Stevens died Wednesday night at her Manhattan home, said her son, Nicolas Surovy.
Stevens
started singing with the Met in 1938, on tour in Philadelphia. Among
her greatest roles was the title character in the opera "Carmen," which
she sang for 124 performances.
The Met called her "a consummate artist, treasured colleague, and devoted supporter of the company for 75 years."
Stevens knew that the soaring notes and huge themes of opera "was her medium," Surovy said. "She kn
ew it, felt it, lived it."
Always
one to chart her own way, Stevens turned down an early chance to sing
at New York's Metropolitan Opera when she felt she needed more study in
Europe. She turned her back on Hollywood in the 1940s after roles in two
successful films because she loved opera so. And in 1961, she retired
from performing opera, saying she wanted to bow out when she still had a
great voice.
"It always bothered me,
these great singers when I heard them again and again, remembering how
magnificent they sounded once and no more," she said.
While
she largely left performing behind, she remained active behind the
scenes as an administrator of a touring opera company and as an
educator, helping to foster the growth of opera across the country and
the rise of singers trained in the U.S.
"While
I was a young singer, people always talked to us about a golden age of
opera," she told the Washington Times in 1990. "Now they tell me that I
was part of a golden age. It's all a little ridiculous. We are actually
living in a golden age right now, an age of great American voices."
That
was the year she was chosen for the Kennedy Center Honors, hailed as a
singer "who raised the art of opera in this country to its highest
level."
Her earthy portrayal of Carmen brought her particular acclaim in the early `50s, spotlighting her acting as well as her singing.
She
recalled that director Tyrone Guthrie "told me, think of your body and
nothing else, from the top of your head to your feet."
"I had to learn to move my body and feel like this Spanish woman."
In
those pre-PBS days, she made history of a sort in 1952 when her
"Carmen" was seen coast to coast — telecast from the Met to more than 30
"television theaters." It was believed to be the largest audience ever
to see a single opera performance.
Among
her other celebrated roles were Octavian in "Der Rosenkavalier," Orfeo
in "Orfeo ed Euridice," Orlovsky in "Die Fledermaus," Cherubino in "The
Marriage of Figaro" and Dalila in "Samson et Dalila."
Her
brief Hollywood career began in 1941 opposite Nelson Eddy in "The
Chocolate Soldier." ("He really could have had an operatic career, but
he just made too much money, too soft and too easy," she recalled.)
The
success of "The Chocolate Soldier" led to a role in the 1944 Bing
Crosby smash "Going My Way," which won several Academy Awards, including
best picture.
"I probably would never
have reached that vast public had I not done films," she said. "At
least, I won a lot of people over to opera."
In
the mid-'60s, she was the head of the short-lived Metropolitan Opera
National Company, which gave budding singers a chance to tour and gain
vital performing experience. The project was abruptly killed after a
couple of seasons when Met General Manager Rudolf Bing deemed it too
costly.
She said later she wasn't bitter,
but "we needed that company, and we need it now. I can see the singers
being turned out of the conservatories, good talent, exceptional talent,
well trained, but with no chance for experience."
She
returned to the task of fostering young talent as president of the
Mannes College of Music from 1975 to 1978. "I had a good career," she
said. "Now the joy is in watching the young musicians grow, mature, and
perhaps become successes."
She was born
Rise Steenberg in New York City; her unusual first name, pronounced
REE'-zah, came from her Norwegian forebears. "In school, I was called
everything but Rise," she once recalled. "I would have arguments with
the teachers. I would say, 'I should know how to pronounce my own
name.'"
Her mother took her to an audition
for a radio children's hour when she was about 10, and her talent was
immediately recognized. "I didn't know what was happening, but sure
enough they took me and put me on the air."
During
her four years on the show, she even learned some opera melodies. "It
never registered with me; I didn't know anything about opera, but I was
singing it."
A leading voice teacher, Anna
Schoen-Rene, heard her in a little theater opera production when she
was 16, and that led to scholarship study at the Juilliard School, and
later, study in Europe.
She made her
professional opera debut in Prague, and it was there she met her husband
of more than a half-century, actor Walter Surovy. Nicolas Surovy was
their only child.
She is also survived by her granddaughter. Surovy says no funeral will be held, but a private memorial is planned.
