Richard Cassilly (born December 14, 1927, Washington, DC; died January 30, 1998, Boston) was one of his generation's
leading tenors.
He matriculated at the Peabody Conservatory, and also studied under Rosa Ponselle.
Cassilly made his operatic debut on Broadway, in The Saint of Bleecker
Street, in 1955. The following year, he first sang with the New York City Opera, where he often appeared until 1966. A
highlight of these years was the "professional" American premiere of Il prigioniero, with Norman Treigle and Leopold Stokowski, in 1960.
Cassilly first sang in Europe in 1958, in Susannah, at the Brussels World's Fair. In 1965,
he returned to the Continent, singing in Geneva. That same year, he joined the Hamburg
Staatsoper, where he was to become a fixture. In fact, he appeared in a 1968 Hamburg film of Fidelio, opposite
Anja Silja. He was also seen at Berlin Deutsche
Oper, London Covent Garden, Vienna, Milan Teatro alla
Scala and Paris.
In 1973, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut, as Radames in Aïda. He was to appear in many productions at that theatre
until 1990, including Tannhäuser, Otello, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (with Teresa Stratas and Astrid Varnay), Elektra, Wozzeck,
Billy Budd, Pagliacci, Tristan und Isolde, Salome, Œdipus rex (in John Dexter's production), and Peter Grimes.
His recordings include The Tenor (with Chester Ludgin, 1958), Les
troyens (with Eleanor Steber and Regina
Resnik, 1960), Susannah (with Phyllis Curtin and Treigle, 1962), La
forza del destino (excerpts, with Eileen Farrell, 1963), The Tender Land
(abridged, conducted by the composer, Copland, 1965), Salome (with Dame Gwyneth
Jones, conducted by Karl Böhm, 1970), Moses und Aron (conducted by
Pierre Boulez, 1974), Leonore (with Edda Moser,
1976) and Troilus and Cressida (with Dame Janet Baker, 1976). Perhaps more
importantly, his 1982 Tannhäuser from the Met, as well as the Fidelio film from Hamburg, have been issued on
DVD.
In 1986, the Kammersänger had begun teaching Voice at Boston University. At the time of his death he was married to
Metropolitan Opera soprano Patricia Craig.
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