Adelaide Bishop
Encyclopedia
Adelaide Bishop was an American opera
tic soprano
, musical theatre
actress, opera director, stage director, and voice teacher
. She began her career appearing in Broadway
musicals as a teenager during the early 1940s. She became a principal soprano with the New York City Opera
(NYCO) in 1948, where she performed through 1960 in a broad repertoire encompassing German, French, Italian, and English operas from a variety of musical periods. In the late 1950s, she started working actively as a stage director and as a voice teacher, working with many opera companies throughout the United States and serving on the music faculties of several different American universities. She also served as the artistic director of the Wolf Trap Opera for many years.
, Bishop started studying singing as a young teenager with various instructors, including Paul Breisach
, Louis Polanski, Rose Landver, and at Luigi Rossini
's Rossini Opera Workshop. She made her Broadway debut at the age of 15 as Fritzi in the 1943 revival of Blossom Time, which ran for a total of 43 performances. She returned to Broadway in 1945 to portray Betty Ellis in the short-lived musical The Girl From Nantucket
with Jane Kean
as Dodey Ellis and Helen Raymond
as Keziah Getchel.
On October 24, 1946, Bishop made her professional opera debut as Blonde in Mozart
's Die Entführung aus dem Serail
with the American Opera Company
at the Academy of Music
in Philadelphia. The following December, she returned to Broadway as Gretchen in the revival of Victor Herbert
's The Red Mill
when the production moved to the Shubert Theatre
from the 46th Street Theatre. In January 1948, Bishop returned to Philadelphia to portray Letitia in Gian Carlo Menotti
's The Old Maid and the Thief
. The composer attended one of the performances and was so impressed with Bishop that he contacted Laszlo Halasz
, director of the NYCO, and told him he had to hire her. This led to her being offered a contract with the NYCO and her debut with the company as Gilda in Verdi
's Rigoletto
on April 18, 1948.
's The Rape of Lucretia (1948) at the Ziegfeld Theatre
and Adele in Johann Strauss II
's Die Fledermaus
(1954) with the New York City Center Light Opera Company. She quickly became a favorite at the NYCO during the late 1940s and went on to portray many lyric soprano
roles with the company through 1960, including The Stepdaughter in the world premiere of Hugo Weisgall
's Six Characters in Search of an Author
(1959) and Mary Stone in the New York premiere of Douglas Moore's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1959). Among her many other roles with the NYCO were Gretel in Humperdinck
's Hänsel und Gretel, Liù in Puccini
's Turandot
, Musetta in Puccini's La bohème
, Norina in Donizetti
's Don Pasquale
, Olympia in Offenbach
's Les contes d'Hoffmann
, Sophie in Richard Strauss
's Der Rosenkavalier
, and Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro.
While mainly performing with the NYCO, Bishop also occasionally performed with other organizations. In 1949 she sang Gilda with the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company
with Cesare Bardelli as Rigoletto, Rudolf Petrak as the Duke of Mantua, and conductor Giuseppe Bamboschek
. That same year she made her first appearance at the Central City Opera
in Colorado as Adele, later returning to sing roles in two operas by Gounod
: Juliet in Romeo et Juliet (1951) and Marguerite in Faust
(1954). In 1950 she portrayed Adele in a television recording of Die Fledermaus with the NBC Opera Theatre
. In 1951 she made her first appearance with New Orleans Opera
as Susanna to the Countess of Frances Yeend
and Cherubino of Frances Bible
, later returning to the house to portray Kathie in Sigmund Romberg
's The Student Prince
opposite Brian Sullivan
as Karl in 1953. She portrayed Estelle in the premiere of the orchestrated version of Weisgall's The Stronger
in August 1955 for the Composers Forum at Columbia University
. That 1955 performance with the Columbia Chamber Orchestra was recorded.
In 1956 Bishop sang Lucia again opposite Jon Vickers
's Male Chorus and Regina Resnik
's Lucretia at the renowned Stratford Festival in Canada
. In 1956, again with NBC Opera Theatre, she portrayed Papagena in an English-language version of Mozart
's The Magic Flute
, a production which also featured Leontyne Price
as Pamina, in an almost unheard-of 1950s example of television "color-blind casting". In 1957, she returned to NBC to appear in the world premiere telecast of Stanley Hollingsworth
's La Grande Breteche. She portrayed Queen Popotte in the United States premiere of Offenbach's Le Voyage dans la Lune
in 1958, which was also the very first production mounted by Sarah Caldwell
's Opera Company of Boston
. The production was so well received that the company was invited to present the work on the lawn of the White House
in a performance attended by President Dwight D. Eisenhower
. She returned to Boston the following season for their production of The Beggar's Opera
.
