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Vladimir Rosing, portrait from the 1920s.
Russian Tenor VLADIMIR ROSING (1890 - 1963) had his debut the the St Petersburg Artistic Opera in 1912. After Further Studies with Jean De Reszke, he moved his activities to London and America, premiering Lenski at the London Premiere of Eugene Onegin.
Rosing was always a proponent of Russian song, and here in two songs by Rimsky Korsakov and Borodin
Vladimir Rosing – Songs Of Famous Russian Composers
29047-B
(CXE 8374) 1
russian tenor with piano
1. The Rose And The Nightingale; 2. Southern Night (1. ??????? ? ????; 2. ????? ????) (Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov)
Vladimir Rosing, acc. Hans Gellhorn (piano) Decca (US) 29047
29047-A
(CXE 8448) 1
russian tenor with piano
The Sea (????), ballad (Alexander Borodin)
Vladimir Rosing, acc. Hans Gellhorn (piano) Decca (US) 29047
Please see top of the page for condition
from a 1938 blow-by-blow review in THE GRAMOPHONE
Songs of Famous Russian Composers sung by Vladimir Rosing. Parlophone R20374-8 (12 in., 3os,), with Album and Booklet giving translations and notes.
VLADIMIR ROSING lives up to his reputation. He is one of the greatest character singers of our times. And though
Being a law unto himself, he is one of the greatest iconoclasts in the art of singing, for every time he opens his mouth he invariably breaks some of the canons of bet canto.
One of the greatest attractions of his early records was his falsetto, those whispering unsupported head notes, so eminently suitable for recording purposes.
Through the magic of his unusual technique, a great fault in Rosing's voice became one of the most striking virtues of his recording. The .passing years made of Rosing a wiser, a more restrained and less unconventional singer. He does not sing any more with that crazy tempestuous brio of a young ballet dancer, caught in the vortex of" Polovetzky Dances." He does not shout at the top of his voice his incongruous war cries, and yet he still possesses the same dynamic power, the same meticulous capacity for building up gradually the terrific climax.
His top notes have acquired a new surprising robustness and the notes of his low register are very round and resonant, though sometimes too guttural.
On the whole, Rosing now is a better singer than fifteen years ago. And that is one of the reasons why the new series of Russian songs recorded by him for Parlophone should not be missed by those who care for Russian music and good singing.
R2o374—Parlophone-Odeon Series: (a) Northern Star, and (b) Crusader's Song, by Glinka.
Crusader's Song.--Glinka at his very best. And it is a great pity that his very best is so little known. Martial, staccato-like rhythms of this little heroic ballad suit the declamatory talent of Rosing to perfection.
R2o374: (a) Song of the Poor Wanderer, by Nevstruev; and (b) The Drunken Miller, by Dargomuizisky
Russian gloominess at its best. Is it a song or a manifesto of a poor and pure starving proletarian full of civic virtues and class-hatred for the wicked bourgeois ? Twenty-five years ago this song was considered great stuff and used to cause riots. Rosing sings it superbly. And his falsetto here serves its purpose splendidly.
The Drunken Miller, by Dargomuizjsky (another way of spelling this name 0.—Little masterpiece of comic song, made so familiar by Chaliapine, funny words, witty music and clever singing.
R.20375: (a) The Rose and the Nightingale, and (b) Southern Night, by Rimsky-Korsakov.
The Rose and the Nightingale.—Typical Rimsky at his less sophisticated and most melodious. We still remember the superb Brunswick record of this song by Nina Koshitz.
Southern Night.—Not very best Rimsky.
R20375:
One of those ambitious Russian " pictures in sound" so dear to the heart of Moussorgsky and his fellow members of National School of Music. Terrific work for the accompanist and the heart breaking speed for the singer. Good record.
R20376: (a) At the Ball, (b) Again as Before, (a) Do not Speak, Beloved, (b) Why?—all by Tchaikovsky.
