Beverly Wolff

Beverly Wolff (November 6, 1928 – August 14, 2005) was an American mezzo-soprano who had an active career in concerts and operas from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. She performed a broad repertoire which encompassed operatic and concert works in many languages and from a variety of musical periods. She was a champion of new works, notably premiering compositions by Leonard Bernstein, Gian Carlo Menotti, Douglas Moore, and Ned Rorem among other American composers. She also performed in a number of rarely heard baroque operas by George Frideric Handel with the New York City Opera (NYCO), the Handel Society of New York, and at the Kennedy Center Handel Festivals.

Wolff made only a few appearances on the international stage during her career, choosing instead to work with important opera companies and orchestras in the United States. She was particularly active with the NYCO with whom she performed frequently from 1958-1971. Opera News stated, "Wolff was one of a golden generation of American singers who dominated the NYCO roster during the general directorship of Julius Rudel. Her combination of stylish, intelligent singing and "big brass sound," as she termed it, was a key element in some of the company's most celebrated productions."

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Wolff studied the trumpet in her native city and began her career as a trumpeter with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) while still a teenager. She actively performed with the ASO as both a soloist and a member of the first trumpet section while a student at the University of Georgia, where she earned a degree in English literature in the Spring of 1950. It was while playing with the ASO that Wolff's singing voice was discovered by conductor Henry Sopkin. Sopkin encouraged her to pursue vocal training and she subsequently was selected to study at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia in the Fall of 1950 where she was a pupil of Sidney Dietch and Vera Mclntyre. While a student at AVA, she was discouraged from taking outside auditions, but won an audition to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She sang "Che farò senza Euridice" at the Philadelphia Academy of Music.

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