This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.
Arlene Saunders, a charismatic soprano who was a fixture of opera companies in New York and Hamburg, Germany, died on April 17 at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale in the Bronx. She was 89.
Lisa A. Raskin, her stepdaughter, said the cause was complications of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Ms. Saunders was never wanting for praise for her musicianship, but she rose to fame as an affecting performer with dramatic authority. As Eva in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” at the Metropolitan Opera, she was described in The New York Times as “singing as easily as if she were conversing.” And The Times, writing about a stadium concert in 1963, said she had “something rare and exciting in a soprano: a genuine flare.”
Arlene Pearl Soszynski was born on Oct. 5, 1930, in Cleveland to Walter and Julia Soszynski. She grew up there and went to college at Baldwin Wallace University in nearby Berea, Ohio.
Her career was sparked by two debuts in 1961, both as Mimì in Puccini’s “La Bohème”: at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan, and with New York City Opera.
The Times’s review of the City Opera production began, “Arlene Saunders is a soprano who can sing beautifully, act effectively and illuminate any operatic stage fortunate enough to be graced by her talents.” She would go on to star in more classics with the company, including Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West,” Bizet’s “Carmen” and Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.”
She continued to perform internationally in the 1960s, singing Pamina in “The Magic Flute” at the Glyndebourne Festival in Britain and becoming a regular at the Hamburg State Opera — where she performed in the premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Help, Help, the Globolinks!” in 1968 and was honored with the title Kammersängerin.
When the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1971, Ms. Saunders starred in its inaugural opera, Ginastera’s “Beatrix Cenci.” She also made a belated debut with the Met that decade in “Meistersinger.” Her farewell came in 1985, in “Der Rosenkavalier” at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
In 1986, Ms. Saunders returned to New York and married Dr. Raymond A. Raskin, who died in 2017. She is survived by her stepchildren, Ms. Raskin and Dr. Jonathan M. Raskin, as well as two step-grandchildren.
Away from the stage, she was never far from opera. She led programs, including one at New York University, and for most of the 1990s ran a nonprofit group called Opera Mobilé, which packed a production of “Pagliacci” in a truck to be staged in parks throughout New York City.
Source: Music - nytimes.com
