and a recital in Columbus, Ohio, for which they had little time to prepare, but which was a success nonetheless. Wilson also spoke of Verrett’s husband, Louis LoMonaco, and daughter, Francesca, who was present and who is Wilson’s goddaughter.

Director Thaddeus Motyka, who helped organize the memorial, introduced film clips of Verrrett singing the end of the “Liebestod,” from “Tristan und Isolde,” conducted by Zubin Mehta, from the September 24, 1977 New York Philharmonic concert, and of Verrett and Plácido Domingo harmonizing a cappella in “O ma Sélika, vous régnez sur mon âme!” from Act Four of “L’Africaine,” in a September 1988 San Francisco Opera performance, conducted by Maurizio Arena, after which Domingo, who was not a scheduled speaker, came to the stage. Honoring Verrett, Domingo mentioned “her eternal smile,” adding, “I don’t remember a difficult moment with her in our long career together.” “She really made friends with artists and the public,” he said. “We miss her so, so much … we miss her, love her, and admire her.”

The New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini spoke of spring 1976, when Verrett “conquered Boston” with her “one-two punch” of her first Norma, with the Met, on tour, and Lady Macbeth, with the Boston Opera, under Sarah Caldwell, in which she capped the Sleepwalking Scene with a “haunting, shimmering pianissimo high D-flat.” “Her sound was enormous, but completely unforced,” he said, and continued with recollections of her Orfeo, Aida, Norma, Desdemona in “Otello”—a “courageous” example of “colorblind casting,” and Tosca with the Boston Opera, all marked by “her scrupulous musicianship and integrity of her artistry that made her stand out.” In “Otello,” she “sang the entire ‘Ave Maria’ with her back to the audience,” which “made Desdemona’s prayer intensely personal.” A clip of Verrett singing the “Ave Maria,” from a concert at Covent Garden in 1983, conducted by Michelangelo Veltri, followed.

George Shirley, her colleague on stage in performances, early their careers, of “Oedipus Rex” and “Carmen,” as well as on the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance, where he is Joseph Edgar Maddy Distinguished University Emeritus Professor of Voice and where she served for 14 years as James Earl Jones Professor of Voice, offered reminiscences. Shirley said that Louis LoMonaco had called him “the most vicious Carmen-killer,” which made the tenor quip, “Eat your heart out, Plácido!” He spoke of his colleague’s students, distinguished by “sartorial elegance that radiated the Verrett influence” and called her “one of the most regal and beautiful women I have known,” adding, “Her magnificent, riveting artistry is spoken of with reverence.”

Emmanuel Morlet, Director of the Music Office of the French Embassy in New York, remembered Verrett as “a performer who helped break down the barricade of racial prejudice” and was named Commander of Arts and Letters by France in 1983. Conductor Eve Queler recalled Verrett’s “legendary performance of ‘La Favorita,’ which I conducted, with Opera Orchestra of New York,” on February 26, 1975 at Carnegie Hall, and noted, “I learned a great deal about bel canto from Shirley.” Queler also collaborated with Verrett and Grace Bumbry on a January 31, 1982 American Symphony Orchestra birthday tribute to Marian Anderson, at Carnegie, in which the two divas sang “Mira, o Norma,” with Bumbry as Norma and Verrett as Adalgisa, and then, for an encore, exchanged parts.

After her Met career, Verrett appeared as Nettie Fowler in the Lincoln Center Theater production of “Carousel.” Alicia Hall Moran, who studied with Verrett and commented, “Shirley insisted on meticulous musicianship, experimentation, and self-awareness,” sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” from “Carousel,” in a dark-timbred soprano, in Verrett’s memory, with Jason Moran at the piano.
Verrett had the last words and notes, in a clip from a 1968 “Ed Sullivan Show,” in which she sang Hall Johnson’s arrangement of the spiritual “Oh, Glory” in memory of the recently assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator from New York State Robert Kennedy.

A gracious artist, who gave us many thrilling evenings of music, Verrett was peerless. There will never be another singer like her.