ROBERT
WEEDE
"This
place is worse than Hell," a frustrated Mario Lanza wrote to his
manager from the steaming-hot Army Air Force base in Marfa , Texas
The
young Mario Lanza was not alone in seeking out Robert Weede for help with vocal
technique. "Bob was our 'voice repairman,'" said Jan Peerce of
Weede's uncanny ability to pinpoint, analyze and, as Peerce put it, to
"repair" other singers' vocal problems. Other first-rank
singers including Norman Treigle, Dominic Cossa, and John Alexander also sought
Weede's help and advice at key points in their careers. At no time would
Weede accept any remuneration for assisting his colleagues when they were
experiencing vocal problems.
Jan
Peerce had sought Weede’s help during the only vocal crisis that the
otherwise-durable tenor ever experienced.
Weede helped Peerce regain his voice, and appeared with him in San
Francisco on The Standard Hour radio
series, where they sang the duet “Le minaccie i fieri accenti” from La Forza del Destino:
[Dear Readers: address links are not working properly. The simplest thing to do is just check out the videos on Google Youtube by the name of the video, such as " le minacci, Forza, Weede, Peerce. " That usually works well. Sorry for the hassle--been having a lot of trouble with Google lately, surprise, surprise!"]
http://youtu.be/6ESSpgn7ubM
http://youtu.be/6ESSpgn7ubM
Weede
also appeared on radio with Peerce’s young brother-in-law, Richard Tucker, on The Squibb Hour, where Tucker had become
a frequent guest artist after being signed by the National Concert Artists
Corporation, an agency which secured radio appearances for both up-and-coming
and well-established classical musicians.
On
The Squibb Hour, accompanied by Lynn
Murray and his orchestra, the young Tucker and the already-established Weede
sang “Within the Temple There,” an English version of “Au fond du temple
saint,” the tenor-baritone duet from I Pescatori
di Perle:
Although
Tucker had not yet made his Metropolitan Opera debut when he appeared on The
Squibb Hour, Weede was first-rank baritone by then. Born Robert Wiedefeld in Baltimore ,
Maryland , on February 22, 1903, he studied
voice at the Eastman School of Music in the mid-1920's, and subsequently went
to Milan U.S.
Weede
made his Met debut on May 15, 1937, as Tonio in a double-bill performance of Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana.
Not until the rehearsals were in progress did he realize that another
promising young American baritone, Thomas L. Thomas, had been scheduled for his
debut the same day, as Alfio in the Cavalleria performance. The
next day, both baritones were lauded in the New York
In
the wake of the success of Weede’s Metropolitan debut, he was offered a
recording contract by Columbia Records.
One of his most successful Columbia
After
his initial success at Tonio, Weede spent the the next three seasons at the Met
performing in concerts and galas, usually singing one aria (typically, the Pagliacci prologue)
and perhaps singing in a trio, quartet, or other ensemble, but garnering very
little attention from the New York critics for these brief appearances.
All
of that changed on the evening of February 27, 1941, when Weede first
appeared in the title role in Rigoletto, in a cast that included Jussi
Bjoerling as the Duke of Mantua, Hilde Reggiani as Gilda, and Bruna Castagna as
Maddalena. Amid this strong cast, it was the previously-unheralded Weede
who netted the praise of all of the major critics.
"It
was not much of a Rigoletto at the Metropolitan for anybody
but Robert Weede last night," wrote Irving Kolodin in the New
York Sun. "However, what this American baritone accomplished in his
first appearance at the opera house in this role was striking enough to make
the occasion a memorable one, not only for him, but also for the
audience."
"As a primary asset," Kolodin continued, "Mr. Weede has a voice—a big voice, moreover, which fills the opera house with ease and doesn't require the forcing to which he sometimes resorted. But it has quality as well as size ... [and] he was entitled to the robust applause he received."
"As a primary asset," Kolodin continued, "Mr. Weede has a voice—a big voice, moreover, which fills the opera house with ease and doesn't require the forcing to which he sometimes resorted. But it has quality as well as size ... [and] he was entitled to the robust applause he received."
In
the New York Post, critic Edward O'Gorman wrote that
"Mr. Weede has an enviable baritone voice, one that is full and
robust, capable of a wide range of expression and yet one that has none of the
coarseness usually encountered in a voice of its type. Its chief characteristic
is perhaps its pliability. But the
element that distinguished Mr. Weede's characterization of Rigoletto was
neither vocal nor histrionic, although each was telling in its way, but an
uncanny sense of theatre that balanced the two in a performance that was a
personal triumph for the singer ...."
Writing
in the New York World-Telegram, Robert Bagar said that
"Mr. Weede's singing proved thoroughly compatible with the demands of
the part. His impersonation grew in stature as the evening wore on, and
in the emotional give-and-take of the third act he dominated the stage."
Although Weede’s first appearance in Rigoletto
was apparently not recorded, his performance of the demanding role during a
Saturday matinee radio broadcast on January 31, 1942, was preserved in an off-the-air
recording:
From 1941 to 1953,
Weede added Amonasro in Aida, Manfredo in L' Amore dei tre
re, Shaklovity in the Met premiere of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina,
and Scarpia in Tosca to his Metropolitan Opera repertoire.
It was as Scarpia that he sang his last performance with the Met, a
matinee broadcast from Detroit
JAMES A. DRAKE
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