Adelaide Bishop

Adelaide Bishop (June 23, 1928 – June 20, 2008) was an American operatic soprano, musical theatre actress, stage director, and voice teacher born in New York City. Her career spanned Broadway performance, principal opera engagements, university faculty appointments, and arts administration, with Broadway appearances documented between 1943 and 1954.

Bishop began vocal studies as a young teenager with several instructors, among them Paul Breisach, Louis Polanski, and Rose Landver, and also trained at Luigi Rossini's Rossini Opera Workshop. At fifteen she made her Broadway debut playing Fritzi in the 1943 revival of Blossom Time, a production that ran for 43 performances. Two years later she returned to Broadway as Betty Ellis in The Girl From Nantucket, a short-lived musical in which Jane Kean played Dodey Ellis and Helen Raymond played Keziah Getchel.

Her professional opera debut came on October 24, 1946, when she sang Blonde in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail with the American Opera Company at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. That December she appeared on Broadway again as Gretchen in a revival of Victor Herbert's The Red Mill at the Shubert Theatre. In January 1948 she portrayed Letitia in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief in Philadelphia. Menotti attended a performance and was sufficiently impressed to contact Laszlo Halasz, director of the New York City Opera, recommending that the company hire her. This introduction led directly to Bishop's NYCO debut on April 18, 1948, when she sang Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto.

Her two remaining Broadway credits reflected her shift toward opera. In 1948 she played Lucia in the United States premiere of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia at the Ziegfeld Theatre, and in 1954 she appeared as Adele in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus with the New York City Center Light Opera Company.

Bishop became a principal soprano with the NYCO and remained with the company through 1960, performing roles across German, French, Italian, and English repertoire. Her NYCO roles included Gretel in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, Liù in Puccini's Turandot, Musetta in La bohème, Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Olympia in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, Sophie in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, and Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. She created the role of The Stepdaughter in the world premiere of Hugo Weisgall's Six Characters in Search of an Author in 1959 and sang Mary Stone in the New York premiere of Douglas Moore's The Devil and Daniel Webster that same year.

Alongside her NYCO work, Bishop performed with numerous other organizations. In 1949 she sang Gilda with the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company alongside Cesare Bardelli as Rigoletto, Rudolf Petrak as the Duke of Mantua, and conductor Giuseppe Bamboschek. That same year she made her first appearance at the Central City Opera in Colorado as Adele, later returning there to sing Juliet in Gounod's Romeo et Juliet in 1951 and Marguerite in Faust in 1954. In 1950 she portrayed Adele in a television recording of Die Fledermaus with the NBC Opera Theatre. Her first appearance with New Orleans Opera came in 1951 as Susanna, with Frances Yeend as the Countess and Frances Bible as Cherubino; she returned to that company in 1953 to portray Kathie in Romberg's The Student Prince opposite Brian Sullivan as Karl.

Bishop is particularly remembered for creating the title role in the world premiere of Lukas Foss's Griffelkin, produced by NBC Opera Theater and broadcast in 1955 to an estimated audience of one million viewers. She also portrayed Estelle in the premiere of the orchestrated version of Weisgall's The Stronger in August 1955 for the Composers Forum at Columbia University, a performance that was recorded. In 1956 she sang Lucia again at the Stratford Festival in Canada opposite Jon Vickers and Regina Resnik, and that same year appeared as Papagena in an NBC Opera Theatre English-language production of Mozart's The Magic Flute that also featured Leontyne Price as Pamina. In 1957 she appeared on NBC in the world premiere telecast of Stanley Hollingsworth's La Grande Breteche. The following year she portrayed Queen Popotte in the United States premiere of Offenbach's Le Voyage dans la Lune, the first production mounted by Sarah Caldwell's Opera Company of Boston; the production was subsequently performed on the White House lawn before President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bishop returned to Boston the next season for the company's production of The Beggar's Opera.

From the late 1950s onward, Bishop worked extensively as a stage director, staging productions for companies across the United States. Her directing credits ranged from standard repertoire such as La traviata and Il Barbiere di Siviglia to twentieth-century American works including Summer and Smoke, The Crucible, and The Medium. She staged the world premiere of David Amram's Twelfth Night at the Lake George Opera in 1968. As an educator, she taught voice and directed student opera productions on the faculties of Carnegie Mellon University and the Mannes College The New School for Music. She chaired the opera department at Boston University from 1970 to 1984 and served as chairwoman of the opera department and artistic director of the opera theater at the Hartt School from 1982 to 1993. She also served for fourteen years as artistic director of the Wolf Trap Opera, a summer training program for young opera singers.

Bishop married twice, first to Eugene Deatrick and then to Bertram Schur. She had one son, Peyton Deatrick Schur, and one grandson, Kyle Schur. She died in a car accident in Sarasota, Florida on June 20, 2008, three days before her eightieth birthday.