American record producer
Richard Mohr
(June 13, 1919 in
Springfield, Ohio
– November 23, 2002 in
West Milford, New Jersey
) was one of
RCA Victor
’s most prominent producers of classical and operatic music recordings from 1943 through 1977. His producing credits included
[1]
recording the casts of the world premieres of
Samuel Barber
's
Vanessa
and
Gian Carlo Menotti
's
Amahl and the Night Visitors
,
as well as the first LP recordings of
Ernani
,
Luisa Miller
and
Lucrezia Borgia
and three versions each of
Rigoletto
,
Aida
,
La Traviata
and
Il Trovatore
.
His orchestral repertory began with the last of the live, historical performances of
Arturo Toscanini
and the
NBC Symphony Orchestra
and continued over the years with such conductors as
Leopold Stokowski
,
Pierre Monteux
,
Charles Munch
,
Fritz Reiner
,
Arthur Fiedler
,
Erich Leinsdorf
,
Tullio Serafin
,
Jean Morel
,
Zubin Mehta
,
James Levine
,
Georg Solti
,
Fausto Cleva
and
Nello Santi
, conducting some of the world's most prestigious orchestras, such as The
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
, The
Boston Symphony Orchestra
, The
Philadelphia Orchestra
, The
London Philharmonic Orchestra
, the
New Philharmonia Orchestra
, and the
London Symphony Orchestra
.
The recorded legacy he left behind contains more than 80 complete opera recordings, including the landmark,
La Boheme
with
Victoria de los Angeles
and
Jussi Bjoerling
, conducted by
Thomas Beecham
. Other operas featured many of the glorious voices of the era including
Leontyne Price
,
Montserrat Caballe
,
Martina Arroyo
,
Fiorenza Cossotto
,
Ruggero Raimondi
,
Leonard Warren
,
Rise Stevens
,
Licia Albanese
,
Robert Merrill
,
Roberta Peters
,
Zinka Milanov
,
Jan Peerce
,
Richard Tucker
,
Renata Scotto
,
Renata Tebaldi
,
Anna Moffo
,
Placido Domingo
,
Sherrill Milnes
,
Carlo Bergonzi
,
Alfredo Kraus
,
Giorgio Tozzi
,
Gabriel Bacquier
,
Nicolai Gedda
,
Giuseppe di Stefano
,
Cesare Valletti
,
Judith Blegen
and
Mirella Freni
.
Martin Bernheimer, former music critic of the Los Angeles Times said of him that
[2]
"He had a great eye and ear for talent and for putting important people together for projects that had lasting value to the music lover. He was an enabler with great imagination and great taste. My impression was he got (the artists) to behave like pussy-cats."
His body of work earned him five Grammy Awards
[3]
for Best Opera Recording of the year and at least twenty-five Grammy nominations. He is also widely known for his appearances on the
Met Opera Quiz
broadcasts as a panelist and later as producer of the
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast
intermission features.
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Conductors
| |
---|
Singers
| |
---|
Keyboardists
| |
---|
String/brass/
woodwind players
| |
---|
Ensembles
| |
---|
Producers/engineers/
record label executives
| |
---|
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Artists
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|