American conductor (1930 - 1977)
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/ThomasSchippers.jpg)
Thomas Schippers
(9 March 1930 – 16 December 1977) was an American
conductor
. He was highly regarded for his work in
opera
.
Biography
[
edit
]
Of Dutch ancestry and son of the owner of a large appliance store, Schippers was born in
Portage, Michigan
.
[1]
He began playing
piano
at age four. After graduating from high school at age 13, he attended the
Curtis Institute
and the
Juilliard School
.
Schippers made his debut at the
New York City Opera
at age twenty-one, and the
Metropolitan Opera
at twenty-five. He conducted world premieres of now well-known music by
Gian Carlo Menotti
and
Samuel Barber
. He conducted
child actor
Chet Allen
in a theatrical version of Menotti's
Amahl and the Night Visitors
. Schippers conducted in all the major opera houses of the
United States
and
Europe
, most notably the
Metropolitan Opera
and
La Scala
, and founded
Italy
's
Spoleto
festival with Menotti and once described his perfect orchestra as being composed of "one-third Italian musicians for their line, one-third Jewish for their sound, a sprinkling of Germans for solidity".
[1]
Schippers was a regular conductor with the
New York Philharmonic
and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
, and made recordings with them as well, but in 1970 he finally took a full-time orchestral position with the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
, succeeding his predecessor at the Metropolitan Opera,
Max Rudolf
. After making several recordings with them and building the orchestra's international reputation, his career was cut short by his death from
lung cancer
at 47 in 1977 in New York City, New York.
During the 1970s, he was appointed principal conductor of l'
Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
but conducted only one concert with the orchestra (in May 1976, including Ravel's
Ma Mere l'Oye
suite). He made many opera recordings in his time, and live recordings of his performances are gradually being made available on CD. His 1971 studio recording of
Lucia di Lammermoor
by
Gaetano Donizetti
with
Beverly Sills
and
Carlo Bergonzi
was the first recording in which the
glass harmonica
was used in the
mad scene
. In 1974, he recorded, for
EMI
,
The Siege of Corinth
, with Sills,
Shirley Verrett
,
Justino Diaz
, and
Harry Theyard
. His 1964 recording (Decca) of Verdi's
Macbeth
with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra was noted for his dramatic approach.
He was a National Patron of
Delta Omicron
, an international professional music fraternity.
[2]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Though reputed to be
homosexual
, Schippers married Elaine Lane "Nonie" Phipps (1939?1973) in 1965.
[3]
[4]
[5]
An heiress to the Grace shipping fortune and a daughter of the noted American polo player
Michael Grace Phipps
, she died of ovarian cancer in 1973.
[6]
Schippers died of lung cancer four years later.
According to professor, writer and opera scholar
John Louis DiGaetani
, Schippers had a long-term romantic relationship with Menotti and a shorter one with mathematician Sean Clarke.
[7]
One of
Leonard Bernstein
's biographers claims that Schippers and Bernstein were also intimately involved.
[8]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Academics
| |
---|
Artists
| |
---|
People
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|