Thelma Votipka (December 20, 1906 – October 24, 1972) was an American

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

who sang 1,422 performances with 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 ...

, more than any other woman in the company's history (her nearest rival, Mathilde Bauermeister, sang 1,062). Votipka was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, and educated at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

. She specialized in

comprimario A comprimario is a small supporting role in an opera (or a singer who sings those roles). The word is derived from the Italian "''con primario''", or "with the primary", meaning that the ''comprimario'' role (or singer) is not a principal role (or ...

roles. She also studied in New York City with Anna E. Schoen-Rene, a student of

Pauline Viardot-Garcia Pauline Viardot (; 18 July 1821 – 18 May 1910) was a nineteenth-century French mezzo-soprano, pedagogue and composer of Spanish descent. Born Michelle Ferdinande Pauline García, her name appears in various forms. When it is not simply "Paul ...

and Manuel Garcia. She was a member of

Vladimir Rosing Vladimir Sergeyevich Rosing (russian: Владимир Серге́евич Розинг) (November 24, 1963), also known as Val Rosing, was a Russian-born operatic tenor and stage director who spent most of his professional career in the United ...

American Opera Company The American Opera Company was the name of four different opera companies active in the United States. The first company was a short-lived opera company founded in New York City in February, 1886 that lasted only one season. The second company grew ...

in the late 1920s and made her debut as the Countess in ''

The Marriage of Figaro ''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premie ...

'' on December 14, 1927, in Washington D.C. She made her Metropolitan debut on December 16, 1935, as Flora in Verdi's ''

La traviata ''La traviata'' (; ''The Fallen Woman'') 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'' (1852), a play by Alexandre Dumas ''fils'' adapted from his own 18 ...

'', a role she sang 101 times with the company. Other frequent roles with the Met included Giovanna in Verdi's ''

Rigoletto ''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play ''Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had cont ...

'' (139 performances), Marthe in Gounod's ''

Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads ...

'' (128), Alisa in Donizetti's ''

Lucia di Lammermoor ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel ''The Bride of Lammermoor''. ...

'' (116), Frasquita in Bizet's ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...

'' (112), Marianne in Strauss's ''

Der Rosenkavalier (''The Knight of the Rose'' or ''The Rose-Bearer''), Op. 59, 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'' ...

'' (109), the Priestess in Verdi's ''

Aida ''Aida'' (or ''Aïda'', ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December ...

'' (101), Gerhilde in Wagner's ''

Die Walküre (; ''The Valkyrie''), WWV 86B, is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (English: ''The Ring of the Nibelung''). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on ...

'' (93), and Mamma Lucia in Mascagni's ''

Cavalleria rusticana ''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play b ...

'' (72). Mamma Lucia was the role of her final performance, in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

, on May 11, 1963. Votipka shared the stage with many artists on the occasions of their Metropolitan debuts:

Marjorie Lawrence Marjorie Florence Lawrence CBE (17 February 190713 January 1979) was an Australian soprano, particularly noted as an interpreter of Richard Wagner's operas. She was the first Metropolitan Opera soprano to perform the immolation scene in ''Göt ...

Zinka Milanov Zinka Milanov (; May 17, 1906 – May 30, 1989) was a Croatian operatic dramatic soprano who had a major career centered on the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. After finishing her education in Zagreb, Milanov made her debut in 1927 in Ljublj ...

, Rose Pauly,

Eleanor Steber Eleanor Steber (July 17, 1914October 3, 1990) was an American operatic soprano. Steber is noted as one of the first major opera stars to have achieved the highest success with training and a career based in the United States. Biography Eleanor ...

Astrid Varnay Ibolyka Astrid Maria Varnay (25 April 1918 – 4 September 2006) was a Swedish-born American dramatic soprano of Hungarian descent. She spent most of her career in the United States and Germany. She was one of the leading Wagnerian heroic sopranos ...

Robert Merrill Robert Merrill (June 4, 1917 – October 23, 2004) was an American operatic baritone and actor, who was also active in the musical theatre Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting an ...

Victoria de los Ángeles Victoria de los Ángeles López García (1 November 192315 January 2005) was a Catalan Spanish operatic lyric soprano and recitalist whose career began after the Second World War and reached its height in the years from the mid-1950s to the mid- ...

Hilde Gueden Hilde may refer to: * Hilde (given name) * ''Hilde'' (film), a 2009 German biopic film * MV ''Hilde'', a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker *Tom Hilde (born 1987), Norwegian ski jumper Characters * Hilde (Soulcalibur), a character in the ''Soul'' seri ...

, Charles Anthony,

Mattiwilda Dobbs Mattiwilda Dobbs (July 11, 1925 – December 8, 2015) was an American coloratura soprano and was one of the first black singers to enjoy a major international career in opera. She was the first black singer to perform at La Scala in Italy, th ...

Nicolai Gedda Harry Gustaf Nikolai Gädda, known professionally as Nicolai Gedda (11 July 1925 – 8 January 2017), was a Swedish operatic tenor. Debuting in 1951, Gedda had a long and successful career in opera until the age of 77 in June 2003, when he made h ...

, and

Joan Sutherland Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, (7 November 1926 – 10 October 2010) was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s. She possessed ...

. She returned to the Met on April 16, 1966, to sing in the quintet from ''Carmen'' as part of the gala farewell performance at the opera house at

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

and 39th Street. She died in New York in 1972, aged 65.

References

External links

Thelma Votipka's page at Naxos.com
Oberlin College alumni 1906 births 1972 deaths American operatic mezzo-sopranos Musicians from Cleveland 20th-century American women opera singers Classical musicians from Ohio Singers from Ohio {{US-opera-singer-stub