Rose Landver

Rose Landver, also known by her married name Rose Landver-Davison, (born Rosl Landwehr, 1902 – November 28, 1981) was a German-born American soprano, stage director and teacher of stage acting to opera singers. In the 1920s and early 1930s she worked as a dramatic soprano under her birth name in Europe. Her opera career ended with the rise of Nazi Germany. She fled her native country in 1933 with her Russian-Jewish husband, the conductor Jascha Horenstein. She spent the next six years living in Paris, and then immigrated to the United States in 1940 where she adopted the anglicized version of her name, Rose Landver.

In the United States Landver taught dramatic acting and directed operas at several American institutions; beginning with an appointment to the faculty of the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) in 1943. She left that position when she was appointed resident stage director of the American Opera Company in Philadelphia in 1946. She directed operas with that company until it folded in 1950, after which she resumed teaching. She was head of the opera program at the Philadelphia Musical Academy from 1951 until 1954 when she left to assume an identical role at Hunter College (HC) in New York City. There she met the poet and fellow faculty member Edward Davison who became her second husband. She concurrently taught at a variety of institutions in her later life, including returning to the faculty of the AVA and teaching at the Manhattan School of Music while working at HC. She was also a teacher at a school attached to the Metropolitan Opera, and operated a small opera company in New York City giving opportunities to developing opera singers.

Early life and career in Europe Rosl Landwehr was born in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1902. A child prodigy, she began performing as a concert pianist at the age of 13. staring lessons at the age of 15. In 1943 she was appointed to the faculty of the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) in Philadelphia where she was responsible for staging operas and teaching dramatic acting. and Il segreto di Susanna (1944).

In 1946 Landver left the AVA when she was appointed the resident stage director for the American Opera Company (AOC) in Philadelphia. Her first production with the company was Mozart's The Abduction of the Seraglio which she staged at the Academy of Music in October 1946 with a young Adelaide Bishop as Blonde, Léopold Simoneau as Belmonte, and James Pease as Osmin. Subsequent productions she directed for AOC included La bohème (1947, with Kathryn Westman as Mimi), Il tabarro (1948, with Brenda Lewis as Giorgetta), The Old Maid and the Thief (1948), The Bartered Bride (1948), Madama Butterfly (1948, with Mina Cravi-Bozza as Cio-Cio San), The Marriage of Figaro (1949, with Beverly Bower as Susanna), La traviata (1949, with Walter Fredericks as Alfredo), and The Barber of Seville (1950).

After the AOC company folded in 1950, Landver joined the staff of the Metropolitan Opera's Kathryn Turney Long School as a teacher of operatic staging. Two of her pupils at this school were Roberta Peters and Martina Arroyo. She left there when she was appointed head of the opera program at Hunter College (HC) in 1954. In 1951 her marriage to Horenstein ended in divorce. Some of the AVA productions she directed in the 1960s included A Hand of Bridge (1960), The Barber of Seville (1962), Così fan tutte (1963), and Pagliacci (1964). In 1961 she directed the AVA's world premiere production of the children's opera The Great Boffo and His Talking Dog by Philadelphia composer Louis Gesensway at the biennial convention of the Music Teachers National Association.

Landver also founded an opera company, Metropolitan Opera Studio, which put on small scale productions featuring developing opera singers. This group performed Così fan tutte at the White House in 1962 for President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Landver died on November 28, 1981 in Rockville Centre, New York.