Age & hometown: “Oh, say something funny”; Lowell, Massachusetts
Current role: Bringing her powerhouse operatic vocals to her Broadway debut performance as former showgirl Heidi Schiller in Follies.
Black Sheep: The youngest of 13 children of parents from “the old country,” Beirut, Lebanon, Elias didn’t grow up among performers. “Only bad girls go on stage,” she says of her parents’ attitude towards the arts, but she listened to Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts while doing her chores and imagined a career on that stage. “That was my dream,” she says, “and my dream came true.” But it wasn’t an easy sell. “I would talk to my sister who would talk to my mother who would talk to my father," she remembers. “They thought I’d get over it.” At 14, a determined Elias was finally allowed to start studying voice, which led to a degree from New England Conservatory.
Big Break: Elias made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1954, but her big break came four years later as Erika in Samuel Barber’s Vanessa. “I auditioned four times,” she remembers, but the opera wasn’t exactly as she’d imagined. “I went to my boss and said, ‘I’m the ...
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Opera Legend-Turned-Follies Star Rosalind Elias on Her New Romance with Theater and 42-Year Honeymoon
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