Boris Goldovsky (Борис Анисимович Голдовский; June 7, 1908 - February 15, 2001) was a Russian Empire-born conductor and broadcast commentator, active in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. He has been called an important "popularizer" of opera in America. As an opera producer, conductor,
impresario
An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer.
Hist ...
, and broadcaster he was prominent within the American operatic community between 1946 and 1985.
Early life
He was born in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
to a well established Jewish musical family. His father was lawyer
Onissim Goldovsky, his mother the well-known concert violinist
Lea Luboshutz, and several relatives were accomplished musicians, including his pianist uncle,
Pierre Luboshutz
Pierre Luboshutz (June 17, 1891 - April 17, 1971) was a Russian concert pianist.
Born in Odessa, Russia, Luboshutz was initially taught to play the violin by his father. However, he then took up the piano, and followed his older sisters Lea Lubos ...
, his first teacher. After the Russian Revolution, his family lost their wealth and he became, at the age of nine, his mother's accompanist, to secure more food for the family.
Career
In the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
era, he and his mother travelled to
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, leaving the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. Goldovsky studied with
Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel (17 April 1882 – 15 August 1951) was an Austrian-American classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th centur ...
in Berlin beginning in 1924 and then with
Ernő Dohnányi
Ernő or Erno is a Finnish and Hungarian masculine given name. Notable people with the name include:
*Ernő Balogh (1897-1989), Hungarian pianist, composer, editor, and educator
*Ernő Bánk (1883-1962), Hungarian painter and teacher
* Ernő Bér ...
in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
beginning in 1924. He gained fluency in several languages, a gift that served him well as a translator of opera in his later career. He moved to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
in 1930 where his mother taught at the
Curtis Institute
The Curtis Institute of Music is a private conservatory in Philadelphia. It offers a performance diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in opera, and a Professional Studies Certificate in opera. All students attend on full scholarship.
Hi ...
and where he became a conducting student of
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin "Fritz" Reiner (December 19, 1888 – November 15, 1963) was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose t ...
and later Reiner's assistant. It was under Reiner that his love and training in opera began. According to U.S. immigration records, he was inspected and detained at
Ellis Island
Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...
twice: once in October 1925 for an irregularity with his visa and once in late July 1932 on suspicion that he might be an illegally contracted labourer; both situations were rather quickly resolved and he was permitted to continue by rail to Pennsylvania. Goldovsky moved to Cleveland in 1936 to become assistant to
Artur Rodziński
Artur Rodziński (2 January 1892 – 27 November 1958) was a Polish-American conductor of orchestral music and opera. He began his career after World War I in Poland, where he was discovered by Leopold Stokowski, who invited him to be his assista ...
, music director of the
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Sev ...
. Then he moved again to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
in 1942, where he became director of the opera department at the
New England Conservatory of Music
The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a Private college, private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music Music school, conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The ...
. The same year, he was named director of the opera department at the
Tanglewood Music Center
The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops. The center operates as a part of the Tanglew ...
in the
Berkshires
The Berkshires () are a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and northwest Connecticut. The term "Berkshires" is normally used by locals in reference to the portion of the Vermont-based Green Mountains that ex ...
by
Serge Koussevitsky
Sergei Alexandrovich KoussevitzkyKoussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling "Serge", using it in his signature. (SeThe Koussevit ...
, a position he held through 1962. Koussevitsky had become well acquainted with the Goldovsky family in Russia long before their immigration to the USA.
.
Sarah Caldwell
Sarah Caldwell (March 6, 1924March 23, 2006) was an American opera conducting, conductor, impresario, and stage director.
Early life
Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and ...
became Goldovsky's assistant at Tanglewood and in Boston, and worked with him for several years.
In January 1945, Goldovsky began the
New England Opera Theater
The New England Opera Theatre (later known as the Goldovsky Opera Theater) was an American opera company that was active from 1945 to 1985. Founded by Boris Goldovsky in January 1945, the company was originally based in Boston, Massachusetts. It w ...
