Brooks, Patricia, 1933-1993

An accomplished pianist, dancer, and actress, Patricia Brooks is best known as a lyric soprano. Born November 7, 1933 in Manhattan to a musical family, Brooks trained as a performer from an early age. Her grandmother was a concert pianist and her mother, Eda Moultren Brooks, was a voice coach and performed in musical comedies along with her aunt. At the age of ten, Brooks won a WQXR award for her performance of Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto in G minor. Brooks studied viola, harmony, and theory at the High School of Music and Art (LaGuardia Arts) and studied dance at the Fokine School. As a teenager, she was a dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company until a knee injury ended her career. Interested in acting, Brooks enrolled in the Hunter College Theater Workshop, debuted at Circle in the Square under the direction of Jose Quintero, studied acting under Uta Hagen, and later worked under the direction of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Arthur Penn, and William Ball. Brooks received vocal training at the Manhattan School of Music and was a pupil of Daniel Ferro.

Brooks performed with the New York City Opera for seventeen years, from her debut as Marianne in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier in 1960 to her farewell performance in Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor in 1977. In total, Brooks performed thirty-two roles in six languages with the New York City Opera. Over the course of her operatic career, Brooks was known for her roles as Violetta in La Traviata, Manon in Manon, Melisande in Pelléas et Mélisande, Fiordiligi in Cosí fan tutte, and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor .

Brooks did not limit herself to operatic roles; she also sang with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and performed solos at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, among other locations. Notably, Brooks gave a command performance for President John F. Kennedy at the White House in 1963 and performed in A Lincoln Evening at the re-opening of Ford's Theatre in 1968.

After multiple sclerosis limited her breathing, Brooks retired from the stage in 1977 and began teaching voice as well as directing at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase.

In her personal life, Brooks was married to Circle in the Square co-founder Theodore Mann; the couple had two sons, Jonathan and Andrew. Brooks died of complications arising from multiple sclerosis on January 22, 1993.

From the guide to the Patricia Brooks papers, 1867-2001, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)