There are four whole-sized Tchaikovsky's songs on two sides of this record. That explains probably why At the Ball, one of the loveliest of Tchaikovsky's songs, was taken at such a tremendous speed that its lyrical qualities were destroyed.
Again as Before, Do not Speak and Why? are all sung capitally. They are typical Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky at his best who, even now, forty-five years after his death, remains so surprisingly Russian and so modern.
Rosing renders them full justice.
R20377:
The Steppe, The Snowflakes and The Rain, by A. Gretchaninov, on one side, and on the other—
Lullaby and Autumn, by Arensky,
The Steppe, in spite of its mournfulness, is just as eternally fresh and beautiful as forty-five years ago. So Russian, so Gretchaninov, so congenial to Rosing's temperament. And the top note is so easy and so appropriate here.
There is an inscription on the gates of Reno, reading: " The greatest little town in the world " Gretchaninov's The Snowflakes is easily " the greatest little song in the world."
R2o377:
Lullaby and Autumn, by Arensky. - -In his cool remoteness and academic devotion to Western ideas in music, Arensky remains more Russian, than most of the nine obvious Moscovites who were so overloaded with the cheap articles from the Oriental markets of traditional Russian byzantinism. Arensky was a romantic and he hated Russian untidiness, and he knew how to construct a song. These two fine songs, nobly sang by Rosing, are a well deserved tribute to a great composer.
R20378: (a) In the Silent Night, and (b) Spring Waters, by RachmaninofT.
I could congratulate Rosing on the great ease with which he takes his top B flat, yet how infinitely more moving and beautiful is his final G flat taken in the sweetest of falsetto voices. In the Silent Night is easily the best recorded of Y. Rachmaninoff's songs in the present series.
What a great song Spring Waters is. And how tricky and full of pitfalls. It needed a true artist to make a real success of it.
R2o378: (a) Oh, do not Sing Again, and (b) The Island, by Rachmaninoff.
The conventional Orientalism and aeolian smoothness of melody made this song almost as popular as Rimsky's Chanson Hindou.
I fell in love with this song when I heard Marguerite D'Alvarez sing it. I like it even better now that I have heard Rosing's record. In the person of Hans Gellhorn Rosing found his best accompanist.
Vladimir Sergeyevich Rosing (Russian: ???????? ????????? ??????) (January 23 [O.S. January 11] 1890 – November 24, 1963), aka Val Rosing, was a Russian-born operatic tenor and stage director who spent most of his professional career in England and the United States. In his formative years he experienced the last gasp of the Golden Age of Opera, and subsequently dedicated himself through his singing and directing into breathing new life into opera's outworn mannerisms and methods.
Rosing was considered by many to rank as a singer and performer of the quality of Feodor Chaliapin.[1] In his book The Perfect Wagnerite George Bernard Shaw called Chaliapin and Vladimir Rosing "the two most extraordinary singers of the 20th century."[2]
Vladimir Rosing's recordings are best known for his performances of Russian art songs by composers such as Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Tcherepnin, Alexander Gretchaninov, Alexander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He was the very first singer to record a song by Igor Stravinsky: Akahito from Three Japanese Songs.[3]
As a stage director, Rosing championed the cause of opera in English, and he attempted to build permanent national opera companies in the United States and England. He directed opera performances "with such acumen and freshness of approach that some writers were tempted to speak of him as a second Reinhardt."[4]
Rosing created his own system of stage movement and acting for singers that proved very effective in his own productions and that he also taught to a new generation of performers.[5]
[edit] Early lifeRosing was born into an aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia on January 23, 1890. His father was descended from a Swedish officer captured at the Battle of Poltava. His mother was the granddaughter of a Baltic Baron.[6]
Rosing's parents separated when he was three, and his mother took Vladimir and his two older sisters to live in Switzerland. After four years they returned to Russia to live in Moscow near Rosing's godfather, General Arkady Stolypin, who was Governor of the Kremlin and father of Pyotr Stolypin. For a time they lived at the Kremlin as the Governor's guests.[7]
