Muriel O'Malley

Muriel Florence Ethel O'Malley (19 May 1907 – 21 August 1994), also known by her married name Muriel Roet, was an Australian-born American actress and contralto. Born in Cobar, New South Wales, she was the daughter of Dominick O'Malley and May O'Malley. She grew up primarily in Longreach, Western Queensland, where she attended Presentation Convent Schools, including Our Lady's College. Her secondary education was completed at Holy Cross College in Woollahra, New South Wales. O'Malley maintained an active performance career spanning musicals, operas, and concerts from the 1920s through the 1960s, with her Broadway work running from 1944 to 1959.

Her musical education began within the Presentation Convent Schools system, which offered instruction affiliated with both the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London and the London College of Music (LCM). Her voice teacher during those years was A. R. Richards. At thirteen she passed the London College of Music Examinations, earning an Associate degree, and at sixteen she earned a second Associate degree from Trinity College London. In 1924 she received a Teacher's Diploma from Trinity College London. She enrolled at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1923 and graduated in August 1925. That same year she won the Ethel Pedley scholarship for singing, a competitive award covering tuition and living expenses for two years of study at the RAM in London. Before departing Australia, she gave her first professional concerts as a classical contralto at Shire Hall in Longreach and the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in October and November 1925. She left for England in the summer of 1926, where she studied singing with Frederic King and piano with Charles Lynch at the RAM, earning bronze medals in singing and aural training after her first year.

During the late 1920s and 1930s, O'Malley worked as a concert and opera singer on stage and radio in Australia, Europe, and Africa. Her opera repertoire included Amneris in Aida, Azucena in Il trovatore, and Princess Eboli in Don Carlos, and she was mentored by Nellie Melba. In April 1937 she married Dutch businessman Leo Roet in London; he worked as a manufacturer of industrial diamonds. Her performing career was interrupted by World War II. In 1944 she and her husband immigrated to the United States, and she became a United States citizen in 1948.

O'Malley made her Broadway debut in 1944 as a Lady of the Court in the featured vocal octet in Fritz Kreisler's operetta Rhapsody. Her first leading role on Broadway came in 1947 with the revival of Oscar Straus's operetta The Chocolate Soldier at the New Century Theatre, in which she played Aurelia Popoff. The production had toured prior to its New York run, with stops at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia and the Colonial Theatre in Boston, both in 1947. New York critics praised her portrayal, and she went on to reprise the role at several regional venues, including the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera in 1949 and the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri in 1956. She also performed the role in a 1950 television adaptation of the operetta broadcast on NBC's anthology series Musical Comedy Time.

Her most prominent Broadway work came through three productions with texts by Oscar Hammerstein II. The first was the original 1947 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Allegro, in which she created the role of Grandma Taylor. In 1951 she appeared in the revival of the Jerome Kern and Hammerstein musical Music in the Air at the Ziegfeld Theatre, playing the role of Lilli. She also appeared in the 1949 Jean Kerr and Walter Kerr musical revue Touch and Go at the Broadhurst Theatre, receiving favorable reviews for her work there. Her final Broadway appearance was in the original 1959 production of The Sound of Music, in which she created the role of Sister Margaretta.

Alongside her Broadway career, O'Malley performed with the New York City Opera, most notably creating the role of Celeste in the world premiere of William Grant Still's Troubled Island in 1949. Another role with that company was Miss Todd in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief in 1947. She was also a regular presence at the St. Louis Municipal Opera during the 1940s and 1950s, where her roles included Aunt Em in The Wizard of Oz in 1945, 1946, and 1951; Greta in The Great Waltz in 1946 and 1956; the title role in Roberta in 1954; Mother Grieg in Song of Norway in 1954; and Aurelia Popoff in The Chocolate Soldier in 1956. She performed two seasons at the Memphis Open Air Theatre as well, taking on roles including Katisha in The Mikado, Clotilde in The New Moon, Lady Mary in The Vagabond King, and Madame Dondidier in The Pink Lady between 1949 and 1950.

O'Malley also appeared in two television productions of operettas. In 1957 she portrayed Dame Carruthers in a Hallmark Hall of Fame broadcast of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard, sharing the cast with Barbara Cook as Elsie Maynard, Alfred Drake as Jack Point, and Celeste Holm as Phoebe Meryll. In 1962 she reprised the role of Mother Grieg in Song of Norway with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in a production led by Patrice Munsel as the Countess. Muriel O'Malley died on 21 August 1994 in Dade City, Florida.