Of all the roles Bishop sang, she is most remembered for her portrayal of the title role in the world premiere of Lukas Foss
's Griffelkin
, which was written for television. Made by the NBC Opera Theater, the work premiered on NBC
in 1955 and was viewed by an estimated audience of one million people. Opera News
said in their review at the time: "In Griffelkin, Lukas Foss is almost too brilliant for his own good. Adelaide Bishop, creating the title role, saved the day. Extraordinarily impish in appearance, she not only sang like an inspired choirboy but succeeded in bringing wonder and a heartbreaking confusion into the scenes when the small hero is seized with the first pangs of humanity."
, San Diego Opera
, Baltimore Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia
, Opera Omaha
, Tulsa Opera
, Central City Opera
, Hawaii Opera Theatre
, and Portland Opera
, to name just a few. The operas she staged came from a broad range of repertoire, including standard works like La traviata
and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, as well as twentieth-century American works such as Summer and Smoke
, The Crucible
, and The Medium
, to name just a few. Bishop notably staged the world premiere of David Amram
's Twelfth Night at the Lake George Opera in 1968.
As an educator, Bishop worked on the music faculties of Carnegie Mellon University
and the Mannes College The New School for Music, teaching voice and directing student opera productions. She also served for fourteen years as the chair of the opera department at Boston University
(1970–1984) and chairwoman of the opera department and artistic director of the opera theater at the Hartt School
(1982–1993). Bishop also worked as Artistic Director of the Wolf Trap Opera, a summer opera training program for young opera singers.
Bishop died in a car accident in Sarasota, Florida
just three days shy of her eightieth birthday.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
actress, opera director, stage director, and voice teacher
Voice teacher
A voice teacher or singing teacher is a musical instructor who trains adults and children in the art of singing. This generally involves training in breath control and support, proper tone production, pitch control and musical intonation, proper formation of vowels and consonants as well as...
. She began her career appearing in Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musicals as a teenager during the early 1940s. She became a principal soprano with the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
(NYCO) in 1948, where she performed through 1960 in a broad repertoire encompassing German, French, Italian, and English operas from a variety of musical periods. In the late 1950s, she started working actively as a stage director and as a voice teacher, working with many opera companies throughout the United States and serving on the music faculties of several different American universities. She also served as the artistic director of the Wolf Trap Opera for many years.
Early life and career: 1928-1948
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Bishop started studying singing as a young teenager with various instructors, including Paul Breisach
Paul Breisach
Paul Breisach was an Austrian-born conductor. He was a pupil of Heinrich Schenker in Vienna from October 1913 for several years. New Grove 2 reports that he was a conductor at the Städtische Oper in Berlin in the early 1930s until he emigrated...
, Louis Polanski, Rose Landver, and at Luigi Rossini
Luigi Rossini
Luigi Rossini was an Italian artist, best known for his etchings of ancient Roman architecture.Rossini was born in Ravenna, and studied at the Academy of Bologna with Antonio Giuseppe Basoli, graduating in 1813 as an architect and artist....
's Rossini Opera Workshop. She made her Broadway debut at the age of 15 as Fritzi in the 1943 revival of Blossom Time, which ran for a total of 43 performances. She returned to Broadway in 1945 to portray Betty Ellis in the short-lived musical The Girl From Nantucket
The Girl From Nantucket
The Girl From Nantucket is a musical with lyrics by Kay Twomey and music by Jacques Belasco. The musical also contains additional music and lyrics by Hughie Prince and Rick Rogers. The musicals's book, by Paul Stamford, Harold Sherman and Hi Cooper, is based on a story by Fred Thompson and Bernie...
with Jane Kean
Jane Kean
Jane Kean is an American actress.-Career:Jane Kean and her older sister, , formed a comedy duo that worked the nightclub circuit throughout the 1940s and '50s, and the two appeared on Broadway as sisters in the short-lived 1955 musical Ankles Aweigh.She studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the...
as Dodey Ellis and Helen Raymond
Helen Raymond
Helen Raymond was a stage actress who did comedy roles on Broadway, and also appeared in Hollywood motion pictures. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Stage Actress:...
as Keziah Getchel.
