Conley, Eugene, 1908-1981

Eugene Conley a longtime tenor with the Metropolitan and New York City opera companies, died of cancer Friday in Westgate Hospital in Denton, Texas. He was 73...

Mr. Conley was born in Lynn, attended school there and was a member of the baseball and track teams.

He worked for a while for the General Electric Corp. in Lynn to pay for his vocal lessons. He later joined the Boston Male Choir and toured the country with them.

During the early 1930s, he sang on several Boston radio stations and later was signed by WWJ in Detroit to sing there for three
years.

His steadily growing reputation attracted the attention of the National Broadcasting Co. and in 1939 he was heard on NBC Presents Eugene Conley and on the Magic Key program.

In September 1940, he made his operatic debut as the Duke in Verdi's "Rigoletto" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was not known by the audience that Mr. Conley sang the role without rehearsal with one of his teachers prompting and directing him from the wings...

By the time he made his debut wlih the Metropolitan Opera, on Jan. 25, 1950, in the title role of "Faust," he had sung at the Paris Opera Comique, London's Covent Garden, Stockholm's Royal Opera, and and La Scala.

Name: Eugene Thomas Conley
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age: 32
Birth Date: 12 Mar 1908
Birth Place: Lynn, Massachusetts
Registration Date: 16 Oct 1940
Registration Place: New York City, New York, New York
Employer: National Broadcasting Co Vocalist
Weight: 165
Complexion: Light
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Brown
Height: 5 6
Next of Kin: Eugene Conley

Eugene Conley, a tenor with the Metropolitan and New York City Opera Companies and the first American tenor to open the season at Milan's La Scala, died of cancer on Friday in Westgate Hospital in Denton, Tex. He was 73 years old and lived in Denton.

Noted for his ability to reach high notes, Mr. Conley was invited to La Scala in 1949 for the revival of Bellini's "I Puritani," which was rarely performed because the first tenor aria included a D flat above high C. Mr. Conley' success resulted in his becoming a favorite with Milan operagoers.

After his retirement in 1978 from North Texas State University in Denton, where he had been artist in residence for 18 years, Mr. Conley worked with private students.

Began as Radio Singer

A native of Lynn, Mass., Mr. Conley began his professional career as a radio singer on a small station in the Boston area. He was first heard on national radio in 1939, when the National Broadcasting Company put him on the air in "NBC Presents Eugene Conley." He performed also on NBC's "Magic Key," the Columbia Broadcasting System's "Golden Treasures of Song" and Mutual's "Operatic Review."

Mr. Conley appeared with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra and was also a regular performer on the "Voice of Firestone," a radio and television program.

In 1940, he made his operatic debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as the Duke in the New York La Scala Opera Company's production of Verdi's "Rigoletto." He went on stage without rehearsal, and one of his voice teachers, Ettore Verna, prompted him from the wings. Other Appearances

Mr. Conley performed with New York's San Carlo Opera Company, the Cincinnati Summer Opera and the Chicago Opera Company before going into the Army Air Corps in 1942.

While in the service, he sang in the musical "Winged Victory," in a cast composed entirely of Air Corps personnel. In 1944, during the show's New York run, Mr. Conley was loaned to the San Carlo Opera when Fortune Gallo, the impresario, pleaded that the war had created a shortage of tenors in New York. At that time, this was regarded as Mr. Conley's most prominent performance on the operatic stage.

In a concert at Town Hall, in 1946, he presented a program of operatic arias and Irish songs. Ross Parmenter, a critic for The New York Times, wrote: "It is in opera that Mr. Conley is most at home. Not only does he sing arias with a passionate outpouring of melody, but he has the control and amplitude of voice to bring them off on the ambitious scale he sets for himself. His high, ringing notes evoked many a 'bravo.' "

Came Late to the Met

By the time he made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera, in January 1950, Mr. Conley had sung at the Paris Opera Comique, where he made his European debut; London's Covent Garden, Stockholm's Royal Opera and La Scala. At the Metropolitan, in his first performance, he sang the title role in "Faust."

In 1953, Mr. Conley sang at President Dwight D. Eisenhower's inaugural. Three years ago, Mr. Conley appeared in concert at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in a program of operatic selections, including in the performance, as he did all in his others, "Danny Boy."

Mr. Conley is survived his wife, Alvah; a son, Eugene T. Conley Jr. of Lynn; a stepson, Victor Lea; a brother, Clifton Conley, and a sister, Ina Weaver.

Eugene Conley (March 12, 1908 – December 18, 1981) was a celebrated American operatic tenor.

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Conley studied under Ettore Verna, and made his official debut as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1940. In 1945, he first appeared with the New York City Opera, as Rodolfo in La bohème, and went on to appear with that company until 1950. He also sang with the Opéra-Comique in Paris, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan (I puritani, 1950; and Les vêpres siciliennes opposite Maria Callas, 1951), and Covent Garden in London.

The tenor made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1950, in the title role of Faust, and appeared with the Met many times until 1956.

On television, he appeared on "The Voice of Firestone" (1950–53) and "Cavalcade of Stars" (1951-52).

Conley was artist-in-residence at the University of North Texas College of Music from 1960 until his retirement in 1978. From 1960 to 1967, he directed its Opera Workshop. In his retirement year, he presented a joint recital at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, with soprano Maria Powell.[1] Among his students was Henry Price (tenor). He died in Denton, Texas, at the age of seventy-three.

Conley's discography includes complete recordings of Faust (with Eleanor Steber and Cesare Siepi, for Columbia, 1951), the first recording of The Rake's Progress (conducted by the composer, Igor Stravinsky, for Columbia, 1953), and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis (conducted by Arturo Toscanini, for RCA, 1953). In 1999, VAI published, on Compact Discs, a 1952 performance of Rigoletto from the New Orleans Opera Association, with Leonard Warren, Hilde Gueden, Conley, and the young Norman Treigle as Count Monterone, conducted by Walter Herbert. A "pirated" recording of the Verdi Requiem exists, with Herva Nelli and Conley, conducted by Guido Cantelli (1954).

Conley's recording of the aria, "Here I Stand - Since It Is Not by Merit," from Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, was featured on the film soundtrack for the 2018 Ruth Bader Ginsburg biographic film, "On the Basis of Sex."[2]

In a recent talent hunt in New York, Wynn Wright, program director, engaged Eugene Conley and Jonathan Hole, as regular members
of the WWJ staff. Conley, a tenor with a lyric voice, was for more than three years the featured soloist on a weekly New England program.