Myer Lyon
Encyclopedia
Myer Lyon better known by his stage name
Michael Leoni, was a hazzan
at the Great Synagogue of London
who achieved fame as a tenor
opera
singer in London
and Dublin, and as the mentor of the singer John Braham
.
) to Isaac Polack, hazzan at the Great Synagogue, London, in 1767 'at a salary of £40 per annum, on the understanding that he was to behave as a Yehudi Kasher (i.e. an observant Jew)'. Lyon's origins remain unclear. According to the memoirs of the actor James de Castro he was born in Frankfurt-on-Main and was invited to London by 'the German Jews', where 'a very rich Jew, Mr. Franks, instantly patronized him'. His voice having been brought to the attention of the aristocracy and the actor David Garrick
, he was given permission by the synagogue elders to appear on stage (where he adopted the name Michael Leoni), after which he returned to the synagogue and developed thenceforth a dual career.
It is difficult, however, to reconcile this narrative with his known dates. The first record of him is in October 1760 where Garrick refers to him as 'ye boy Leoni' – he sang a role in Garrick's The Enchanter at Drury Lane Theatre
which was 'received with great applause'. This suggests that Leoni could not yet have been in his teens at this time, and that therefore the story of his being summoned to London cannot be true. In fact it would be surprising if it were true since there is no evidence that the congregation there had any concerns about musical standards. The fact that the synagogue was only too happy to dock Leoni's pay by £8 a year in 1772, due to its financial problems, also argues against the congregation’s supposed dedication to its cantor. It is therefore rather more likely that, wherever he was born, he lived in London from an early age and was talent-spotted, perhaps by Polack, in the synagogue (much as Leoni was later to train his own nephew, John Braham
.)
(1775) and, in the same year, as Carlos in Richard Brinsley Sheridan
’s The Duenna
at the Covent Garden Theatre. The Morning Chronicle commented in its notice of The Duenna that ‘it can never be performed on a Friday, on account of Leoni’s engagement with the Synagogue’, an indication of how crucial Leoni was to the piece’s success.
Yigdal
that he determined to write words for a church hymn using the melody. The result was the hymn The God of Abraham Praise, which has had great popularity ever since. In the standard Church of England
hymnal, Hymns Ancient and Modern
, the tune of The God of Abraham Praise is still entitled Leoni, after its source.
of Aaron Franks, who was married to the daughter of another Jewish magnate, Moses Hart
. The writer Horace Walpole was in the audience and gave a description which confirms the unusual qualities of Leoni’s voice:
's Messiah
is unsubstantiated). He chose for his venture Dublin, where he had appeared in 1781. Leoni’s 1783 season, undertaken jointly with the composer Giordani, proved, however, to be an utter disaster, and some newspaper reviews remarked on the fading of his voice, although he can only have been in his mid-thirties at the most.
After this he sailed to Jamaica to become hazzan to the Jewish community in Kingston, where he died in 1797. He is buried at the old Jewish cemetery
in Elletson Road, Kingston.
'Neglected, appall’d, sickly poor and decay’d
See LEONI retiring in life’s humble shade.
‘Tis but few little years since the charm of his voice
Made theatres echo and thousands rejoice'.
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
Michael Leoni, was a hazzan
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...
at the Great Synagogue of London
Great Synagogue of London
The Great Synagogue of London was, for centuries, the centre of Ashkenazi synagogue and Jewish life in London. It was destroyed during World War II, in the Blitz.-History:...
who achieved fame as a tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
opera
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...
singer in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Dublin, and as the mentor of the singer John Braham
John Braham
John Braham was a tenor opera singer born in London, England. His long career led him to become one of Europe's leading opera stars. He also wrote a number of songs, of minor importance, although The Death of Nelson is still remembered...
.
Origins and early career
Myer Lyon was appointed meshorrer (choirboyChoirboy
A choirboy is a boy member of a choir, also known as a treble.As a derisive slang term, it refers to a do-gooder or someone who is morally upright, in the same sense that "Boy Scout" refers to someone who is considered honorable or conscientious.- History :The use of choirboys in Christian...
) to Isaac Polack, hazzan at the Great Synagogue, London, in 1767 'at a salary of £40 per annum, on the understanding that he was to behave as a Yehudi Kasher (i.e. an observant Jew)'. Lyon's origins remain unclear. According to the memoirs of the actor James de Castro he was born in Frankfurt-on-Main and was invited to London by 'the German Jews', where 'a very rich Jew, Mr. Franks, instantly patronized him'. His voice having been brought to the attention of the aristocracy and the actor David Garrick
David Garrick
David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
, he was given permission by the synagogue elders to appear on stage (where he adopted the name Michael Leoni), after which he returned to the synagogue and developed thenceforth a dual career.
It is difficult, however, to reconcile this narrative with his known dates. The first record of him is in October 1760 where Garrick refers to him as 'ye boy Leoni' – he sang a role in Garrick's The Enchanter at Drury Lane Theatre
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
which was 'received with great applause'. This suggests that Leoni could not yet have been in his teens at this time, and that therefore the story of his being summoned to London cannot be true. In fact it would be surprising if it were true since there is no evidence that the congregation there had any concerns about musical standards. The fact that the synagogue was only too happy to dock Leoni's pay by £8 a year in 1772, due to its financial problems, also argues against the congregation’s supposed dedication to its cantor. It is therefore rather more likely that, wherever he was born, he lived in London from an early age and was talent-spotted, perhaps by Polack, in the synagogue (much as Leoni was later to train his own nephew, John Braham
John Braham
John Braham was a tenor opera singer born in London, England. His long career led him to become one of Europe's leading opera stars. He also wrote a number of songs, of minor importance, although The Death of Nelson is still remembered...
