Natalie Bodanya
Encyclopedia
Natalie Bodanya was an American
opera
tic soprano
who had an active international career from the late 1920s through the 1940s. She notably sang at the Metropolitan Opera
in New York City from 1937 through 1942 and was a performer with the New York City Opera
during the company's 1943-1944 inaugural season.
, Bodanya grew up in an apartment building in the Upper East Side
. One of her neighbors was an employee at the Union Settlement, a music school in Bodanya's neighborhood. Her neighbor provided her with the opportunity to receive her first music lessons at the school and eventually provided her with the opportunity to audition for famed coloratura soprano
Marcella Sembrich
. Impressed, Sembrich took on Bodanya as her student and through her support, Bodanya was able to enroll at the Curtis Institute of Music
. After graduating she continued with further vocal studies under Sylvan Levin
.
While studying at Curtis, Bodanya made her professional opera debut on December 26, 1929 as Blonde in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's Die Entführung aus dem Serail
with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company
at the Academy of Music
under conductor Emil Młynarski. At the time of her debut, Natalie Bodanya billed herself as Natalie Bodanskaya. She shortened her name as of December 22, 1936, to lessen confusion with the mezzo-soprano Ina Bourskaya and the conductor Artur Bodanzky
.
After several years of performing with second tier companies in the United States, Bodanya was invited by Edward Johnson
to join the roster of principal artists at the Metropolitan Opera
. She made her debut with the company as Micaela in Georges Bizet
's Carmen
on May 11, 1936 with Bruna Castagna in the title role, Armand Tokatyan
as Don José, Carlo Morelli as Escamillo, and Gennaro Papi conducting. Her portrayal of Micaela later appeared on the January 7, 1937 Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast on January 7, 1937 in which her performance shines through as one of the great creations of that role.
Bodanya remained on the Met roster for the next seven consecutive seasons, taking only a brief hiatus from performance for a few months after her 1938 marriage to William Gorman, a philosophy professor who collaborated with Mortimer Adler
. She notably sang Elisetta in the Met's first staging of Domenico Cimarosa
's Il matrimonio segreto
on February 25, 1937 with Muriel Dickson
as Carolina, Irra Petina
as Fidalma, George Rasely
as Paolino, Louis D'Angelo as Geronimo, and Ettore Panizza
conducting. Among the other roles she portrayed on the Met stage were an American Girl in Walter Damrosch's The Man Without a Country
, Ellen in Lakmé
, an Errand Girl in Louise
, the Forest Bird in Siegfried
, the First Esquire in Parsifal
, an orphan in Der Rosenkavalier
, Musetta in La Bohème
, Papagena in The Magic Flute
, Poussette in Manon
, and Yniold in Pelléas et Mélisande
. Her last and 157th performance at the Met was as Esmeralda in Bedřich Smetana
's The Bartered Bride
on January 16, 1942 with Jarmila Novotná
as Marenka, Tokatyan as Jeník, Karl Laufkötter as Vasek, Norman Cordon as Kecal, Thelma Votipka
as Ludmila, and Paul Breisach
conducting.
Bodanya took some time off from performing to have her son Paul. After a two year absence from the stage, she joined the fledgling New York City Opera
company in 1944. Her first appearance with the company was as Musetta in the NYCO's first staging of La Bohème. She also sang the role of Nedda in Pagliacci
with the NYCO in 1944.
In addition to her appearances in the United States, Bodanya was also active as a guest artist in operas and concerts in Europe. She notably canceled her contracts with the Vienna State Opera
and La Scala
in 1938 to protest the anti-Semitic measures being taken by the governments of Italy and Austria. She also appeared in nightclubs, performed on the radio, and recorded a few songs with Mario Lanza
.
In the 1950s Bodanya embarked on a second career as a singing teacher in California. She died in Santa Barbara, California
, aged 98.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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...
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...
who had an active international career from the late 1920s through the 1940s. She notably sang 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 New York City from 1937 through 1942 and was a performer 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...
during the company's 1943-1944 inaugural season.
Biography
Born Natalia Bodanskaya in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, Bodanya grew up in an apartment building in the Upper East Side
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
. One of her neighbors was an employee at the Union Settlement, a music school in Bodanya's neighborhood. Her neighbor provided her with the opportunity to receive her first music lessons at the school and eventually provided her with the opportunity to audition for famed coloratura soprano
Coloratura soprano
A coloratura soprano is a type of operatic soprano who specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs and leaps. The term coloratura refers to the elaborate ornamentation of a melody, which is a typical component of the music written for this voice...
Marcella Sembrich
Marcella Sembrich
Marcella Sembrich was the stage name of the Polish coloratura soprano, Prakseda Marcelina Kochańska...
. Impressed, Sembrich took on Bodanya as her student and through her support, Bodanya was able to enroll at the Curtis Institute of Music
Curtis Institute of Music
The Curtis Institute of Music is a conservatory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that offers courses of study leading to a performance Diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in Opera, and Professional Studies Certificate in Opera. According to statistics compiled by U.S...
. After graduating she continued with further vocal studies under Sylvan Levin
Sylvan Levin
Sylvan Levin was an American concert pianist and conductor. He notably served as the assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York City Symphony under Leopold Stokowski for many years...
.