(later known as the "Goldovsky Opera Theater") under the sponsorship of the New England Conservatory.
[Bruce Macpherson and James Klein, ''Measure by Measure'', Boston: NEC Trustees, 1995, p102] The operation became independent and moved to New York in the 1950s and enjoyed four decades of touring during which young singers were trained for operatic careers. Many of them went on to sing at the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...
and other leading houses. He disbanded the company upon his retirement in 1985. He also joined the faculty of the Southwestern Opera Institute in the mid-1970s and worked there for ten years. During this institute, he worked with dozens of students from universities in the United States at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now University of Louisiana, Lafayette). Invited by his former student Beaman Griffin, he was joined by his friends Richard Crittenden and Arthur Schoep. Scenes were all performed in English so singers would learn to "react as well as act."
During the
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...
's tour visit to Boston in around 1946, Goldovsky participated in a promotional opera quiz event. His encyclopedic knowledge led
Texaco
Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Indepe ...
to offer him a weekend job as master of ceremonies covering the intermission periods of the Texaco-sponsored
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
The Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts are a regular series of weekly broadcasts on network radio of full-length opera performances. They are transmitted live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The Metropolitan Opera In ...
. The sponsor agreed to pay for weekly travel to New York. He quickly became known across the United States for his Saturday radio commentary and earned the nickname of "Mr. Opera."
In 1953 he wrote ''Accents on Opera'', a series of essays, sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera Guild and published in New York by Farrar, Straus & Young. In 1954 he received a
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
for Outstanding Contribution to Radio Music. He also wrote a guide for sopranos who "often receive very little instruction when staging arias at small companies" entitled "Bringing Soprano Arias to Life." His most popular book, ''My Road to Opera'', is an anecdote-filled autobiography.
In the late 1970s, he began again to teach at the Curtis Institute, from where he retired in 1985. He left an extensive of Mozart memorabilia to the Curtis Institute upon his death.
He has been credited in several recordings, including a
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...
recording of
Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
's "Lohengrin", conducted by
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf (born Erich Landauer; February 4, 1912 – September 11, 1993) was an Austrian-born American conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a ...
. Famous associates include
Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza (, ; born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza ; January 31, 1921 – October 7, 1959) was an American tenor and actor. He was a Hollywood film star popular in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Lanza began studying to be a professional singer at ...
,
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
and
Mary Beth Peil
Mary Beth Peil (born June 25, 1940) is an American actress and soprano. She began her career as an opera singer in 1962 with the Goldovsky Opera Theater. In 1964 she won two major singing competitions, the Young Concert Artists International Au ...
.
He died in
Brookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...
, aged 92, in 2001.
"Goldovsky error"
Goldovsky documented a kind of error that is sometimes known as a "Goldovsky error". Whilst teaching, he stopped a pupil who was sight-reading Brahms Op 76 No. 2, and asked her to correct a mistake. The pupil insisted that she had played the music as written, and this proved to be correct - not only Goldovsky's score but ''all'' available scores proved to have an error. Moreover, when Goldovsky asked skilled sight-readers to find the mistake, they could not. The mistake is in bar 78, where a G-natural was shown instead of a G-sharp. The significance is that a G-natural would be musically illogical at that point. Experienced sight-readers were automatically inferring the missing sharp symbol, and so failing to see the error in the printed score. By contrast, Goldovsky's pupil, a less experienced sight-reader, had followed the score more literally. Hence a "Goldovsky error" is one that only a novice is likely to spot.
[Hallinan, Joseph T: ''Errornomics, why we make mistakes and what we can do about them'' Ebury Press 2009 p.111]
Goldovsky Charts
The invention of staging charts was an effort by Boris Goldovsky and his associates to (a) invent a way to annotate and preserve detailed stage directions (especially those stage directions that helped justify the musical content) and (b) expand Mr. Goldovsky’s teaching through associate or assistant stage directors.
