Obituary, Roberta Peters (1930-2017)

The American coloratura soprano Roberta Peters has died aged 86. Born Roberta Peterman in New York on 4th May 1930, she was the daughter of a Jewish shoe-maker and a milliner and left formal education at a young age, but began studying voice in her early teens (as well as undertaking a gruelling athletic regime which included training with the inventor of Pilates and stood her in excellent stead for the demands of an operatic career). After just six years of private study, Peters auditioned successfully for Rudolf Bing at the Metropolitan Opera, where she made one of the most high-profile debuts in operatic history by jumping in to replace an indisposed soprano as Zerlina in Don Giovanni under Fritz Reiner: aged just 20, she had never previously performed in a fully-staged opera or sung with an orchestra, let alone played Zerlina before. The gamble paid off: the Met audience and Reiner were hugely impressed, and Peters went on to sing at the theatre hundreds of times over the next 35 years, with signature-roles including Oscar (Un ballo in maschera), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Norina (Don Pasquale), the title-role in Lucia di Lammermoor, Mozart’s Queen of the Night, and Gilda (Rigoletto). Though the Met remained a primary base throughout her career, she also made notable appearances at Covent Garden, the Salzburg Festival and the Bolshoi, always restricting herself to the repertoire best-suited to her silvery, slender but superbly-projected voice: though she confessed to a burning desire to sing Tosca, she never pushed her instrument beyond its limits, despite numerous offers to undertake heavier roles in the Sutherland/Callas mould.

Petite, glamorous and photogenic, Peters became a firm favourite on TV programmes including The Ed Sullivan Show, The Bell Telephone Hour and The Voice of Firestone, occasionally dabbling in commercials and even making the odd cameo-appearance in film. Later in her career she made several successful forays into musical theatre (having eschewed much earlier opportunities for stardom in this arena in favour of holding out for an operatic career), with roles including Julie Jordan in a recording of Carousel, and Anna in The King & I.

Peters was briefly married to the baritone Robert Merrill in the 1950s, and they continued to enjoy a warm relationship on and off-stage following their divorce; the pair regularly appeared opposite one another in the recording-studio and the opera-house, with joint successes including Figaro/Rosina, Renato/Oscar, and most notably Rigoletto/Gilda. It was as Gilda that Peters made her last appearance at the Met in 1985, though there was never any official ‘farewell performance’ at the house, or indeed anywhere else: thanks in part to the shrewd decisions she made regarding repertoire and her lifelong dedication to physical and vocal fitness, she enjoyed remarkable longevity as a singer and continued to perform in concert until well into her eighth decade.

Peters died of Parkinson’s Disease on Wednesday at home in New York; she is survived by two sons from her second marriage to the lawyer Bertram Fields.

Roberta Peters - some key recordings