On October 24, 1946, Bishop made her professional opera debut as Blonde in Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
with the American Opera Company
American Opera Company
The American Opera Company was the name of four different opera companies active in the United States. The first company was a short-lived opera company founded in New York City in February, 1886 that lasted only one season...
at the Academy of Music
Academy of Music (Philadelphia)
The Academy of Music, also known as American Academy of Music, is a concert hall and opera house located at Broad and Locust Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1857 and is the oldest opera house in the United States that is still used for its original purpose...
in Philadelphia. The following December, she returned to Broadway as Gretchen in the revival of Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
's The Red Mill
The Red Mill
The Red Mill is an operetta written by Victor Herbert, with a libretto by Henry Blossom. It premiered on Broadway on September 24, 1906 at the Knickerbocker Theatre and ran for 274 performances, starring comedians Fred Stone and David Montgomery. It was revived on October 16, 1945, opening at the...
when the production moved to the Shubert Theatre
Shubert Theatre (Broadway)
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 225 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States.Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts, it was named after Sam S. Shubert, the second oldest of the three brothers of the theatrical producing family...
from the 46th Street Theatre. In January 1948, Bishop returned to Philadelphia to portray Letitia in Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...
's The Old Maid and the Thief
The Old Maid and the Thief
The Old Maid and the Thief is an opera in one act by Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti. The work uses an English language libretto by the composer which tells a twisted tale of morals and evil womanly power...
. The composer attended one of the performances and was so impressed with Bishop that he contacted Laszlo Halasz
Laszlo Halasz
Laszlo Halasz was an American opera director, conductor, and pianist of Hungarian birth. In 1943 he was appointed the first director of the New York City Opera; a position he held through 1951...
, director of the NYCO, and told him he had to hire her. This led to her being offered a contract with the NYCO and her debut with the company as Gilda in Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
on April 18, 1948.
The New York City Opera years: 1948-1960
After this point, Bishop's career decidedly oriented away from musical theatre to opera. Even her two remaining Broadway parts were in opera productions: the role of Lucia in the United States premiere of BrittenBenjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's The Rape of Lucretia (1948) at the Ziegfeld Theatre
Ziegfeld Theatre
The Ziegfeld Theatre was a Broadway theater located at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 54th Street in Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1927 and, despite public protests, was razed in 1966....
and Adele in Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
's Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
(1954) with the New York City Center Light Opera Company. She quickly became a favorite at the NYCO during the late 1940s and went on to portray many lyric soprano
Lyric soprano
A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenues and other sympathetic characters in opera. Lyric sopranos have...
roles with the company through 1960, including The Stepdaughter in the world premiere of Hugo Weisgall
Hugo Weisgall
Hugo David Weisgall was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions...
's Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author (opera)
Six Characters in Search of an Author is an opera in three acts by composer Hugo Weisgall. The work uses an English libretto by Denis Johnston that is based on the play of the same name by Luigi Pirandello. The opera was commissioned by the New York City Opera under the leadership Julius Rudel...
(1959) and Mary Stone in the New York premiere of Douglas Moore's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1959). Among her many other roles with the NYCO were Gretel in Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
's Hänsel und Gretel, Liù in Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
, Musetta in Puccini's La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Norina in Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
, Olympia in Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann is an opéra by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on short stories by E. T. A...
, Sophie in Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
, and Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro.
While mainly performing with the NYCO, Bishop also occasionally performed with other organizations. In 1949 she sang Gilda with the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company
Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company
The Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company was an American opera company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that was actively performing at the Academy of Music between 1925 and 1954...
with Cesare Bardelli as Rigoletto, Rudolf Petrak as the Duke of Mantua, and conductor Giuseppe Bamboschek
Giuseppe Bamboschek
Giuseppe Maria Bamboschek was an Italian-American opera conductor, pianist, organist, music director and film director. During his expansive career, Bamboschek conducted performances including famed singers Enrico Caruso, Rosa Ponselle, Giovanni Martinelli, Giuseppe De Luca, and many more...