Rosing spent the summer of 1898 on his godfather's nearby country estate. There was a memorable trip with his mother to Yasnaya Polyana, the nearby estate of Leo Tolstoy, to meet the great writer. Tolstoy asked Rosing's mother to take a message to General Stolypin to give to the Tsar, but Stolypin later declined to do so.[8][9]
The Tsar paid a visit to Moscow, and young Vladimir was taken to a performance of Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, with the baritone Mattia Battistini, at the Bolshoi Theatre. The family sat in General Stolypin's box, while Tsar Nicholas II and his family occupied the Royal Box just a few feet away.[10]
Rosing's parents reconciled the next year, and the family moved back to St. Petersburg. Rosing completed his studies at the Gymnasium (school) which lasted for eight years in Russia, and the family spent summers on their country estate in Podolia, Ukraine.[11]
Russia was one of the biggest early markets for recorded music. Rosing's father brought home a gramophone in 1901, and Vladimir began to listen to and imitate the great singers of the day. He learned a repertoire of songs and arias, singing baritone as well as tenor parts.[12] His real desire was to be a bass and sing Boito's Mefistofele,[13] but nature had other plans for him.
Rosing was an eyewitness to the massacre in front of the Winter Palace on Bloody Sunday 1905. Politically he then ceased being a monarchist, and allied himself with the Constitutional Democratic Party. To please his father, who was a successful lawyer, young Vladimir reluctantly studied law at Saint Petersburg University, where he was very active in the fiery student politics that followed the first Russian Revolution of 1905. He sparred in heated debates with future Bolshevik commissar Nikolai Krylenko. He acted as a student deputy to the Saint Petersburg Soviet where he spent time listening to speeches by Leon Trotsky and others. Rosing soon developed a life-long animosity towards the Bolsheviks.[14]
Aside from politics, it was music and theater that absorbed Vladimir's youthful energies. His parents finally accepted his musical dreams, and he began to study voice in Russia with Mariya Slavina, Alexandra Kartseva, and Joachim Tartakov.[15]
In 1908 Rosing fell in love with an English musician, Marie Falle, whom he met while on holiday in Switzerland.[16] They married in London in February 1909. He studied voice in London with Sir George Power, before returning to Russia to finish law school.
[edit] Recital career and politicsAfter a season in St. Petersburg as an up-and-coming tenor with Joseph Lapitsky's innovative Theatre of Musical Drama in 1912, Vladimir Rosing made his London concert debut in Albert Hall on May 25, 1913. He spent the summer in Paris studying with Jean de Reszke and Giovanni Sbriglia. It was Sbriglia who finally gave Rosing the technique and direction he needed, and an unwanted law career was permanently avoided.[17]
From 1912 to 1916 Rosing released 16 discs on the HMV label, many of which were recorded by the pioneering American record producer Fred Gaisberg in St. Petersburg and London.[18]
In 1914 he signed a 6-year contract with impresario Hans Gregor to be a leading tenor at the Vienna Imperial Opera, but World War One broke out before the fall season started, and Rosing sensibly returned to London.[19]
Rosing Opera Week - Aeolian Hall, London - June 1921London's appetite for Russians and Russian music was high after Serge Diaghilev's historic seasons of Russian opera and ballet, and Rosing's recitals in England soon became extremely popular.[20] In addition to his public recitals, Rosing was in demand as a performer for London society's exclusive "At Homes", where he became friendly with rich, famous and powerful people like C. P. Scott, David Lloyd George, Lord Reading, Alfred Mond, and the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and his wife Margot Asquith.[21]
Rosing also socialized with writers like Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw, Hugh Walpole and Arnold Bennett, and his circle included the artists Glyn Philpot, Augustus John, Walter Sickert and Charles Ricketts.[22] [nb 1]
Rosing's ambitions were to have his own opera company. In May 1915 he produced a brief Allied Opera Season at Oscar Hammerstein I's vacant London Opera House. Rosing presented the English premiere of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades and introduced Tamaki Miura as Madama Butterfly, the first Japanese singer to be cast in that role. The season was brought to an early close when London was targeted by zeppelin raids for the first time in the war.[24]
