http://www.nytimes.com 
The ageless mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias had never heard a note of
Stephen Sondheim’s score for “Follies” when her agent first approached
her about auditioning for the small, poignant role of Heidi Schiller,
which she is now playing to acclaim in the popular revival at the Marquis Theater on Broadway.
Ms. Elias was no Sondheim neophyte. She sang Mrs. Lovett in the New York City Opera’s 1984 production of “Sweeney Todd” and appeared as the sardonic grandmother Madame Armfeldt in a production of “A Little Night Music” in Hawaii. But she knew of “Follies” only vaguely and could not imagine what role could be right for someone “at my stage,” as she put it during a recent interview in her Manhattan apartment, where she lives with her husband of 42 years, Zuhayr Moghrabi, a lawyer and law professor.
“My agent, Michael Rosen, said that there was a song in the score that would be wonderful for me,” Ms. Elias recalled. That song, “One More Kiss,” is a waltzing avowal of love and farewell written in the soaring lyrical style of Sigmund Romberg. And Ms. Elias adores it.
“I know Stephen Sondheim wrote that song in 1971,” she said, “but I swear, I feel he wrote it for me.” She went to that audition, sang “One More Kiss” and knocked out the director Eric Schaeffer.
“I had never heard her perform in opera, I’m sorry to say,” Mr. Schaeffer said recently. “But I knew of her. When her name came up, I thought, ‘Oh my God, that would be amazing.’ She came and sang. I was literally in tears. I was, like, ‘Cast her!’ I called Steve. He agreed.” So when “Follies” opened in September, after a run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Ms. Elias made her Broadway debut at 82. At every performance she stops the show with “One More Kiss,” which halfway through becomes a duet with a memory character, Young Heidi (Leah Horowitz). Her voice may be a little weathered, but her singing is warm, penetrating and grand. In a recent e-mail Mr. Sondheim said that it is “lovely to see her happiness” and called her performance “touching and wonderful.”
Ms. Elias was eager to talk about the unexpected opportunity. “Follies” (which runs through Jan. 22) has given her an opportunity to reflect on her distinguished career, which includes more than 680 performances with the Metropolitan Opera over 42 years, starting with her 1954 debut as Grimgerde in Wagner’s “Walküre.”
I was just as eager to speak with her. If memory serves, the first complete opera recording I owned as a child was the RCA album of Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” recorded in 1958, with Erich Leinsdorf conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and Ms. Elias as Cherubino, a role that became her calling card.
Any true opera buff will have some of the classic recordings Ms. Elias made in the late 1950s and ’60s, among them her plush-voiced Suzuki in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” recorded twice, first with Anna Moffo and then with Leontyne Price in the title role; or her pulsating, never overwrought account of the old Gypsy Azucena in Verdi’s “Trovatore,” with Ms. Price, Richard Tucker and Leonard Warren.
To become a singer, Ms. Elias said, she had to overcome the opposition of her stern father. Her parents, born in Beirut, Lebanon, were old-fashioned immigrants living in Lowell, Mass., where Ms. Elias was born, the last of 13 children and the only one with musical talent.
“I spoke Arabic before I spoke English,” she said, “because my mother was always home taking care of the children and hardly mingled in the neighborhood to learn English.” Ms. Elias, who had a natural singing voice, grew to love opera by listening to the Saturday broadcasts of the Met while doing her housecleaning chores.
Her father was successful in real estate, she said, though “the crash ruined him.” But he picked himself up and became successful again.
He still believed that “only bad girls go on the stage,” Ms. Elias said. She pleaded for voice lessons. He gave in, thinking it would come to nothing. She thrived, entered the New England Conservatory in Boston, then studied in Rome and returned to America primed for a career.
After her Met debut small assignments steadily grew into major parts, including Dorabella in Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte,” Bizet’s Carmen, Rosina in Rossini’s “Barbiere di Siviglia” and Giulietta in Offenbach’s “Contes d’Hoffmann.”
She takes pride in having created the role of the impulsive young woman Erika in the Met’s premiere production of Samuel Barber’s gothic opera “Vanessa” in 1958. For a production of that work at the New York City Opera in 2007, Ms. Elias sang the Old Baroness, a role that requires a compelling dramatic presence though not much singing. Ms. Elias, who was riveting, assumed this would be her farewell to the stage.