. That same year she made her first appearance at the Central City Opera
Central City Opera
Central City Opera is the fifth-oldest opera company in the United States, founded in 1932. Each festival is presented in the 550-seat historic Central City Opera House built in 1878 in the gold mining era town of Central City, Colorado. Pelham G...
in Colorado as Adele, later returning to sing roles in two operas by Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
: Juliet in Romeo et Juliet (1951) and Marguerite in Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
(1954). In 1950 she portrayed Adele in a television recording of Die Fledermaus with the NBC Opera Theatre
NBC Opera Theatre
The NBC Opera Theatre was an American opera company operated by the National Broadcasting Company from 1949 to 1964. The company was established specifically for the purpose of filming both established and new operas for television...
. In 1951 she made her first appearance with New Orleans Opera
New Orleans Opera
Opera has long been part of the musical culture of New Orleans, Louisiana. Operas have regularly been performed in the city since the 1790s, and for the majority of the city's history since the early 19th century, New Orleans has had a resident company regularly performing opera in addition to...
as Susanna to the Countess of Frances Yeend
Frances Yeend
Frances Yeend was an American classical soprano who had an active international career as a concert and opera singer during the 1940s through the 1960s...
and Cherubino of Frances Bible
Frances Bible
Frances Lillian Bible was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had a thirty long year career at the New York City Opera between 1948 and 1978. She also made a fair number of opera appearances with other companies throughout the United States, but only made a limited number of appearances abroad...
, later returning to the house to portray Kathie in Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
's The Student Prince
The Student Prince
The Student Prince is an operetta in four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's play Alt Heidelberg. The piece has elements of melodrama but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works...
opposite Brian Sullivan
Brian Sullivan
Brian Sullivan may refer to:* Brian Sullivan , presenter of programs on CNBC* Brian Sullivan , politician from Snohomish County, Washington...
as Karl in 1953. She portrayed Estelle in the premiere of the orchestrated version of Weisgall's The Stronger
The Stronger (opera)
The Stronger is an opera in one act by composer Hugo Weisgall. The English language libretto by Richard Henry Hart is based on August Strindberg's play of the same name...
in August 1955 for the Composers Forum at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. That 1955 performance with the Columbia Chamber Orchestra was recorded.
In 1956 Bishop sang Lucia again opposite Jon Vickers
Jon Vickers
Jonathan Stewart Vickers, CC , known professionally as Jon Vickers, is a retired Canadian heldentenor.Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a scholarship to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto...
's Male Chorus and Regina Resnik
Regina Resnik
Regina Resnik is an American operatic singer.Regina Resnik, the American mezzo-soprano, started a dramatic career ten months after earning her B.A. in Music at Hunter College. The role was Lady Macbeth under Fritz Busch in December, 1942 with the New Opera Company. A few months later, she sang...
's Lucretia at the renowned Stratford Festival in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. In 1956, again with NBC Opera Theatre, she portrayed Papagena in an English-language version of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, a production which also featured Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
as Pamina, in an almost unheard-of 1950s example of television "color-blind casting". In 1957, she returned to NBC to appear in the world premiere telecast of Stanley Hollingsworth
Stanley Hollingsworth
Stanley Walker Hollingsworth was an American composer and teacher. He was a student of composer Darius Milhaud from 1944–46, and of Gian Carlo Menotti from 1948–50...
's La Grande Breteche. She portrayed Queen Popotte in the United States premiere of Offenbach's Le Voyage dans la Lune
Le Voyage dans la Lune
A Trip to the Moon is a 1902 French black-and-white silent science fiction film. It is based loosely on two popular novels of the time: Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon....
in 1958, which was also the very first production mounted by Sarah Caldwell
Sarah Caldwell
Sarah Caldwell was a notable American opera conductor, impresario, and stage director of opera.- Life :Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and gave public performances on the violin by the time she was ten years old...
's Opera Company of Boston
Opera Company of Boston
The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts that was active during the late 1950s through the early 1990s. The company was founded by American conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Boston Opera Group. At one time, the touring arm of the...
. The production was so well received that the company was invited to present the work on the lawn of the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
in a performance attended by President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
. She returned to Boston the following season for their production of The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
.
