Rita Shane, a Met Soprano Known for Range and Intensity, Dies at 78

By VIVIEN SCHWEITZER

Rita Shane, a dramatic coloratura soprano admired for the range, flexibility and size of her voice, as well as the intensity she brought to her performances, died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 78.

The cause was pancreatic and liver cancer, said her son, Michael Shane Tritter.

Ms. Shane made her Metropolitan Operadebut in 1973 as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” a role she sang some 250 times in her career. Sheused her dark-hued voice and impressive technique to render the character with arresting fury.

“She raged through her big aria with power, precision and expressive intensity that left no doubt as to the Queen of the Night’s character,” Allen Hughes wrote in The New York Times.

Ms. Shane, who was a professor at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, sang regularly with the Met until 1982. Her last performance at the Metropolitan Opera House was as Berthe in Meyerbeer’s “Le Prophète” in 1979. Her roles included Musetta in Puccini’s “La Bohème,” Pamira in Rossini’s “Siege of Corinth,” the title role in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” and roles in three Verdi operas: Oscar in “Ballo in Maschera,” Violetta in “La Traviata” and Gilda in “Rigoletto.” She appeared in a total of 71 Met performances.

While praised for her technique and expressive power, she was also sometimes criticized for the unevenness of her voice. Reviewing her Musetta for The Times in 1975, Raymond Ericson wrote of her “tones suddenly turning glassy or edgy.”

She also sang Baroque opera. Harold C. Schonberg wrote in a 1967 Times review that in her interpretation of Elmira in Reinhard Keiser’s “Croesus” she “had the style down well, and snapped out little trills and embellishments with real flair.”

Contemporary music was another facet of Ms. Shane’s career. She originated the title role in Dominick Argento’s “Miss Havisham’s Fire” at City Opera in 1979, and that same year she appeared in Peter Schat’s “Houdini” at the Aspen Music Festival.

Ms. Shane was born on Aug. 15, 1936, in the Bronx, the daughter of Julius and Rebecca Shane. Her father was a civil engineer, her mother a music copyist. She attended the Bronx High School of Science.

She did not receive any serious vocal training until after she graduated from Barnard College with a liberal arts degree. She received her first exposure to the world of professional opera after marrying Daniel Tritter in 1958, when she worked as a secretary in the Metropolitan Opera National Council’s fund-raising department.

It was after she began studying with the soprano Beverley Johnson that her career began in earnest. She was a member of the apprentice program at Santa Fe Opera for two summers, and made her debut in 1964 as Olympia in Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffmann” in Chattanooga, Tenn. The next year she sang Elvira in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at New York City Opera. In 1967, she filled in for Beverly Sills as Queen of the Night at City Opera. She made her European debut in Strauss’s “Arabella” at La Scala in 1970.

In a 1973 Times article in which Mr. Hughes said the 1973-74 season “may or may not go down in history as the one that marked the Americanization of the Metropolitan Opera,” Ms. Shane was quoted as saying: “You go to the Munich Festival and five of the six leading singers onstage are American. Why not here?”

In addition to her son, Ms. Shane is survived by a sister, Ruth Rosenthal; a brother, Arthur; and a grandson. She and Mr. Tritter divorced in 2005.

Her albums include Strauss’s “Brentano Songs,” recorded in 1970 with the Louisville Orchestra, and a live recording, with Nicolai Gedda, ofMeyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots.”

Ms. Shane joined the Eastman faculty in 1989. Of her relatively brief career in the spotlight, she recently told the Rochester magazine Post:

“I stopped performing. I didn’t mean to make it permanent. I walked away. But nobody will ever hear me less than I was. I’d rather it said ‘too soon’ than ‘oh, finally!’ ”

Correction: October 15, 2014 

Because of an editing error, an obituary on Monday about the opera singer Rita Shane misstated the name of a magazine that published an interview with her. It is Post, not The Rochester Post.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/arts/music/rita-shane-a-met-soprano-known-for-range-and-intensity-dies-at-78.html?_r=0