.)
Major roles
Leoni’s twin-tracking in the synagogue and the theatre continued for some while. Between 1770 and 1782 he appeared quite frequently on the stage in London, where he scored great successes in Thomas Arne’s ArtaxerxesArtaxerxes (opera)
Artaxerxes is an opera in three acts composed by Thomas Arne set to an English adaptation of Metastasio's 1729 libretto Artaserse. The first English opera seria, Artaxerxes premiered on 2 February 1762 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and continued to be regularly performed until the late 1830s...
(1775) and, in the same year, as Carlos in Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
’s The Duenna
The Duenna
The Duenna is a three-act comic opera, mostly composed by Thomas Linley the elder and his son, Thomas Linley the younger, to an English-language libretto by Richard Brinsley Sheridan...
at the Covent Garden Theatre. The Morning Chronicle commented in its notice of The Duenna that ‘it can never be performed on a Friday, on account of Leoni’s engagement with the Synagogue’, an indication of how crucial Leoni was to the piece’s success.
Leoni's version of Yigdal
Leoni also developed admirers amongst Non-conformist Christians. His reputation encouraged a number of Gentiles, including in 1770 the Methodist Thomas Olivers, to come to the Great Synagogue on Friday nights to hear him. Olivers was so impressed by Leoni’s moving rendition of the hymnHymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
Yigdal
Yigdal
Yigdal is a Jewish hymn which in various rituals shares with Adon 'Olam the place of honor at the opening of the morning and the close of the evening service. It is based on the 13 Articles of Faith formulated by Moses ben Maimon, and was written by Daniel ben Judah Dayan , who spent eight years...
that he determined to write words for a church hymn using the melody. The result was the hymn The God of Abraham Praise, which has had great popularity ever since. In the standard Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
hymnal, Hymns Ancient and Modern
Hymns Ancient and Modern
Hymns Ancient and Modern was a hymnal in common use within the Church of England. Over the years it has grown into a large family of hymnals....
, the tune of The God of Abraham Praise is still entitled Leoni, after its source.
Society singer
Leoni’s fame and talents turned out to be valuable in social terms to his congregation. Its wealthier members had taken to purchasing estates on the outskirts of London where they could live fashionable lives and hold soirées to which polite society could be invited. Integral to these was the quality of the entertainments provided, and Leoni was a star of appropriate calibre. In November 1774 he sang at the house in IsleworthIsleworth
Isleworth is a small town of Saxon origin sited within the London Borough of Hounslow in west London, England. It lies immediately east of the town of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane. Isleworth's original area of settlement, alongside the Thames, is known as...
of Aaron Franks, who was married to the daughter of another Jewish magnate, Moses Hart
Moses Hart (1675-1756)
Moses Hart was an English businessman, founder of Duke's Place Synagogue . He was the brother of Rabbi Aaron Hart, chief rabbi of the Ashkenazic Jews of England. He was considered the leader of Ashkenazi Jewry in London....
. The writer Horace Walpole was in the audience and gave a description which confirms the unusual qualities of Leoni’s voice:
I was at a very fine concert at old Franks at Isleworth, and heard Leoni, who pleased me more than anything I have heard these hundred years. There is a full melancholy melody in his voice, though a falsettoFalsettoFalsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
, that nothing but a natural voice almost ever compasses. Then he sang songs of HandelHANDELHANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
in a genuine simple style, and did not put one in pain like the rope- dancers.
Opera promoter
Eventually in 1783 Leoni’s success and his limited remuneration at the synagogue led him to change his career and chance his arm as an opera promoter as well as a performer. (The story that Leoni was eventually dismissed by the synagogue for performing in HandelHANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
is unsubstantiated). He chose for his venture Dublin, where he had appeared in 1781. Leoni’s 1783 season, undertaken jointly with the composer Giordani, proved, however, to be an utter disaster, and some newspaper reviews remarked on the fading of his voice, although he can only have been in his mid-thirties at the most.
Decline and emigration
Perhaps by this time audiences were beginning to tire of the unusual timbre which had first brought him popularity. From the financial consequences of this season Leoni never fully recovered. He appeared in 1787 in a benefit performance at Covent Garden Theatre (which was also the first stage appearance of John Braham), and had his last London benefit in 1788.After this he sailed to Jamaica to become hazzan to the Jewish community in Kingston, where he died in 1797. He is buried at the old Jewish cemetery
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...
in Elletson Road, Kingston.
Reputation
Clearly, however, his voice left a strong imprint amongst English music lovers. The satirist John Wilkins, in the year of Leoni’s death, wrote:'Neglected, appall’d, sickly poor and decay’d
See LEONI retiring in life’s humble shade.
‘Tis but few little years since the charm of his voice
Made theatres echo and thousands rejoice'.