Of all the roles Bishop sang, she is most remembered for her portrayal of the title role in the world premiere of Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...
's Griffelkin
Griffelkin
Griffelkin is an opera by Lukas Foss with a libretto by Alastair Reid. The opera was first performed on November 6, 1955, in a nationwide telecast by the NBC Opera Theatre.-Background:...
, which was written for television. Made by the NBC Opera Theater, the work premiered on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1955 and was viewed by an estimated audience of one million people. Opera News
Opera News
Opera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...
said in their review at the time: "In Griffelkin, Lukas Foss is almost too brilliant for his own good. Adelaide Bishop, creating the title role, saved the day. Extraordinarily impish in appearance, she not only sang like an inspired choirboy but succeeded in bringing wonder and a heartbreaking confusion into the scenes when the small hero is seized with the first pangs of humanity."
Work as an opera director and voice teacher
Beginning in the late 1950s, Bishop became highly active working as a stage director, competition judge, and voice teacher. As a stage director, she worked on productions for several companies throughout the United States, including the Indianapolis OperaIndianapolis Opera
The only professional opera company in Indiana, the ' hosts three fully staged productions a season in addition to supporting a Young Artist Program and various local events...
, San Diego Opera
San Diego Opera
The San Diego Opera Association is a professional opera company located in the city of San Diego, California and is a member of OPERA America. It was founded in 1950 to present productions by San Francisco Opera in the San Diego area...
, Baltimore Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia
Opera Company of Philadelphia
The Opera Company of Philadelphia is an American opera company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the city's only company producing grand opera. The organization produces four fully staged opera productions annually, encompassing works from the seventeenth through the 21st century...
, Opera Omaha
Opera Omaha
Opera Omaha is an opera company in Omaha, Nebraska. It is well known for premiering Wakonda's Dream, a contemporary opera about Native Americans set in the Niobrara....
, Tulsa Opera
Tulsa Opera
The Tulsa Opera, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the 18th oldest opera company in the United States and is ranked among the top 10 regional opera companies in the nation. The company produces three opera productions each season performed at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center...
, Central City Opera
Central City Opera
Central City Opera is the fifth-oldest opera company in the United States, founded in 1932. Each festival is presented in the 550-seat historic Central City Opera House built in 1878 in the gold mining era town of Central City, Colorado. Pelham G...
, Hawaii Opera Theatre
Hawaii Opera Theatre
The Hawaii Opera Theatre is an opera company located in Honolulu, Hawaii, which became active in 1961. The company typically performs three operas during February and March in Blaisdell Concert Hall...
, and Portland Opera
Portland Opera
Portland Opera is an American opera company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon. Its mainstage performances take place in the Keller Auditorium, while the Portland Opera Studio Theater at the Hampton center is used for performances of chamber operas...
, to name just a few. The operas she staged came from a broad range of repertoire, including standard works like La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, as well as twentieth-century American works such as Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale...
, The Crucible
The Crucible (opera)
The Crucible is an English language opera written by Robert Ward based on the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. It won both the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Music Critics Circle Citation. The libretto was lightly adapted from Miller's text by Bernard Stambler.Ward received a...
, and The Medium
The Medium
The Medium is a short two-act dramatic opera with words and music by Gian Carlo Menotti. Commissioned by Columbia University, its first performance was there on 8 May 1946. The opera's first professional production was presented on a double bill with Menotti's The Telephone at the Heckscher...
, to name just a few. Bishop notably staged the world premiere of David Amram
David Amram
David Amram is an American composer, musician, conductor, and writer. As a classical composer and performer, his integration of jazz , ethnic and folk music has led him to work with the likes of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Willie Nelson, Langston...
's Twelfth Night at the Lake George Opera in 1968.
As an educator, Bishop worked on the music faculties of Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
and the Mannes College The New School for Music, teaching voice and directing student opera productions. She also served for fourteen years as the chair of the opera department at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
(1970–1984) and chairwoman of the opera department and artistic director of the opera theater at the Hartt School
Hartt School
The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford located in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States that offers innovative degree programs in music, dance, and theatre...
(1982–1993). Bishop also worked as Artistic Director of the Wolf Trap Opera, a summer opera training program for young opera singers.
Bishop died in a car accident in Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. It is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers...
just three days shy of her eightieth birthday.