Rosemary Kuhlmann

Rosemary Kuhlmann was born in New York City. She attended high school in Staten Island, graduating in 1939. After graduating from high school she worked as a model for Lord & Taylor and then later as a secretary at Chase Manhattan. With the outbreak of World War II she joined the WAVES. While in the WAVES, Kuhlmann was sent to the University of Wisconsin–Madison where she and a hundred and ten other women learned Morse code for three months. Kuhlmann then returned to New York and worked six days a week "sending Morse code to the ships at sea." She also performed on radio programs promoting the WAVES and soon had her own weekly show, Navy Serenade, on WNEW where she would sing popular songs of the day. Following the war, Kuhlmann was accepted into the Juilliard School on a full scholarship through the GI Bill. While at Juilliard, Kuhlmann studied with Lucia Dunham and participated in several opera productions including playing the part of Polly in John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera''. At this time in her life, although she loved to sing, she was not in love with opera. She remarked, "[In opera] it seemed like people stood for hours saying 'goodbye' and 'goodbye,' and nothing happened. My friend Pat Neway took me to Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera. I hated it." In 1950, Kuhlmann graduated from the Juilliard School with a degree in Vocal Performance. ==Career==

After graduating from Juilliard, Kuhlmann joined the Robert Shaw Chorale. Although contracted to sing with the ensemble for two years, Kuhlmann broke her contract when she was cast as the Secretary in Gian Carlo Menotti's Broadway production of The Consul, replacing Gloria Lane who had performed the role at its premiere in Philadelphia. Kuhlmann said, "Everybody said Robert Shaw wouldn't let me out of my contract, but he did. Menotti's music turned me on to opera. It was so real—the vocal and the dramatic melded. When I did The Consul, it wasn't even like I was singing. I was living it, and the music value was just fantastic." After this production closed, she joined the ensemble of the 1951 Broadway musical revival of Music in the Air, directed by Oscar Hammerstein II. During this production, Kuhlmann was invited by Chandler Cowles, who had produced The Consul, to audition for Menotti for the part of the Mother in his new opera Amahl and the Night Visitors at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. After the premiere of Amahl and the Night Visitors, Kuhlmann's career took off. In 1952, a few weeks after the premiere and the LP studio recording, Kuhlmann toured Europe with Menotti, once again playing the Secretary in The Consul. That same year, Kuhlmann made her debut with the New York City Opera in a stage production of Amahl and the Night Visitors. the title role in Bizet's Carmen, Meg Page in Verdi's Falstaff, Angelina in Gioacchino Rossini's La Cenerentola, Nicklausse in Offenbach's ''Les Contes d'Hoffmann and the Tsarina in The Golden Slippers''. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Kuhlmann was a frequent guest artist with symphony orchestras and played Giorgetta on a CBC telecast of Puccini's Il Tabarro. She also starred in summer operettas in Dallas and St. Louis. ==References==