The ageless mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias had never heard a note of
Stephen Sondheim’s score for “Follies” when her agent first approached
her about auditioning for the small, poignant role of Heidi Schiller,
which she is now playing to acclaim in the popular revival at the Marquis Theater on Broadway. Ms. Elias was no Sondheim neophyte. She sang Mrs. Lovett in the New York City Opera’s 1984 production of “Sweeney Todd” and appeared as the sardonic grandmother Madame Armfeldt in a production of “A Little Night Music” in Hawaii. But she knew of “Follies” only vaguely and could not imagine what role could be right for someone “at my stage,” as she put it during a recent interview in her Manhattan apartment, where she lives with her husband of 42 years, Zuhayr Moghrabi, a lawyer and law professor.
“My agent, Michael Rosen, said that there was a song in the score that would be wonderful for me,” Ms. Elias recalled. That song, “One More Kiss,” is a waltzing avowal of love and farewell written in the soaring lyrical style of Sigmund Romberg. And Ms. Elias adores it.
“I know Stephen Sondheim wrote that song in 1971,” she said, “but I swear, I feel he wrote it for me.” She went to that audition, sang “One More Kiss” and knocked out the director Eric Schaeffer.
“I had never heard her perform in opera, I’m sorry to say,” Mr. Schaeffer said recently. “But I knew of her. When her name came up, I thought, ‘Oh my God, that would be amazing.’ She came and sang. I was literally in tears. I was, like, ‘Cast her!’ I called Steve. He agreed.” So when “Follies” opened in September, after a run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Ms. Elias made her Broadway debut at 82. At every performance she stops the show with “One More Kiss,” which halfway through becomes a duet with a memory character, Young Heidi (Leah Horowitz). Her voice may be a little weathered, but her singing is warm, penetrating and grand. In a recent e-mail Mr. Sondheim said that it is “lovely to see her happiness” and called her performance “touching and wonderful.”
Ms. Elias was eager to talk about the unexpected opportunity. “Follies” (which runs through Jan. 22) has given her an opportunity to reflect on her distinguished career, which includes more than 680 performances with the Metropolitan Opera over 42 years, starting with her 1954 debut as Grimgerde in Wagner’s “Walküre.”
I was just as eager to speak with her. If memory serves, the first complete opera recording I owned as a child was the RCA album of Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” recorded in 1958, with Erich Leinsdorf conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and Ms. Elias as Cherubino, a role that became her calling card.
Any true opera buff will have some of the classic recordings Ms. Elias made in the late 1950s and ’60s, among them her plush-voiced Suzuki in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” recorded twice, first with Anna Moffo and then with Leontyne Price in the title role; or her pulsating, never overwrought account of the old Gypsy Azucena in Verdi’s “Trovatore,” with Ms. Price, Richard Tucker and Leonard Warren.
To become a singer, Ms. Elias said, she had to overcome the opposition of her stern father. Her parents, born in Beirut, Lebanon, were old-fashioned immigrants living in Lowell, Mass., where Ms. Elias was born, the last of 13 children and the only one with musical talent.
“I spoke Arabic before I spoke English,” she said, “because my mother was always home taking care of the children and hardly mingled in the neighborhood to learn English.” Ms. Elias, who had a natural singing voice, grew to love opera by listening to the Saturday broadcasts of the Met while doing her housecleaning chores.
Her father was successful in real estate, she said, though “the crash ruined him.” But he picked himself up and became successful again.
He still believed that “only bad girls go on the stage,” Ms. Elias said. She pleaded for voice lessons. He gave in, thinking it would come to nothing. She thrived, entered the New England Conservatory in Boston, then studied in Rome and returned to America primed for a career.
After her Met debut small assignments steadily grew into major parts, including Dorabella in Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte,” Bizet’s Carmen, Rosina in Rossini’s “Barbiere di Siviglia” and Giulietta in Offenbach’s “Contes d’Hoffmann.”
She takes pride in having created the role of the impulsive young woman Erika in the Met’s premiere production of Samuel Barber’s gothic opera “Vanessa” in 1958. For a production of that work at the New York City Opera in 2007, Ms. Elias sang the Old Baroness, a role that requires a compelling dramatic presence though not much singing. Ms. Elias, who was riveting, assumed this would be her farewell to the stage.
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