Opera Singer Rosalind Elias, Who Appeared on Broadway in Follies, Dies at 90

Opera singer Rosalind Elias, who made her Broadway debut at age 81 in the 2011 revival of James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim's Follies, died in New York on May 3, according to Metropolitan Opera Guild’s Opera News.

Born on March 13, 1930 in Lowell, Massachusetts as the youngest of 13 children, Elias started taking voice lessons at the age of 14 with the hope of pursuing a career in opera. “That was my dream, and my dream came true” she told Broadway.com in a 2011 interview. She went on to study at New England Conservatory, at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. She performed with the New England Opera Company before making her Metropolitan Opera debut a few weeks before her 24th birthday.

Throughout her lifetime, Elias sang 687 performances with the Metropolitan Opera in New York and on tour, beginning with her 1954 company debut as Grimgerde in Die Walküre and ending in 1996 as Háta in The Bartered Bride. She got her big break in 1958 when she played Erika in Samuel Barber's Vanessa. The mezzo-soprano sang over 50 roles during her years at the Met, with memorable turns in the company premiere of Nabucco in 1960, Zeffirelli’s staging of Falstaff in 1964 and Robert O’Hearn’s Hansel and Gretel in 1967. She went on to play the Witch in Hansel and Gretel in 1980. Leonard Bernstein was among the long list of prolific conductors to have collaborated with Elias.

In addition to her numerous roles at the Met and her notable Broadway debut, Elias also took the stage in other productions, including Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd at New York City Opera and the Old Baroness in Vanessa in Monte Carlo, Los Angeles and New York. She sang leading roles in the world premieres of Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie’s The Grapes of Wrath at Michigan Opera Theatre in 2007 and David Carlson’s Anna Karenina at Florida Grand Opera that same year.

In 2012, she joined the board of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. The following year, she was appointed one of the inaugural members of the Guild’s Artists’ Council.

Elias was married to attorney and law professor Zuhayr Moghrabi for nearly 50 years. He died in December 2015.