Rosing returned to Russia for two months in the summer of 1915 after the Tsar called up the 2nd Reserves. As an only son, Vladimir was officially assigned to the Serbian Red Cross and he was returned to London to organize benefit concerts. He was later awarded the Serbian Order of St. Sava for his service.[25]
When the Russian Revolution took the world by surprise in March 1917, Rosing went to see Lloyd George to urge him to support the new Provisional Government.[26]. He headed up the newly formed Committee for Repatriation of Political Exiles. A few months later, when Georgy Chicherin was imprisoned by the British, Rosing met again with Lloyd George to work for Chicherin's release.[27][nb 2]
As a result of the Bolsheviks seizing power, Rosing was one of many Russians to lose everything. He was no longer a wealthy man. As Russian refugees poured into London, Rosing was at the center of the action. He socialized with Prince Felix Yusupov, organizer of the murder of Rasputin, and Alexander Kerensky, Prime Minister of the failed Russian Provisional Government.[29][30]
Rosing's recitals were more popular than ever. In the fall of 1919 he joined soprano Emma Calvé and pianist Arthur Rubinstein for a concert tour of the English Provinces.[31] He filled in for John McCormack in Belfast, winning the hearts of the Irish.[32] On March 6, 1921 in Albert Hall he gave his 100th London recital.[33]
Rosing recorded 61 discs for the Vocalion Company in the early 1920s.[34]
In June 1921 he presented, with director Theodore Komisarjevsky and conductor Adrian Boult, a season of Opera Intime at London's Aeolian Hall.[35] At Rosing's invitation Isadora Duncan attended one of the performances.[36] The Opera Intime company subsequently toured Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Rosing left England for his first concert tour of the United States and Canada in November 1921. The tour generated an invitation to sing at a White House State Dinner held by President Harding on February 2, 1922.[37] With his friends, writer William C. Bullitt and sculptress Clare Sheridan, Rosing organized the last concert of the tour in New York on March 10, 1922 as a benefit for Hoover's American Relief Administration, raising money to help fight the terrible famine gripping Russia.[38] [nb 3]
Rosing returned for his second tour of the United States and Canada in November 1922. On the voyage back to England in March 1923 he met a representative of Kodak king George Eastman, which led to an offer a few weeks later to return to the United States to start the opera department at the newly opened Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Rosing saw a chance to create the opera company he had always wanted, and he jumped at the opportunity to sell Eastman on his dream.[40][nb 4]
[edit] Theory of movementBy the time Vladimir Rosing went to Rochester, he had already started to develop his own theories of movement and stage direction. The breakthrough had come by spending weeks studying the great statues in the Louvre. Rosing analyzed what made them beautiful, graceful or convey emotion and figured out how to transfer that expressive power to physical bodies in movement on a stage. When he spoke of sculpting body movement he was literally bringing great sculptures to life through a set of rules and techniques he had worked out in his mind.[42]
Rosing's central idea was that there is a definite time, place and reason for the beginning of a gesture and a definite time to retrieve it—and that all gestures must be retrieved. He taught rules for the independent and coordinated action of the joints used in sculpting body movement, that every movement has a preparatory movement in the opposite direction, and that the retreat of a gesture is of extreme importance.
Rosing taught eye focus and head angles. He did away with waving arms and wandering hands and he demanded that every unnecessary movement be eliminated. His staging formula was to move and hold, as though a series of still shots was being photographed, or sculptures animated.
Rosing did not set patterns of stage action to music. He believed opera could achieve its maximum effectiveness with dramatic interpretation resulting from rather than affixing itself to the music. The body and music should become as one—a complete blend of sound and motion, with every motion coming out of the sound.
