Annamary Dickey

Annamary Dickey (April 9, 1911 – June 1, 1999), also known as Annamary Dickey Laue, was an American soprano and actress whose career encompassed opera, operetta, musical theatre, night clubs, radio, and television from the 1930s through the 1960s. Born in Decatur, Illinois, she was the daughter of Dr. James Harvey Dickey, a dentist, and his wife, Rebecca McAdams. After graduating from Stephen Decatur High School in 1928, she studied music at Millikin University, earning her degree in 1932. During her time at Millikin, she placed third in the Chicagoland Music Festival's singing competition in 1930 at Soldier Field, a result that led to radio performing engagements in Chicago. From 1933 to 1937 she pursued opera training at the Juilliard School under Florence Kimball, and during those summers she studied with Marcella Sembrich at Bolton Landing, New York, and participated in the Chautauqua Institution's opera program.

At Juilliard, Dickey appeared with the Juilliard Opera Theatre in a range of productions. Her earliest role there was the mezzo-soprano part of La Ciesca in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi in 1933. She was a classmate of mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens, alongside whom she performed Amore in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute in 1935. Additional Juilliard Opera Theatre credits included Mistress Ford in Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1936, and roles in two American premieres in 1937: Kitty in Albert Stoessel's Garrick and Angelica in Ralph Vaughan Williams's The Poisoned Kiss. The Juilliard production of Garrick traveled to the Worcester Music Festival in Massachusetts, where Stoessel himself conducted performances at Mechanics Hall. With the Chautauqua Opera, Dickey performed Elsie Maynard in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard and Lady Marian in Reginald De Koven's Robin Hood in 1935, and the title role in Michael William Balfe's The Bohemian Girl in 1936.

In 1937 Dickey joined the St. Louis Municipal Opera as a contracted performer, making her professional debut in July of that year in the world premiere of Frederick Loewe and Earle Crooker's Salute to Spring at The MUNY, in the supporting role of Splaster. That same summer she appeared in the world premiere of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's operetta Gentleman Unafraid. Other productions with the St. Louis Municipal Opera included De Koven's Robin Hood, the world premiere of Bruno Hardt-Warden's Wild Violets in the role of Mitzi, Smetana's The Bartered Bride as Esmerelda, and Victor Herbert's Babette as Vinetta. She was also a regular singer on the Evening Serenade program for KMOX radio in Saint Louis during 1937.

Dickey made her Broadway debut on October 17, 1938, when the musical Knights of Song transferred to New York following its world premiere at the St. Louis Municipal Opera. The production, directed by Oscar Hammerstein II and produced by Laurence Schwab, dramatized the story of Gilbert and Sullivan and incorporated scenes and excerpts from their operettas. Among the roles Dickey portrayed within the show were Edith from The Pirates of Penzance and Pitti-Sing from The Mikado. She returned to Broadway in 1939 in Arnold Sundgaard's Everywhere I Roam, playing the role of the Nurse.

Also in 1939, Dickey won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air, which secured her a contract with the Metropolitan Opera. The victory brought an additional engagement: she performed at a New Citizens Day event at the Central Park Mall in June 1939, attended by more than 5,000 people, alongside comedian and singer Eddie Cantor and a speech by Justice John C. Knox. Her Met debut came on November 29, 1939, as the Happy Shade in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, with Kerstin Thorborg as Orfeo, Irene Jessner as Euridice, and Herbert Graf conducting. She continued performing at the Met through 1944, taking on secondary roles in productions including Massenet's Manon, Delibes's Lakmé, Charpentier's Louise, Bizet's Carmen, Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and Smetana's The Bartered Bride. Her most prominent role at the Met was Musetta in Puccini's La bohème, which she performed there from 1940 to 1944. Her striking appearance and enthusiasm for fashionable dress earned her the nickname the Glamour Girl of the Met, and in 1945 she headlined a fashion campaign for Saks Fifth Avenue.

Concurrent with her Met tenure, Dickey became the headline nightclub singer at the Wedgwood Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel from 1943 to 1946, performing a repertoire that combined popular songs with classical works. She also sang at the Terrace Room in the Statler Hilton in Boston and the Empress Club in London. On radio, she co-hosted the Texaco Star Theater with James Melton from 1945 to 1947, and she made numerous appearances on American television variety programs.

After departing the Met, Dickey concentrated on musical theatre and became a leading lady on Broadway. She created the role of Empress Maria Theresa in Fritz Kreisler's Rhapsody in 1944, and the following year originated the role of Brenda Blossom in George S. Kaufman's Hollywood Pinafore. In 1947 she created the role of Marjorie Taylor in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Allegro, a production she considered the pinnacle of her career, and she subsequently portrayed the same character in the musical's first national tour in the late 1940s. Her association with Rodgers and Hammerstein extended further when she starred in annual summer concerts of their music with the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium from 1948 to 1957.

Dickey also appeared in the original Broadway run of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I, initially serving as the standby for Constance Carpenter in the role of Anna Leonowens. She stepped in for Carpenter on multiple occasions, including a two-week period while Carpenter was visiting family in England. When Carpenter left the production in January 1954, Dickey took over the role and held it until Patricia Morison succeeded her in March 1954.

Following the death of her husband in 1966, Dickey joined the faculty of the University of South Florida in Tampa as head of the opera program. Upon her retirement from USF in 1988, she was honored with the title of professor emeritus. She died on June 1, 1999, at the age of 88.