Arthur Newman
Encyclopedia
Arthur Newman was an American opera
tic baritone
and actor
. He began his career as a stage actor in St. Louis in the early 1930s and in 1939 began an opera career. He was notably a member of the New York City Opera
between 1945 and 1959 during which time he performed in more than 1,300 performances with the company in over 50 roles.
. He began his career as an actor at the Missouri Theater Company, portraying primarily nonmusical roles during the early 1930s. In the mid 1930s he started taking singing lessons with the intent of becoming an opera singer. In 1939 he joined the roster at the St. Louis Grand Opera Association. Between 1939 and 1943 he sang a number of secondary roles with the company, including parts in productions of Otello
, Rigoletto
, La Traviata
, Tosca
, Manon
, Martha
, and Mignon
. During these years he and his wife, Helen Wright, were featured singers on the St. Louis radio station KMOX, where they presented a weekly program of vocal duets. In the early 1940s Newman also sang with the International Opera of Havana and with the St. Louis Chamber Opera.
Newman made his New York City
debut on Broadway
with the New Opera Company portraying Mr. Hutchinson in Jacques Offenbach
's La Vie Parisienne
on January 12, 1945. Just a few months later he joined the roster of singers at the New York City
, making his debut with the company in April 1945 as Schaunard in Giacomo Puccini
's La Boheme
. He maintained a busy schedule performing with the NYCO for the next fifteen years in mainly supporting comic roles like Sacristan in Tosca and Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro. Some of his other roles included Masetto in Don Giovanni
, several different roles in Der Rosenkavalier
, and Escamillo in Carmen
. He also sang in a number of world premieres with the company, including Chennoch in David Tamkin
's The Dybbuk
(1951) and The Doctor in Mark Bucci
's Tale for a Deaf Ear
(1958).
In addition to his work with the NYCO, Newman also sang several small roles on a number of recordings for RCA
, including Verdi's Otello
and La Traviata with conductor Arturo Toscanini
.
After Newman left the NYCO in 1959, he joined the voice faculty at Wichita State University
in Kansas
. He notably taught the bass Samuel Ramey
during his tenure there. In 1973 Newman retired. He died in Scottsdale, Arizona
at the age of 92.
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 baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. He began his career as a stage actor in St. Louis in the early 1930s and in 1939 began an opera career. He was notably a member of 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...
between 1945 and 1959 during which time he performed in more than 1,300 performances with the company in over 50 roles.
Biography
Newman was born and raised in St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. He began his career as an actor at the Missouri Theater Company, portraying primarily nonmusical roles during the early 1930s. In the mid 1930s he started taking singing lessons with the intent of becoming an opera singer. In 1939 he joined the roster at the St. Louis Grand Opera Association. Between 1939 and 1943 he sang a number of secondary roles with the company, including parts in productions of Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
, 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...
, 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...
, Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, Manon
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
, Martha
Martha (opera)
Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond is a 'romantic comic' opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow, set to a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges....
, and Mignon
Mignon
Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's The Dead,...
. During these years he and his wife, Helen Wright, were featured singers on the St. Louis radio station KMOX, where they presented a weekly program of vocal duets. In the early 1940s Newman also sang with the International Opera of Havana and with the St. Louis Chamber Opera.
Newman made his New York City
New 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...
debut on 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...
with the New Opera Company portraying Mr. Hutchinson in Jacques 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 La Vie Parisienne
La Vie Parisienne
La Vie Parisienne was a magazine in France founded in 1863 and popular at the turn-of-the-twentieth century. It was originally intended as a guide to upper class and artistic life in Paris , but it soon evolved into a mildly risqué erotic publication...
on January 12, 1945. Just a few months later he joined the roster of singers at the New York City
New 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...
, making his debut with the company in April 1945 as Schaunard in 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 Boheme
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...
. He maintained a busy schedule performing with the NYCO for the next fifteen years in mainly supporting comic roles like Sacristan in Tosca and Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro. Some of his other roles included Masetto in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, several different roles in 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 Escamillo in Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
. He also sang in a number of world premieres with the company, including Chennoch in David Tamkin
David Tamkin
David Tamkin was an American composer of Jewish descent. He devoted much of his professional career as an arranger, composer [uncredited] and orchestrator of film scores for Hollywood movies. He worked on more than 50 films between 1939 and 1970.-Biography:Tamkin was born in Chernihiv, Ukraine...
's The Dybbuk
The Dybbuk (opera)
The Dybbuk is an opera in three acts by composer David Tamkin. The work uses an English libretto by Alex Tamkin, the composer's brother, which is based on S. Ansky’s Yiddish play of the same name. Composed in 1933, the work was not premiered until October 4, 1951 when it was mounted by the New York...
(1951) and The Doctor in Mark Bucci
Mark Bucci
Mark Bucci was an American composer, lyricist, and dramatist. Influenced by Giacomo Puccini, his work is composed in a contemporary yet lyrical style which frequently employs marked rhythms and memorable harmonies and melodies.-Career:Bucci studied music composition with Tibor Serly in New York...
's Tale for a Deaf Ear
Tale for a Deaf Ear
Tale for a Deaf Ear is an opera in one act with music and lyrics by Mark Bucci, sung in three languages and based on a story by Elizabeth Enright that appeared in the April 1951 edition of Harper's Magazine. The work was commissioned by Samuel Wechsler for performance at the 1957 Tanglewood Music...
(1958).
In addition to his work with the NYCO, Newman also sang several small roles on a number of recordings for RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
, including Verdi's Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
and La Traviata with conductor Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
.
After Newman left the NYCO in 1959, he joined the voice faculty at Wichita State University
Wichita State University
Wichita State University is a NCAA Division I public university in Wichita, Kansas with selective admissions. WSU is one of six state universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The current president is Dr. Donald Beggs....
in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
. He notably taught the bass Samuel Ramey
Samuel Ramey
Samuel Edward Ramey is an American operatic bass with a long, distinguished career.During his best years, he was greatly admired for his range and versatility, having possessed a sufficiently accomplished bel canto technique to enable him to sing the music of Handel, Mozart, Rossini, yet power...
during his tenure there. In 1973 Newman retired. He died in Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, adjacent to Phoenix. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010 the population of the city was 217,385...
at the age of 92.