Rosing built his entire principle of stage action on this theory. It was a choreographic approach, but unlike ballet which is mathematical and its motion continuous, the resulting style was completely different.[43]
In Rochester, Rosing would have the chance to test and refine his theories for the next seven years.
[edit] American Opera CompanyWith George Eastman's backing, Rosing envisioned professionally training a group of young American singers and turning them into a national repertory company, performing opera across the United States in easy-to-understand English translations. With the help of enthusiastic artists and benefactors, he accomplished exactly that.
The group of artists that came to work with Rosing in Rochester and helped make his dream a reality included Eugene Goossens, Albert Coates, Rouben Mamoulian, Nicolas Slonimsky, Otto Luening, Ernst Bacon, Emanuel Balaban, Paul Horgan, Anna Duncan, and Martha Graham.[44] An initial group of 20 singers was chosen from all across the United States and given full scholarships.[45]
Even though a transition to a new career as a director had begun, Rosing soon made another recital tour of Canada[46], gave concerts with the Rochester Philharmonic, and on October 20, 1924 he presented a concert at Carnegie Hall with Nicholas Slonimsky as his accompanist.[47]
In November 1924, after a year of gestation and training, the Rochester American Opera Company was announced.[48] A tour of Western Canada was made in January 1926. Performances in Rochester and Chautauqua followed. Mary Garden was so impressed with the group that she came to sing Carmen with the company in February 1927 at the Eastman School's intimate Kilbourn Hall.[49] Later that month, Vladimir married his second wife, soprano Margaret Williamson, who was a member of the company.
The opera company strictly adhered to a non-star policy, developing instead a unity of ensemble whereby a singer might have a leading role one night and a supporting role the next.[50]
At the invitation of the Theatre Guild, the Rochester American Opera Company made its New York debut in April 1927, giving a full week of performances at the Guild Theatre with Eugene Goossens conducting.[51]
American Opera CompanyThe musical world took notice. A committee of wealthy and influential backers was formed to help take the company to the next level.[52] Summer 1927 was spent rehearsing in Magnolia, Massachusetts for the fall season and performing at Leslie Buswell's exclusive private theater nearby at Stillington Hall.[53] In December 1927 the newly-christened American Opera Company performed for President and Mrs. Coolidge, and 150 members of Congress, at Washington D.C.'s Poli's Theater.
During January and February 1928 the American Opera Company brought seven weeks of opera to Broadway at New York's Gallo Theater. Robert Edmond Jones contributed powerful set designs.[54]
National tours followed for the next two years, but the Crash of 1929 caused bookings for the 1930 season to dematerialize. The group earned an official endorsement from President Herbert Hoover, calling for it to become "a permanent national institution",[55] but it was not enough as the country sank into the Great Depression, and the company was soon forced to disband.
