Rosemary Kuhlmann

Rosemary Kuhlmann (January 30, 1922 – August 17, 2019) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano and Broadway actress who originated the role of the Mother in Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera commissioned for television. She performed the role in the annual live NBC broadcast of the production across twelve consecutive Christmas seasons, from 1951 through 1962. Kuhlmann appeared on Broadway between 1950 and 1955 and maintained a parallel operatic career that included engagements with the New York City Opera and multiple NBC Opera telecasts.

Born in New York City, Kuhlmann attended high school on Staten Island, graduating in 1939. She subsequently worked as a model for Lord & Taylor and as a secretary at Chase Manhattan before enlisting in the WAVES during World War II. The Navy sent her to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she and approximately 110 other women trained in Morse code over three months. Back in New York, she transmitted Morse code to ships at sea six days a week and performed on radio programs promoting the WAVES, eventually hosting a weekly program called Navy Serenade on WNEW. Following the war, she enrolled at the Juilliard School on a full scholarship through the GI Bill, studying with Lucia Dunham and appearing in opera productions including the role of Polly in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. She graduated from Juilliard in 1950 with a degree in Vocal Performance.

Upon completing her studies, Kuhlmann joined the Robert Shaw Chorale under a two-year contract, which she broke when she was cast as the Secretary in Menotti's Broadway production of The Consul, replacing Gloria Lane, who had originated the role in Philadelphia. Her Broadway career continued in 1951 when she originated the role of Sadie in Courtin' Time at the Nederlander Theatre, then known as the National Theatre, alongside Billie Worth, Joe E. Brown, Carmen Mathews, and Joseph Sweeney. After that production closed, she joined the ensemble of the 1951 Broadway revival of Music in the Air, directed by Oscar Hammerstein II.

During the run of Music in the Air, producer Chandler Cowles invited Kuhlmann to audition for Menotti for the role of the Mother in his new opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, to be staged at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. She sang "Voi lo sapete" and several art songs in English at the audition, after which Menotti told her she was a little young for the part but that they would make her look like a biblical woman. She was then brought to audition for NBC Opera producer Samuel Chotzinoff and was awarded the role. Moving directly from the closing of Music in the Air into rehearsals in late November 1951, she worked for approximately one month under television director Kirk Browning and conductor Thomas Schippers, with Menotti guiding the production. Arturo Toscanini attended one of the rehearsals. On Christmas Eve 1951, the opera was broadcast live on NBC to an estimated audience of five million viewers. The following morning, The New York Times published a front-page review by Olin Downes that praised Kuhlmann's "moving portrayal, enhanced by the resources of her voice." The forty-five-minute work became an annual Christmas tradition, with Kuhlmann joined each year by David Aiken, Leon Lishner, and Andrew McKinley as the Three Kings. The role of Amahl, originated by Chet Allen, was later played by Bill McIver and Kirk Jordan, both opposite Kuhlmann.

In 1952, a few weeks after the Amahl premiere and the LP studio recording, Kuhlmann toured Europe with Menotti, again performing the role of the Secretary in The Consul. That same year she made her debut with the New York City Opera in a stage production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, returning to the company multiple times during the 1950s in roles including Magda in The Consul, the title role in Bizet's Carmen, Meg Page in Verdi's Falstaff, Angelina in Rossini's La Cenerentola, Nicklausse in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, and the Tsarina in The Golden Slippers. During the same period she appeared as a guest artist with symphony orchestras, played Giorgetta in a CBC telecast of Puccini's Il Tabarro, and starred in summer operettas in Dallas and St. Louis.

In 1956, George Abbott and Harold Prince cast Kuhlmann as Meg in the national tour of Damn Yankees, her final Broadway-affiliated credit. She left the tour in early 1957 to marry Hugh Evans, an executive at Yachting and Boating magazine. That year she also performed two additional NBC Opera productions: Desideria in Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street and Mother Marie in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, the latter alongside Elaine Malbin, Patricia Neway, and Leontyne Price. In 1961, she made her final NBC Opera appearance in Leonard Kastle's Deseret, portraying Sarah, the eldest wife of Brigham Young. Following that production, Kuhlmann retired from performing to raise a family.

In 1978, Kuhlmann divorced Evans and accepted what was intended to be a four-month temporary position at PepsiCo, which became a sixteen-year career as executive assistant to the company's international vice president. She retired from PepsiCo in 1994 and subsequently spent five years as executive assistant to the director of the Westchester Conservatory of Music before retiring permanently in 1999. In 2001, she was reunited with Menotti at New York's Museum of Television & Radio for a fiftieth-anniversary salute to Amahl and the Night Visitors. On January 20, 2006, she returned to the same institution for a fiftieth-anniversary screening of the NBC Opera production of Dialogues of the Carmelites. Kuhlmann died in Rhode Island in August 2019 at the age of 97.