Rosalind Elias

Rosalind Elias (March 13, 1930 – May 3, 2020) was an American mezzo-soprano who enjoyed a long and distinguished career at the Metropolitan Opera. She was best known for creating the role of Erika in Samuel Barber's Vanessa in 1958.

Early life Rosalind Elias was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the 13th and youngest child of a Lebanese-American family. Her parents, Shelaby Namay and Salem Elias, immigrated from Beirut and her father worked as a real estate agent for some time. Elias grew up listening to Saturday broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera while doing chores. She studied at the New England Conservatory. She appeared with the New England Opera from 1948 to 1952. As a student she sang Poppaea in L'incoronazione di Poppea and appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She continued her studies at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in Massachusetts.

Elias made numerous recordings primarily for RCA Victor during the 1960s, including Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro under Erich Leinsdorf, Preziosilla in La forza del destino and Laura in La Gioconda, both opposite Zinka Milanov, Giuseppe Di Stefano and Leonard Warren, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly twice, first opposite Anna Moffo in 1957, and then opposite Leontyne Price in 1962, Azucena in Il trovatore opposite Leontyne Price, Richard Tucker, Giorgio Tozzi, as well as Maddalena in Rigoletto, Meg Page in Falstaff (both under Georg Solti in 1963) and Judith in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle. She was the mezzo/contralto soloist in concert works like Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette and the Verdi Requiem. The recording of 'Figaro' under Leinsdorf won a Grammy for Best Classical Performance, Opera Cast or Choral, at the Second Annual Grammy Awards, November 29, 1959.

In 1984, Elias made her New York City Opera debut as Mrs. Lovett in a return engagement of Hal Prince’s original staging of Stephen Sondheim‘s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

In later years, Elias assumed the role of the Old Baroness in Vanessa, first performing the work at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, and later at the Los Angeles Opera in 2004 and at the New York City Opera in 2007.

Still in lustrous voice, Elias played the role of "Heidi Schiller" in a new revival of James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim's 1971 musical Follies, which ran at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from May 7, 2011, to June 19, 2011. She made her Broadway debut when the musical transferred to Broadway in a limited engagement from August 2011 through January 22, 2012.

Directing At the end of the 20th century, she turned to directing operas, including Carmen at the San Diego Opera.

Personal life She married Lebanese-American attorney and law professor Zyhayr Moghrabi in 1969.

She had her name and social security number tattooed on her abdomen in case of a disaster.

Death Elias, who had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2019, was admitted to Mount Sinai West on April 30, 2020, after suffering breathing problems.

Videography James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala (1996), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, B0004602-09