Lawrence Tibbett

Lawrence Tibbett

Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (November 16, 1896 - July 15, 1960) was an American opera singer, movie actor, radio personality and recording artist. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company from 1923 to 1950. He performed roles ranging from Iago in Otello to Captain Hook in Peter Pan.

Biography

Lawrence Tibbett was born Lawrence Mervil Tibbet, (with a single "t") on November 16, 1896 in Bakersfield, California.^[1] His father was a part-time deputy sheriff, killed in a shootout with desperado Jim McKinney in 1903. Tibbett grew up in Los Angeles, earning money by singing in church choirs and at funerals. He graduated from Manual Arts High School in 1915. A year later he met his future wife, Grace Mackay Smith, who rented a room in his mother's house.^[2] During World War I he served in the Merchant Marine, after which he found employment singing as prologue to silent movies at the Grauman "Million Dollar" Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

Tibbett studied in New York City with Frank La Forge and in 1923 at the age of 26, he signed his first contract, for $60 per week, with the New York Metropolitan Opera, using the name "Tibbett" (a spelling he used occasionally in his youth). Over the ensuing years, with the Met, he built a hugely successful career. His roles included Valentin in Charles Gounod's Faust, Silvio, and later, Tonio, in Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and the King's Herald in Richard Wagner's Lohengrin. He first achieved national recognition playing Ford in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff.^[3] Tibbett traveled to California in 1927 to sing the lead role in the Grove Play St. Francis of Assisi, and it was during that trip to San Francisco when he met ex-New Yorker Jennie Marston Burgard, whom he married in 1932.^[4] During the 1930s, Tibbett toured Europe and Australia, performing on stage or in concerts in London, Paris, Prague, Vienna and Australia.

In the early 1930s, Tibbett also appeared in movies. His Hollywood sojourn proved brief, although he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his first film, The Rogue Song, which was a 1930 MGM production with Laurel & Hardy, shot in two-color Technicolor. (Only a few minutes of footage of the film, as well as the complete soundtrack, have been found.)^[5] Soon afterwards, he starred in another MGM musical film, New Moon, opposite Grace Moore. His final film was Under Your Spell in 1936. Also during the 1930s, Tibbett had a domestic radio program on which he sang formal music, his sponsor being the Packard Motor Car Company of America. The company chose him to announce the Packard 120 to the world on air; he drove one. When the firm wanted to sell less expensive cars, they persuaded him to add popular tunes to his repertoire in order to boost sales. He also appeared on Your Hit Parade.

Together with violinist Jascha Heifetz, in 1936 he founded the American Guild of Musical Artists, the most important labor union for solo performing artists. He was the Guild's proactive president for 17 years. His forceful and articulate advocacy of artistic causes was unique in its day.

His operatic career concluded, in the early 1950s, Tibbett performed in musicals and straight plays. He spent a summer in stock as the Reverend Davidson in Rain and played Captain Hook in a short-lived tour of the John Burrell staging of Peter Pan that was mounted for Jean Arthur, and featured a musical score by the young Leonard Bernstein. Veronica Lake played Peter. Most notably, Tibbett took over the Italian operatic bass Ezio Pinza's role in Fanny during its original Broadway run.

In later years, Tibbett served as host of a radio show featuring recordings of operatic singers. He leavened matters with reminiscences of his own stage experiences. Plagued by severe arthritis and a drinking problem, he aged prematurely as his health worsened. He died following a fall in his apartment where he had hit his head on a table.

The Time obituary said of him: "Tibbett had a big, bronzelike, dramatically eloquent voice that combined ringing power with remarkable agility...." "...he left behind not only the echoes of a great voice but the memory of a performer who could feel equally at home with high art and popular entertainment, suggesting that there is a magical link between the two."^[6]

Tibbett's recordings made during the 1920s and '30s are regarded as among the finest of that period. Many of them are available on CD.

Famous roles

Although regarded as a dashing, compelling actor as well, Tibbett's true fame stems from the fact that he has long been considered one of the finest baritones ever to appear at the Metropolitan Opera. He was renowned for his affinity with the works of Verdi, notably his breakthrough role of Ford in Falstaff, Simon Boccanegra in Simon Boccanegra and Iago in Otello. He was an imposing, sinister Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca, too, and a swaggering Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen.

In addition, Tibbett created leading roles in a number of American operas, including Louis Gruenberg's The Emperor Jones, based on Eugene O'Neill's play. (He sang this in blackface; the character of Brutus Jones is an African-American). He starred in Howard Hanson's Merry Mount, as well as operas by Deems Taylor, The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson. Tibbett performed the roles of Porgy and Jake in the first album of selections from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, two roles which, on stage, are usually performed by black singers. Gershwin himself was present at the recording sessions. Continuing in this vein, Tibbett made a recording of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's song, Ol' Man River, from Show Boat.

Awards and portrayals

• Lawrence Tibbett was pictured on a set of United States postage stamps in the "Legends of American Music series", celebrating opera singers.
• The year he died, Tibbett was made a posthumous member of the charter class of honorees in the "Hollywood Walk of Fame." Though he was a pioneer in musical film, his star honors him as a recording artist.
• Tibbett is portrayed briefly as a character in the 1991 film Bugsy, although the actor portraying him was shorter and pudgier than the real person.
• A biography of Tibbett, titled Dear Rogue, by Hertzel Weinstat and Bert Wechsler, was published by the Amadeus Press of Portland, Oregon, in 1996.

References

• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, corrected Second Edition, edited by Rosenthal and Warwick, London, 1980.
• The Lawrence Tibbett Papers, a portion of the singer's personal papers, in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

External links

• Photograph of Tibbett, summer of 1927. Online Archive of California.