Jewish singers of Western classical music
Compiling this list — the last in this series for the foreseeable future, although I’m well aware that there are others that I could do — has been a frustrating experience.
What I’m looking for, ultimately, is self-identification, which isn’t always forthcoming. And you can’t always trust Encyclopedia Judaica, which follows Israeli policy in determining Jewish status, i.e., one Jewish grandparent makes you Jewish, no matter what. (This is settled law in Israel, and it’s caused no end of trouble.)
Also, I’m not willing to knowingly include here the likes of Alma Gluck, who was a practicing Christian Scientist for most of her adult life, nor Richard Tauber, a life-long, if largely nominal, Roman Catholic who was bewildered to learn, in 1933, that he did in fact have a Jewish grand-parent. Since I’ve tended to err on the side of caution, there may be artists who should be on this list but aren’t.
You also won’t find here a number of artists whom my instincts tell me must be Jewish, but who are being, or were in their time, insufferably coy about it. (Jake Arditti, Beniamino Gigli, Jonas Kaufman, Selma Kurtz, Margarete Matzenauer, Jakub Józef Orliński, Annie Rosen, Regina Sarfaty: I’m looking at all of you.)
I’ve had to be vague about birthplaces in some cases, because some of these singers were born in jurisdictions that either no longer exist or whose names have changed. (Poland didn’t exist as a nation when Rosa Raisa was born there, and I don’t know what part of Poland — Austrian, German, or Russian — she came from.)
What applies to the earlier lists also applies here: I’ve included many of the younger ones solely on the basis of reputation, without having heard them. Not all are or were A-listers, but they are all people who sing or sang Western classical music for a living, or taught others to do so, or a combination of the two.
And finally, I should point out that while stage names are now a rare phenomenon in classical music, they were fairly common in the past — especially for singers! (Richard Tucker was born Reuben Ticker, for example.)
Mario Ancona (1860-1931), baritone, Italy
Rafael Arie (1922-1988), bass, Bulgaria
Sharon Azrieli, soprano, Canada
Richard Bernstein, bass, USA
Rachel Blaustein, soprano, USA
John Braham (ca. 1775-1856), tenor, UK
Lucienne Bréval (1869-1935), soprano, Switzerland
Katharine Carlisle (Kitty Carlisle Hart; 1910-2007), soprano, USA
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, counter-tenor, USA
Netanya Davrath (1931-1987), soprano, USSR
Shannon Delijani, mezzo-soprano, USA
Jeanne Diamond, soprano, USA
Pauline Donalda (1882-1970), soprano, Canada
Edis de Philippe (1918-1978), soprano, USA
Daryl Freedman, mezzo-soprano, USA
Rachel Frenkel, mezzo-soprano, Israel
Blake Friedman, tenor, USA
Allan Glassman, tenor, USA
Hannah Goodman, soprano, USA
Oren Gradus, bass, USA
Sheri Greenawald, soprano, USA
Hermann Jadlowker (1878–1953), tenor, Latvia
Cheri Rose Katz, mezzo-soprano, USA
Solomon Khromchenko (1907-2002), tenor, Russia
Alexander Kipnis (1891–1978), bass-baritone, Russia
Nina Koshetz (1894–1965), soprano, Russia
Isa Kremer (1887-1956), soprano, Russia
Maya Lahyani, mezzo-soprano, Israel
Evelyn Lear (1926-2012), soprano, USA
Adèle Leigh (1928-2004), soprano, UK
Samuel Levine, tenor, USA
Brenda Lewis (1921-2017), soprano, USA
Assaf Levitin, baritone, Israel
Estelle Liebling (1880-1970), soprano, USA
Emanuel List (1888-1967), bass, Austria
George London (1920-1985), bass, Canada
Channa Malkin, soprano, Netherlands
Jeffrey Mandelbaum, counter-tenor, USA
Mikhail Medvedev (1852-1925), tenor, Russia
Robert Merrill (1917-2004), baritone, USA
Ottilie Metzger (1878-1943), contralto, Germany
Rinnat Moriah, soprano, Israel
Andrew Morstein, tenor, USA
Rosa Pauly (1894–1975), soprano, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Jan Peerce (1904-1984), tenor, USA
Roberta Peters (1930-2017), soprano, USA
Ian Pomerantz, bass-baritone, USA
Rosa Raisa (1893–1963), soprano, Poland
Miriam Rap-Janowska (also known as Miriam Janowsky; 1891-1992), soprano, Latvia
Judith Raskin (1928-1984), soprano, USA
Spencer Reichman, baritone, USA
Chen Reiss, soprano, Israel
Regina Resnik (1923-2013), mezzo-soprano, USA
Neil Rosenshine, tenor, USA
Aaron Marko Rothmuller (1908-1993), baritone, Yugoslavia
Charlotte de Rothschild, soprano, UK
Arieh Sacke, tenor, Canada
Gidon Saks, bass-baritone, Israel
Dalia Schaechter, mezzo-soprano, Israel
Doron Schleifer, counter-tenor, Israel
Joseph Schmidt (1904-1942), tenor, Romania
Friedrich Schorr (1888–1953), bass-baritone, Austro-Hungary
Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano, Israel
Neil Shicoff, tenor, USA
Beverly Sills (1929-2007), soprano, USA
Julia Sitkovetsky, soprano, UK
Wiliam Socolof, bass-baritone, USA
Daniel Sutin, baritone, USA
Jennie Tourel (1910-1973), mezzo-soprano, Canada
Richard Tucker (1913-1975), tenor, USA
Sandra Warfield (1921-2009), mezzo-soprano, USA
Nofar Yacobi, soprano, Israel
Jennifer Zetlan, soprano, USA
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