Louis Roney: Subway to success

Singing teacher and student relationships, I learned in my early New York days, are iffy matters indeed. I was lucky enough to find a great singing maestro who taught, advised, and was like a father to me until his death eight years later.

Maestro had come from Italy some years before with the renowned Italian tenor Tito Schipa, married an American singer, and settled down in New York City to live and teach. The minute I began to sing with maestro, I knew that he was the teacher for me, for he made my singing natural, easy, beautiful, and more powerful as we went along. Also, he liked me!

On the 57th Street sidewalk a lot of us young singers had the habit of meeting and talking about—what else—singing with our teachers. Most of my young friends had, over a period of time, several different teachers and were always on the lookout for someone new and “better.” They seemed to have the idea that they needed more teachers than one to reach the top. Actually, the opposite is usually the case. I never went to anyone but my beloved Maestro Bellini, and he and his wife became lasting personal friends.

Some of my lessons were, of course, better than others, but I considered this fact as something to expect from daily variations in my own abilities. After a year, I knew that I was good enough to make a debut in New York whenever the right opportunity came.

That opportunity came during a lesson one day when maestro said, “I invited someone to come today to your lesson to hear you sing a couple of arias.” A few minutes later that someone arrived, and it was no less than Dimitri Mitropoulos who was a famous opera conductor as well as the principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

Mitropoulos sat down at the piano, and without any music, asked me if I knew the first act aria from “Tosca,” “Recondita Armonia.” I nodded as Mitropoulos began to play. Thank God I sang a terrific B-flat at the end. The great conductor then began the introduction to, “E Lucevan Le Stelle” from the last act of “Tosca.” When we finished, the Greek Mitropoulos stood up, shook my hand and surprised me with his Americanism comment, “You’re the real McCoy.” He asked if I would like to sing the leading role in “Tosca” twice late in July with soprano Eleanor Steber and the New York Philharmonic. I was too overcome to do anything but smile and nod my head.

For several months five days a week I sang “Tosca” with Maestro until I knew the role of Cavaradossi perhaps as well as any tenor on Earth. The day came when the whole cast met with Mitropoulos in a room on Park Avenue, and we sang through the whole opera together. Along the way, each of us leading singers had a question or two to ask of Maestro Mitropoulos.

A few days later, on a blazing hot July morning, we all met at Lewisohn Stadium, where the New York Philharmonic was sitting behind us in staircase fashion. Down front on the stage were the cast and conductor. The chorus was divided into two parts on either side of the orchestra, and left the stage after they had sung their only performance part in Act 1.

After the rehearsal I took the subway to Greenwich Village and climbed the five floors up to my apartment. Late that afternoon I had a meal in a restaurant next door, then put on my white tux jacket, black tie, shirt and tux pants, and took the long subway ride back to Lewisohn Stadium—and to stardom!

About Roney: Harvard’42—Distinguished Prof, Em.—UCF 2004 Fla. Alliance for the Arts award (Assisted by beautiful wife Joy Roney)