Pulitzer Prize winning author Paul Horgan's first novel, The Fault of Angels, published in 1933, is a fictionalized account of the early days of the Eastman School's opera department.[56]
Aside from directing a few plays, the early 1930s were lean times for Rosing. He had become an American citizen in 1930, but when an offer came from the BBC for a broadcast performance he returned to London.[57]
[edit] First televised operaRosing remained popular as a recitalist in England, and he resumed giving concerts there upon his return in 1933.[58] Rosing signed a new contract with the Parlophone Company and recorded 32 discs (with the new electrical method) between 1933 and 1937.[59]
A musical production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals with songs by Herbert Hughes and John Robert Monsell was staged at the Kingsway Theatre in September 1935. Queen Mary attended one of the performances.[60]
On November 2, 1936 the BBC began the world's first regularly scheduled television service. Less than two weeks later, on November 13, The British Music Drama Opera Company under the direction of Vladimir Rosing presented the world's first televised opera, Pickwick by Albert Coates. The performance was a preview of the new company's upcoming season at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.[61]
The Covent Garden season opened on November 18, 1936 with Boris Godunov. Madama Butterfly, The Fair at Sorochyntsi, and Pagliacci followed, along with the premier of Coates' Pickwick and another new opera, Julia, by Roger Quilter.[62]
On October 5, 1938 Rosing was back at the BBC for a live television broadcast of Pagliacci with his latest opera venture, the Covent Garden English Opera Company.[63] Again, it was a preview of the upcoming season which opened with Faust on October 10, with Eugene Goossens conducting. Along with Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Pagliacci and Cavalleria rusticana was an unfamiliar work, The Serf, by George Lloyd. After the London season, the company toured Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh.[64]
[edit] Return to America[edit] World War IIWhen war broke out again in Europe in September 1939, Rosing decided to go with his friend Albert Coates to Southern California. Rosing married his third wife, the English actress Vicki Campbell, and they boarded the SS Washington in Southampton on October 3, 1939. The ship was overflowing with artists fleeing Europe, such as Arturo Toscanini, Arthur Rubinstein, Paul Robeson, and the Russian Ballet.[65]
Once safely in Hollywood, Rosing and Coates formed the Southern California Opera Association. In conjunction with the W.P.A. they produced a notable production of Faust that featured the debut of soprano Nadine Conner.
Rosing renewed his political activities, becoming Executive Chairman of the Federal Union of Southern California, a new group whose members included Thomas Mann, John Carradine, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Melvyn Douglas. America was clinging to isolationism and Rosing worked hard to try to counteract that movement and help England in the war before it was too late.[66]
When America finally joined the war, Rosing eagerly wanted to be of service. He was finally appointed Director of Entertainment at Camp Roberts, California in 1943. The film studios lent their stable of stars, and with the help of talented servicemen Rosing directed over 20 productions of musical theater and light opera for the troops.[67] His last production at Camp Roberts was a staged version of Handel's Messiah in December 1945.[68]
Along with Capt. Hugh Edwards, another Camp Roberts veteran, Rosing founded the American Operatic Laboratory in 1946. The idea was to offer complete vocal and instrumental courses to music students, as well as returning soldiers on the GI bill. The school started with 17 students, and over the next three years 450 pupils were trained, most of whom were veterans. Over 300 performances were given of 33 different opera productions.[69] One of Rosing's young students, Jean Hillard, eventually became his fourth wife.
Rosing worked locally with the Long Beach Civic Opera Association on productions of The Merry Widow, Naughty Marietta, and Rio Rita in 1946. Under the banner of the American Opera Company of Los Angeles, Val directed Tosca, The Barber of Seville, and Faust in 1947 with an up-and-coming young bass named Jerome Hines. In 1948 the National Opera Association of Los Angeles, under Val's direction, presented The Beggar's Opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Faust, and La traviata with soprano Jean Fenn. Productions of The Marriage of Figaro, The Queen of Spades, and Don Giovanni with the American Opera Company of Los Angeles completed 1948.
For KFI-TV in 1949 Rosing presented 46 weeks of live televised opera sequences on Sunday afternoons which were voted Outstanding Musical Program of Local Origin by the Southern California Association for Better Radio and T.V.[70]
[edit] New York City OperaIn the fall of 1949 an offer came from the New York City Opera to revive the comic opera by Prokofiev, The Love for Three Oranges. Rosing's old friend Theodore Komisarjevsky had been slated to direct the production but had suffered a heart attack. Vladimir had seen the original failed production, which was commissioned by the Chicago Opera in 1921, and he knew what the work needed to bring it to success. The production opened in November 1949, and was a smash hit. Life Magazine covered it with a three page color-photo spread.[71] The New York company took the production to Chicago to show it off. Prokofiev's opera was brought back by popular demand for two more successive seasons in New York.
Over the next decade Rosing directed ten more productions for the NYCO, including Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe which ran for two seasons in 1958 and featured the role debut of soprano Beverly Sills.[72] The production was revived again in 1962.