While studying at Curtis, Bodanya made her professional opera debut on December 26, 1929 as Blonde in Wolfgang Amadeus 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 Philadelphia Grand Opera Company
Philadelphia Grand Opera Company
The Philadelphia Grand Opera Company was the name of four different American opera companies active at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the twentieth century. The last and most well known of the four was founded in November 1954 with the merger of the Philadelphia Civic...
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...
under conductor Emil Młynarski. At the time of her debut, Natalie Bodanya billed herself as Natalie Bodanskaya. She shortened her name as of December 22, 1936, to lessen confusion with the mezzo-soprano Ina Bourskaya and the conductor Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky was an Austrian-American conductor particularly associated with the operas of Wagner.- Career :...
.
After several years of performing with second tier companies in the United States, Bodanya was invited by Edward Johnson
Edward Johnson (tenor)
Edward Patrick Johnson CBE was a Canadian operatic tenor who was billed outside North America as Edoardo Di Giovanni, and became director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.- Early life :...
to join the roster of principal artists 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...
. She made her debut with the company as Micaela in Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's 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...
on May 11, 1936 with Bruna Castagna in the title role, Armand Tokatyan
Armand Tokatyan
Armand Tokatyan was an operatic tenor. An Armenian born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, he travelled to Egypt with his parents where he sang in cafés to favorable response. He was then sent to Paris to study tailoring, but instead sang in Left Bank cafés. In 1914, he returned to Egypt and earned his...
as Don José, Carlo Morelli as Escamillo, and Gennaro Papi conducting. Her portrayal of Micaela later appeared on the January 7, 1937 Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast on January 7, 1937 in which her performance shines through as one of the great creations of that role.
Bodanya remained on the Met roster for the next seven consecutive seasons, taking only a brief hiatus from performance for a few months after her 1938 marriage to William Gorman, a philosophy professor who collaborated with Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...
. She notably sang Elisetta in the Met's first staging of Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school...
's Il matrimonio segreto
Il matrimonio segreto
Il matrimonio segreto is an opera in two acts, music by Domenico Cimarosa, on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati, based on the play The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick...
on February 25, 1937 with Muriel Dickson
Muriel Dickson
Muriel Dickson was a Scottish soprano who was particularly known for her performances in the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. After singing roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, she sang for four seasons with the Metropolitan Opera and went on to a concert career...
as Carolina, Irra Petina
Irra Petina
Irra Petina was an actress and singer, as well as a leading contralto with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She was called the "floperetta queen" by critic Ken Mandelbaum.Born in St...
as Fidalma, George Rasely
George Rasely
George Rasely was an American tenor who had an active career in operas, concerts, and musicals during the first half of the 20th century. He was also a frequent performer on American radio during 1920s through the 1940s. He won the National Music League singing competition in 1927 and the Walter W...
as Paolino, Louis D'Angelo as Geronimo, and Ettore Panizza
Ettore Panizza
Ettore Panizza was an Argentinian conductor and composer, one of the leading conductors of the early 20th century. Panizza possessed technical mastery and was popular and influential during his time, widely admired by Richard Strauss.- Biography :Panizza was born in Buenos Aires, of Italian parents...
conducting. Among the other roles she portrayed on the Met stage were an American Girl in Walter Damrosch's The Man Without a Country
The Man Without a Country (opera)
The Man Without a Country is an opera in 2 acts by composer Walter Damrosch. Arthur Guiterman wrote the English language libretto which was based on Edward Everett Hale's 1863 short story of the same name. The work premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on May 12, 1937.-Roles:...
, Ellen in Lakmé
Lakmé
Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. Delibes wrote the score during 1881–82 with its first performance on 14 April 1883 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Set in British India in the mid 19th century, Lakmé is based on the 1880 novel...
, an Errand Girl in Louise
Louise (opera)
Louise is an opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists....
, the Forest Bird in Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
, the First Esquire in 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...
, an orphan 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...
, Musetta in 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...
, Papagena in 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....
, Poussette in 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...
, and Yniold in Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...
. Her last and 157th performance at the Met was as Esmeralda in Bedřich Smetana
Bedrich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
's The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the...
on January 16, 1942 with Jarmila Novotná
Jarmila Novotná
Jarmila Novotná was a celebrated Czech soprano and actress and, from 1940 to 1956, a star of the Metropolitan Opera.-Early career:...
as Marenka, Tokatyan as Jeník, Karl Laufkötter as Vasek, Norman Cordon as Kecal, Thelma Votipka
Thelma Votipka
Thelma Votipka was an American mezzo-soprano who sang 1,422 performances with the Metropolitan Opera, more than any other woman in the company's history ....
as Ludmila, and 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...
conducting.
Bodanya took some time off from performing to have her son Paul. After a two year absence from the stage, she joined the fledgling 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...
company in 1944. Her first appearance with the company was as Musetta in the NYCO's first staging of La Bohème. She also sang the role of Nedda in Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
with the NYCO in 1944.
In addition to her appearances in the United States, Bodanya was also active as a guest artist in operas and concerts in Europe. She notably canceled her contracts with 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...
and La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in 1938 to protest the anti-Semitic measures being taken by the governments of Italy and Austria. She also appeared in nightclubs, performed on the radio, and recorded a few songs with Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza
right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....
.
In the 1950s Bodanya embarked on a second career as a singing teacher in California. She died in Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, aged 98.