As a competition-level chess player, Mr. Goldovsky began by dividing the stage into a grid of 18 squares. The production mechanism involved typewriters and photocopy machines: preserving enough of the score to present the vocal lines with space between systems to clarify stage directions.
With the charts, assistant directors could prepare ensembles by teaching the singers the stage action (“blocking”) exactly as Mr. Goldovsky envisioned it, after which he could work with the singers for final improvements, or directly present the scenes in recitals.
At numerous opera workshops (“Oglebay” in Oglebay Park, West Virginia, being the first among them), staff directors would prepare scenes - some would be seen by the workshop director in rehearsal, though most would be presented directly. As Mr. Goldovsky retired, the scenes would be presented directly by the various directors.
Stage directors had their individual touches (“dirty thumbprints” was one fond description), and there would be lively discussions on exactly which detail was preferable.
These documented charts were not widely distributed: while the shorthand is discussed in Bringing Opera to Life and Bringing Soprano Arias to Life, the charts themselves are not mentioned. However discreetly they were handled, they are clearly the result of substantial labor: after defining precise stage directions, they required photocopying the piano-vocal scores, cutting the copies into systems, pasting them onto typewritten pages with the instructions interposed, and finally, copied again.
As of November 2020, The Robinson Music Library of the Cleveland Institute of Music has nine volumes of charts on permanent reserve with call number Ref. MT 955.G56g.
Publications
*''Bringing Opera to Life'' (1968), about operatic acting and stage direction. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
*''Bringing Soprano Arias to Life'' (1973) (with Arthur Schoep). New York: G. Schirmer.
*''Touring Opera: a Manual for Small Companies'' (1975) (with Thomas Wolf, foreword by
Sherrill Milnes
Sherrill Milnes (born January 10, 1935) is an American dramatic baritone most famous for his Verdi roles. From 1965 until 1997 he was associated with the Metropolitan Opera. His voice is a high dramatic baritone, combining good legato with an inc ...
). National Opera Association.
*''My Road to Opera: the Recollections of Boris Goldovsky'' (1979) Houghton Mifflin.
*The Indiana University published transcripts of his intermission commentary from the
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
The Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts are a regular series of weekly broadcasts on network radio of full-length opera performances. They are transmitted live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The Metropolitan Opera In ...
in 1984.
*Some intermission commentary transcripts can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20090112035213/http://www.operainfo.org/intermissions/
Students and protégés
See also
*
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
The Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts are a regular series of weekly broadcasts on network radio of full-length opera performances. They are transmitted live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The Metropolitan Opera In ...
References
Bibliography
*Wolf, Thomas, ''The Nightingale’s Sonata: The Musical Odyssey of Lea Luboshutz'', New York and London: Pegasus Books, 2019.
*Resources from the Spaulding Library at New England Conservatory
*Goldovsky, ''Recollections''
*Macpherson and Klein, ''Measure by Measure''
*Edward Rothstein, ''Opera: Goldovsky Company's Farewell'',
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
, March 19, 1984.
* ''The Boston Opera Company 1909-1915'', by
Quaintance Eaton
Quaintance Eaton (August 23, 1901 — April 12, 1992) was an American writer and arts administrator, author of several works on the history of opera.
Early life
Frances Quaintance Eaton was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the daughter of Dudley Wa ...
, Appleton-Century Press, (1965) New York.
External links
Boris Goldovsky interviewby Bruce Duffie
Mr. Opera – Recollections With Boris Goldovsky
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldovsky, Boris
1908 births
2001 deaths
American male conductors (music)
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Classical music radio presenters
Impresarios
Jewish American musicians
New England Conservatory faculty
Opera managers
Peabody Award winners
Metropolitan Opera people
Musicians from Moscow
People from Greater Boston
Russian conductors (music)
Russian male conductors (music)
Soviet emigrants to the United States
Russian Jews
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American male musicians