Nathaniel Merrill
Encyclopedia
Nathaniel Merrill was a celebrated American stage director and opera director. He was the resident stage director at the Metropolitan Opera
from 1956-1985. During his 28 seasons at the Met he staged a total of 14 new productions in addition to directing several revivals. He also served as the Artistic Director of Central City Opera
from 1959-1966. In 1981 he and his wife, conductor Louise Sherman, founded Opera Colorado
. Merrill served as the company's artistic director and stage director and his wife worked as the company's musical director. Upon his wife's death from cancer in 1998, Merrill retired and thereafter lived in Denver up until his death of complications related to Alzheimer's disease
a decade later.
, Merrill earned degrees from Dartmouth College
, the New England Conservatory of Music
, and Boston University
. After working with the Hamburg State Opera
, the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
, the Glyndebourne Festival, and the Salzburg Festival
, he joined the staff at the Metropolitan Opera
in 1956 where his first job was to create a revised staging of Joseph L. Mankiewicz
's 1952 production of Giacomo Puccini
's La bohème
. His first major critical successes at the Met came during the 1960–1961 season when he directed the new staging of L'elisir d'amore
and staged a brand new production of Puccini's Turandot
that was designed by Cecil Beaton
. He went on to stage several Met premieres including, Strauss
's Die Frau ohne Schatten
(1966), Berlioz
's Les Troyens
(1973) and Gershwin
's Porgy and Bess
(1985).
Many of Merrill's stagings remained a part of the company's repertory for decades, including his stagings of Donizetti
's ''L'elisir d'amore' (1960), Wagner
's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
(1962) and Humperdinck
's Hänsel und Gretel (1967). Other operas he staged for the company included Adriana Lecouvreur
(1963), Aida
(1963), Samson et Dalila (1964), Luisa Miller
(1968), Il trovatore
(1969) and Parsifal
(1970) among others. His 1969 staging of Der Rosenkavalier
remains a part of the company's repertoire today. Opera News
said, "Merrill productions were designed to survive multiple revivals and cast changes; generally traditional and always clear, their simple but effective staging touches, such as Dulcamara's arrival via hot-air balloon in Elisir, kept Met audiences diverted and amused for a generation."
During his years at the Met, Merrill also worked for several other opera companies, notably working as the Artistic Director of Central City Opera
in Colorado
for seven years. From 1974 to 1978 he worked as the resident producer and director of technical services for the Opéra national du Rhin
. He also directed operas for many companies both in the United States and abroad during his career, including the Arena di Verona Festival
, the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe
, the Bregenz Festival, the Hamburg State Opera
, the Houston Grand Opera
, the Lyric Opera of Chicago
, the Miami Opera, the Opera Company of Philadelphia
, the Salzburg Festival
, the San Diego Opera
, the Teatro Colón, and the Vienna State Opera
among others.
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
from 1956-1985. During his 28 seasons at the Met he staged a total of 14 new productions in addition to directing several revivals. He also served as the Artistic Director of 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...
from 1959-1966. In 1981 he and his wife, conductor Louise Sherman, founded Opera Colorado
Opera Colorado
Opera Colorado is an opera company located in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1981, it presents an annual season of three to four fully staged productions...
. Merrill served as the company's artistic director and stage director and his wife worked as the company's musical director. Upon his wife's death from cancer in 1998, Merrill retired and thereafter lived in Denver up until his death of complications related to Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
a decade later.
Career
Born in Newton, MassachusettsNewton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States bordered to the east by Boston. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Newton was 85,146, making it the eleventh largest city in the state.-Villages:...
, Merrill earned degrees from Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, the New England Conservatory of Music
New England Conservatory of Music
The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent school of music in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of...
, and 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...
. After working with the Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
, the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden is the State Theatre of the German state Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden, producing operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. It is also known as Staatstheater Wiesbaden or Theater Wiesbaden...
, the Glyndebourne Festival, and the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
, he joined the staff at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in 1956 where his first job was to create a revised staging of Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J...
's 1952 production of Giacomo 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 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...
. His first major critical successes at the Met came during the 1960–1961 season when he directed the new staging of L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
and staged a brand new production of Puccini'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...
that was designed by Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...
. He went on to stage several Met premieres including, 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 Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
(1966), Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
's Les Troyens
Les Troyens
Les Troyens is a French opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself, based on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid...
(1973) and Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
(1985).
Many of Merrill's stagings remained a part of the company's repertory for decades, including his stagings of 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 ''L'elisir d'amore' (1960), Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
(1962) and 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 (1967). Other operas he staged for the company included Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the play by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé...
(1963), Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
(1963), Samson et Dalila (1964), Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich von Schiller. The first performance was given at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on December 8, 1849...
(1968), Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
(1969) and Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
(1970) among others. His 1969 staging of 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...
remains a part of the company's repertoire today. 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, "Merrill productions were designed to survive multiple revivals and cast changes; generally traditional and always clear, their simple but effective staging touches, such as Dulcamara's arrival via hot-air balloon in Elisir, kept Met audiences diverted and amused for a generation."
During his years at the Met, Merrill also worked for several other opera companies, notably working as the Artistic Director of 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
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
for seven years. From 1974 to 1978 he worked as the resident producer and director of technical services for the Opéra national du Rhin
Opéra national du Rhin
LOpéra national du Rhin is an opera company which performs in Alsace, eastern France, and which includes the Opéra in Strasbourg, the company's ballet in Mulhouse , and the "Opéra Studio" , a training centre for young singers, in Colmar...
. He also directed operas for many companies both in the United States and abroad during his career, including the Arena di Verona Festival
Arena di Verona Festival
The Arena di Verona Festival is a summer festival of opera, located in the city of Verona Italy. Since 1936, it has been organized under the auspices of an official body, first the Ente Autonomo Spettacoli Lirici Arena di Verona, , and then, following legislation in 1996 and...
, the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe
Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe
The Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe is a theatre and opera house in Karlsruhe, Germany. It has existed in its present form and place at Ettlinger Tor since 1975...
, the Bregenz Festival, the Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
, the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
, the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
, the Miami Opera, the 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...
, the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
, the 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...
, the Teatro Colón, and the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
among others.
External links
- Interview by Bruce Duffie, December 2, 1982
- Review of a 1981 Production of L'Elisir d'Amore using Merrill's staging by Donal Henahan, March 3, 1981
- Obituary