[edit] Opera in filmsRosing directed opera sequences for four films during this period, starting with Everybody Does It starring Linda Darnell for 20th Century Fox in 1949. Grounds for Marriage with Kathryn Grayson followed for MGM in 1950. Rosing directed Ezio Pinza in Strictly Dishonorable, and Interrupted Melody with Eleanor Parker in 1955, also both for MGM.[73]
[edit] Hollywood BowlIn 1950, as California was celebrating one hundred years of statehood, Rosing was at the Hollywood Bowl directing a new production of Faust with Nadine Conner, Jerome Hines and Richard Tucker, which opened the Bowl's summer season.[74] Rosing's work was noticed by the producers of the upcoming The California Story, the official state centennial production to be mounted in the Bowl that fall, and he was awarded the job of directing it. Meredith Willson was brought on to supervise the music.[75]
The California Story ran for five performances in September 1950. The production was immense. A chorus of 200 and hundreds of actors were employed. The shell of the bowl was removed and the stage was enlarged. The action was expanded to include the surrounding hillsides. Lionel Barrymore provided the dramatic narration.[76]
The California Story's success was to open up a whole new avenue for Rosing's energies: the historical spectacular. The Bowl provided the setting for the first two of these, The Air Power Pageant in 1951 and The Elks Story in 1954.
Rosing also directed three more operas at the Bowl: the ill-fated Die Fledermaus[nb 5] in 1951, Madama Butterfly with Dorothy Kirsten in 1960, and The Student Prince with Igor Gorin in 1962.
One of the set designs by Nicola Benois for Prince Igor, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1962.[edit] Lyric Opera of ChicagoStarting in 1955 with Il tabarro, Vladimir Rosing directed a dozen productions over the next seven years for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, including Boris Godunov with Boris Christoff, Turandot with Birgit Nilsson in 1958, and Thaïs with Leontyne Price in 1959. Rosing's last opera there, in 1962, was Borodin's Prince Igor, also with Boris Christoff—a production that featured sets by Nicola Benois, choreography by Ruth Page and dancing by the newly free Rudolf Nureyev.[81]
[edit] Opera Guild of MontrealThe Opera Guild of Montreal, founded by soprano Pauline Donalda, brought Rosing to direct Verdi's Falstaff in January 1958 at Her Majesty's Theatre. Through 1962, Rosing directed a production each January for the Guild: Macbeth (1959), Carmen (1960), Romeo et Juliette (1961) and La traviata (1962). The renowned Russian conductor Emil Cooper led the orchestra for the first three seasons.[82]
[edit] CentennialsThe success of The California Story at the Hollywood Bowl in 1950 led to the show being revived in equally grand fashion for San Diego's yearly Fiesta del Pacifico in 1956, 1957, and 1958.[83] Other states took notice, and Rosing was hired to write and direct centennial productions for Oregon in 1959,[84] Kansas in 1961,[85] and Arizona in 1963.[86] He was assisted by his fifth wife, Ruth Scates, whom he married in 1959.
[edit] The Freedom StoryThe centennial of the Civil War was approaching and Rosing conceived of a spectacular production, The Civil War Story, that would be funded jointly by participating States and tour the country for several years in commemoration. Rosing would produce, write and direct the production.
After a disappointing failure to win bi-partisan support in the Northern and Southern States for this ambitious project, Rosing then conceived of an even bigger production that would instead tell the story of freedom itself.
The Freedom Story would be an ambassador of freedom and peace, sent from America to the rest of the world, performing in local languages. Rosing wanted to use the power of art to fight the forces of totalitarianism that he saw threatening America's freedom. The project won wide support, with an Advisory Board that included Alf Landon, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Meredith Willson had agreed to create the music.[87]
But, while working on the Arizona Story, Rosing contracted septicemia. His once boundless energy was taken away from him.[88] He died in Santa Monica on November 24, 1963.[89]
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