Eileen Farrell, 82; Crossover Soprano Succeeded in Opera, Pop

Eileen Farrell, one of the few dramatic sopranos in American music to forge important careers in both opera and popular music, has died. She was 82.

Farrell died Saturday at a nursing home in Park Ridge, N.J. The cause of death was not announced.

A self-effacing woman who married a New York City police detective and for much of her life lived in a house on Staten Island, Farrell once said she “would have made a lousy diva.” She preferred home and family to the conflicting pressures of her career. Colleagues said she wanted to make music with people she respected and backed away from the pressure of career building. Nevertheless, she was a fixture on radio and television and in concert halls and recording studios for several decades.

The daughter of former vaudeville performers, Farrell was born in Willimantic, Conn. She began taking art courses after graduating from high school, but soon quit in favor of music. She moved to New York City and began intensive vocal training with Merle Alcock, a former Metropolitan Opera contralto, and later noted opera coach Eleanor McLellan.

In 1940, she auditioned for the “Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour,” a popular radio program of the day, but was told that she didn’t have the talent required.

Disappointed but not deterred, Farrell, then 20, was soon signed by CBS and made a member of the network’s radio choruses and ensembles. After performing well in a network program of Stephen Foster melodies, she was given her own radio show, “Eileen Farrell Sings,” in which she performed everything from operatic arias to American popular favorites.

And although radio was the medium of the day, her career took an important turn in 1947-48 when she made her first extensive U.S. concert tour as a recitalist. A year later she made a well-received tour of South America.

After a recital appearance in Carnegie Hall in October 1950, she was called one of the most important concert stars since the end of World War II. She was still in her 20s. That same year, she first appeared on American television, making her debut on “The Milton Berle Show.”

She also began working as a soloist with important orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In the 1950-51 season, she made 61 appearances with the Philharmonic, a record number of performances at the time.

Through the ‘50s, she appeared with great conductors including Arturo Toscanini, who chose her to solo in a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (“Choral”) broadcast over NBC.

She dubbed the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning 1955 film, “Interrupted Melody,” which chronicles the life of Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence, who was struck down by polio at the height of her career. Although Farrell’s performance was not in the film’s credits, audiences quickly demanded to know the identity of the voice.

Farrell had been singing for 15 years before she made her first featured appearance in a complete operatic work. And although it was a concert version, not a staged performance of Cherubini’s “Medea” by the American Operatic Society in New York’s Town Hall in 1955, she received lavish critical praise.

In her autobiography, “Can’t Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell,” written with Brian Kellow, she says she didn’t start singing opera until mid-career because “the stage direction, lighting, costumes and cues all sounded like too much trouble--and I didn’t think I had the figure for the opera stage.”

But after her Town Hall success, she turned to an operatic performance in a full production with a small company in Tampa, Fla. In 1956, she made her first appearance with a major company, the San Francisco Opera.

Four years later, she debuted with the Metropolitan Opera in Gluck’s “Alceste.” In 1962, she opened the Met season as Maddalena in Giordano’s “Andrea Chenier,” with Robert Merrill. But Farrell was not popular with the Met’s general manager, Rudolf Bing.

Some observers felt that Bing’s problem with Farrell had more to do with her exposure on popular mediums and her diverse musical interests than with her actual singing ability.

“Eileen Farrell, a great powerhouse of a soprano, was also a real American, a brave singer who helped break down the snobbish barriers between high and low when doing so could ruin an operatic career,” said Times music critic Mark Swed.

In five seasons with the Met, she sang six roles in 45 performances. Her performances were generally well received, but her contract was not renewed when the Met moved to Lincoln Center in 1966.

By then, she was well established in a broad spectrum of venues--radio, television, recordings and concerts--and had been making good money as one of the first cross-over artists in the American music business.

Her initial success in pop music came somewhat by accident.

After performing Verdi at the Spoleto Festival in Italy in 1959, Farrell was asked to fill in for Louis Armstrong when the great jazz artist was felled with pneumonia before a television performance. She sang some ballads and blues numbers with Armstrong’s band and became something of an overnight pop star.

Her first pop album, “I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues,” was one of the first crossover albums and made the pop music charts. She continued making well-received albums of standards from the Great American Songbook by such composers as Harold Arlen, Alec Wilder and Johnny Mercer over the next 35 years.

Legendary soprano Beverly Sills observed that Farrell succeeded in pop because she understood the idiom better than most opera singers. “Opera is a very strict art,” Sills told the New York Times some years ago, “and to sing popular music in the same disciplined manner makes it sound stuffy. For Eileen, pop music is another art form entirely. It works for her not only because she uses a whole different technique, but because she loves the music and is having the time of her life doing it.”

Farrell, who later taught at Indiana University, set her own priorities as she charted her career.

“I was just an ordinary person, a married lady with children, and I sang,” she told the Associated Press in an interview. “Maybe I could have done more singing if I’d taken off time from my family, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed my family. I had some wonderful times. I’m very thankful.”

Her husband died in 1986. She is survived by her children, Robert and Kathleen, and a brother.