Robert Mosley

Robert Mosley (1927 – April 30, 2002) was an American operatic bass-baritone whose Broadway appearances spanned from 1976 to 1983. Among the first generation of African-American opera singers to achieve wide success, he built a career encompassing opera productions, recitals, and concerts from the 1950s through the 1990s.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mosley grew up in Oakland and graduated from Schenley High School in 1946. He studied voice at West Chester University under William E. Bretz. In the early 1950s he appeared in local music revues in Pittsburgh and performed as a featured singer on the KDKA-TV program The Bill Brant Show, serving as the show's regular vocalist from 1955 to 1957. In 1957 he received the Great Lakes Regional Auditions prize at the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air in Cleveland, Ohio, and was subsequently named one of three scholarship winners in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions' New York Broadcast Audition. During the late 1950s and early 1960s he appeared as a concert singer with the Pittsburgh Wind Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the American Broadcasting Company Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Pittsburgh Pops Orchestra.

In 1962 Mosley relocated to New York City after winning the John Jay Whitney Foundation prize, which funded his continued professional vocal training. That same year he received the Marian Anderson Award, and in 1963 he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Grant. In New York he studied with Giuseppe Danise and Pasquale Rescigno. His professional opera debut came in 1965 when he portrayed Porgy in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center. That same year he made his New York recital debut at Town Hall and sang Porgy again for his debut with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall. In 1966 he returned to the New York City Opera as Valentin in Faust alongside Beverly Sills as Marguerite, and that year also performed the role of Joe in Show Boat on a State Department-sponsored tour of South America. He reprised Joe for his debut at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1967 and again for his debut at the Goodspeed Opera House in 1980.

Mosley's career continued to expand through the late 1960s and into the 1970s. In 1969 he sang Tonio in Pagliacci with the New York City Opera and toured the United States in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with the American Symphony Orchestra under conductor Leopold Stokowski. His debut at the San Francisco Opera came in 1971 in the title role of Verdi's Rigoletto, with Carol Toscano as Gilda and Harry Danner as the Duke of Mantua. He returned to San Francisco twice more, as Trinity Moses in Kurt Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in 1972 and as Porgy in 1977. In 1972 he portrayed Amonasro in Aida at the Trenton War Memorial, and in 1973 he made his debut with the Opera Company of Boston as Trinity Moses. His debut with the Seattle Opera followed in 1974 as Amonasro. On April 10, 1976, he created the role of Leonce in the world premiere of William Grant Still's A Bayou Legend with Opera/South in Jackson, Mississippi.

Mosley's most celebrated association was with the role of Porgy, which he portrayed across multiple landmark productions. In 1976 he debuted at the Houston Grand Opera as Porgy opposite Clamma Dale's Bess, alternating in the role with baritone Donnie Ray Albert. That production moved to Broadway in 1976–1977, where Mosley and Albert continued to share the role. The Houston Grand Opera production subsequently toured Europe in 1978, with performances at the Paris Opera, Teatro Margherita, Teatro Massimo, and the Zurich Opera, and Mosley again alternated with Albert. He returned to Broadway in the 1983 revival of Porgy and Bess. On February 23, 1985, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Porgy opposite Grace Bumbry's Bess, with James Levine conducting, and he performed the role there for two seasons.

Throughout his career Mosley also sang leading roles with the Fort Worth Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, and Opera Memphis. His stage repertoire included Ford in Falstaff, Germont in La traviata, Iago in Otello, Scarpia in Tosca, and the title role in The Flying Dutchman. His performance activity slowed considerably after the mid-1980s, though he continued to perform into the final years of his life. He spent those years in Kure Beach, North Carolina, where he died on April 30, 2002.