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The American soprano, Jean Carlton (born: Betty Jean Cubbage), belonged to a musical family. Her brother, who would become a Chicago lawyer, played the cello and a sister played the piano and flute. Jean herself studied the violin from the age of 5. Her mother, widow of a Des Moincs lawyer who died when "Cubby" was an infant, supported this musical family by teaching Latin at Drake University. Cubby became a fairly proficient violinist. But ever since the age of 4, when she had been taken to a Galli-Curci recital at the Des Moines Coliseum, Jean's dominant ambition had been to sing. At 16, she won a scholarship to the National Music Camp in Michigan during her high school days in recognition of her talent with the viola. At the camp, she sang the leading role in an opera production, which, in turn, gave her a Drake University scholarship to study voice. New York soon beckoned and there her unusual gifts attracted the attention of Burl Ives, famous American folk singer, who recommended that she study intensively with Mme. Ella Toedt. Two years later, she won a scholarship at Julliard Graduate School. Further study with Queeno Mario, Francis Rogers and Sergius Kagen in opera and lieder singing followed. Like a couple of hundred other Juilliard students, she soon found that this processing demanded practically all her waking hours six days a week. The seventh, Sunday, she spent making a little pocket money by singing in church. She sang in the choir of the First Presbyterian Church of Greenwich, Connecticut for more than two years.
At Julliard, as well as with the Columbia Theatre Association and subsequently with the Chautauqua Opera, Jean Carlton starred in operatic productions, such as W.A. Mozart's The Magic Flute and Don Giovani. On May 19, 1945, she created the role of Rachel in the premiere of The Scarecrow, opera fantasy in two acts by Normand Lockwood and libretto by Dorothy Lockwood, which took place at Brander Matthews Hall, Columbia University, New York, was conducted by Otto Luening/Willard Rhodes and directed by Milton Smith. In addition, she toured in concert and oratorio. She received the coveted Naumburg Foundation Award in 1945. Her resulting Town Hall recital in March 1945 was a triumph, a success which she repeated at her second Town Hall recital in 1947. A few week after the Town Hall debut recital, she received a phone call from Arthur Judson's Columbia Concerts Corporation asking her to sign a contract. She also won many prizes. Since that auspicious debut, when the New York Times described her singing as "an example of taste, perfection, exquisite modeling of phrase and effortlessness," she has appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Orchestral Association and other leading orchestras. She broadcast with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of Loeffler's Canticle Of The Sun. In May 1948, she sang with Eddy Michaelis in the Broadway production of G.C. Menotti's The Telephone at Carnegie Hall as part of Carnegie Pops Concert. Her appearance in this leading role of Juliet with Charles L. Wagner's touring production of Charles Gounod's opera Romeo and Juliet conducted by Walter Ducloux in September 1948 was another step forward in her career.
However, most of Jean Carlton's musical career was at the concert hall. She sang at Carnegie Hall many times. She won acclaim with the Bach Circle of New York, The Cantata Singers and the Dessoff Choirs. She was one of the five original singers in the Bach Aria Group, a group of New York musicians brought together by the American Bach scholar William H. Scheide in 1946 to perform arias from J.S. Bach's cantatas and other works. The other singers were soprano Ellen Osborn, alto Margaret Tobias, tenor Robert Harmon, and bass-baritone Norman Farrow. The five instrumentalists who accompanied them were violinist Maurice Welk, oboist Robert Bloom, flutist Julius Baker, cellist David Soyer, and keyboard player Sergius Kagen. She sang and recorded with the Bach Aria Group until c1951. In May 1956, she sang Felix Mendelssohn's songs at Mendelssohn Club in Albany, New York. In December 1965, she sang George Frideric Handel's The Messiah at St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Coronado, California with The Community Choir under the direction of Winifred Chaffee Brock with the organist was Beatrice Hoskins.
Radio audiences heard Jean Carlton broadcasts on "Musical Bouquet", the Stradivari Orchestra, Schaefer Review. "Echoes of New York", the Canadian Cavalcade", and the Prudential Family Hour.
Her Recording, apart from her recordings with Bach Aria Group:
Sigmund Romberg: The New Moon; Up in Central Park; Viennese Nights (1945, 3 original RCA LP's, now on Naxos)
F. Mendelssohn: Duets for Soprano and Alto (1952, MGM LP), with Margaret Tobias (alto) & Paul Ulanowsky (piano)
Jean Carlton was a lifelong opera devotee and until quite late in her life travelled the world to watch the premieres, specifically Frankfurt, Santa Fe, and Seattle. She was married to the actor Herb Voland (1918-1981). Their son was the television actor Mark Voland (1952-2010). |
