Marilyn Cotlow

Marilyn Rose Cotlow (January 10, 1924 – October 26, 2024) was an American lyric coloratura soprano whose career spanned performance, recording, and teaching across several decades. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Sander and Bernice Cotlow, she grew up alongside two brothers, William and Phillip. During her junior high school years, the family shared a home with a bass player from the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Cotlow developed a passion for classical music and opera through extensive listening to his record collection. Her father relocated the family to Los Angeles in 1936, and she began formal vocal training in 1939 with operatic tenor Hans Clemens, continuing with him for six years. She graduated from Glendale High School in 1942.

Cotlow made her professional opera debut on June 26, 1942, at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, singing the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute with the California Opera Academy in a production staged by Theodore Bachenheimer. The cast included Brian Sullivan as Tamino, George London — then performing under the name George Burnson — as Papageno, and Johnny Silver as Monostatos. During the early to mid-1940s she also worked as a voice-over artist for Hollywood musical films, supplying high notes for performers who could not reach the upper register. In March 1946 she appeared as a soloist with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra under conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, and that summer she sang Blondchen in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio at Central City Opera alongside Eleanor Steber, Felix Knight, and Jerome Hines. Shortly afterward she performed Zerbinetta's aria from Ariadne auf Naxos with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Mitropoulos at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts.

Upon moving to New York, Cotlow auditioned for a Broadway double bill being produced by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Chandler Cowles: Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone, or L'Amour à trois paired with The Medium. The double bill premiered on February 18, 1947, at the Heckscher Theater before opening on Broadway on May 1, 1947, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where it ran for more than seven months. Cotlow created the role of Lucy in The Telephone, a credit that became the defining association of her performing career. She subsequently brought the role to London's West End at the Aldwych Theatre in 1948, making her one of the few performers to originate the part in both the Broadway and West End productions. She recorded the role for Columbia Records in 1948; the recording proved financially successful and was reissued in 1980.

In May 1948 Cotlow and tenor Frank Guarrera were named the two winners of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air, a competition that secured her a contract with the Met and an engagement on NBC Radio's The Bell Telephone Hour. Her Met debut came on December 4, 1948, when she sang Philine in Mignon under conductor Wilfrid Pelletier in a production staged by Desire Defrere, with Risë Stevens in the title role, James Melton as Wilhelm Meister, and Nicola Moscona as Lothario. The performance was broadcast on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. Music critic Oliver J. Gingold wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Cotlow "is a sterling artist" who "rendered the difficult 'Polacca' with complete ease and at times perfection." She toured with the Met's Mignon production to the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in March 1949. Her only other Met role was Adina in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore in January 1949, a cast that included Giuseppe Di Stefano as Nemorino, Giuseppe Valdengo as Belcore, Italo Tajo as Dr. Dulcamara, and Paula Lenchner as Giannetta, with Giuseppe Antonicelli conducting.

In September 1947 Cotlow had sung Rosina in The Barber of Seville at Philharmonic Auditorium with the American Opera Company of Los Angeles, and she reprised the role on tour with the Charles L. Wagner Opera Company in 1948 alongside baritone Andrew Gainey as Almaviva. She returned to Central City Opera in the summer of 1948 to perform Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte, directed by Herbert Graf with sets by Donald Oenslager, in a cast that included Met soprano Anne Bollinger, Met baritone Clifford Harvuot, mezzo Jane Hobson, tenor Joseph Laderoute, and bass Lorenzo Alvary. In 1949 RCA Victor released her LP recording of Samuel Barber's Sleep Now and Richard Hageman's At the Well. In 1950 she performed opera arias and duets with tenor Walter Fredericks on WWOR-TV, and in 1951 she sang Blondchen in The Abduction from the Seraglio with The Little Orchestra Society at Town Hall. That same year she starred in Oscar Straus's The Chocolate Soldier in Toronto and as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata at the New Orleans Opera.

From 1952 to 1955 Cotlow pursued an active European career. She joined the company of Theater Basel in 1952 for one season, then moved to Theater Bremen in 1953 for two seasons. In October and November 1954 she sang Amina in La Sonnambula at the Wexford Festival Opera, and in 1955 she undertook a concert tour of the Netherlands. Back in the United States, she performed opera arias and duets with tenor Brian Sullivan and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Alfredo Antonini in 1956, and the following year she appeared in a program of Offenbach excerpts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Julius Rudel alongside bass Joshua Hecht.

After the mid-1950s, Cotlow's performing activity diminished as she devoted increasing time to her family and to teaching. She gave a recital at the Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, D.C., in March 1961, and in 1962 she sang Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus at the Detroit Institute of Arts with the Detroit Opera Theatre. In December 1979 she starred in the world premiere of Thomas Czerny-Hydzik's The Tell-Tale Heart, an opera adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 short story written specifically for her, which premiered at Prince George's Publick Playhouse in Hyattsville, Maryland. Earlier that year she had appeared in an evening of opera scenes with the Prince George Civic Opera at the University of Virginia. She later recorded Kurt Weill's "September Song" with the Peter Robinson Trio, released on their 1994 album Dancin'.

On August 9, 1948, Cotlow married violinist Eugene Altschuler, who was serving as concertmaster of the New Orleans Symphony at the time of their marriage. They had two sons, Daniel and Remy David. Her teaching career encompassed faculty positions at the Peabody Conservatory, the University of Michigan, and Catholic University of America, as well as private instruction from her home in Northern Virginia. Among her students were soprano Alessandra Marc and soprano Jennifer Wilson, both of whom went on to prominent careers.