19 Facts About Adelaide Bishop

Adelaide Bishop was an American operatic soprano, musical theatre actress, opera director, stage director, and voice teacher.

Adelaide Bishop began her career appearing in Broadway musicals as a teenager during the early 1940s.

Adelaide Bishop became a principal soprano with the New York City Opera in 1948, where she performed through 1960 in a broad repertoire encompassing German, French, Italian, and English operas from a variety of musical periods.

Adelaide Bishop served as the artistic director of the Wolf Trap Opera for many years.

Adelaide Bishop made her Broadway debut at the age of 15 as Fritzi in the 1943 revival of Blossom Time, which ran for a total of 43 performances.

Adelaide Bishop returned to Broadway in 1945 to portray Betty Ellis in the short-lived musical The Girl From Nantucket with Jane Kean as Dodey Ellis and Helen Raymond as Keziah Getchel.

On October 24,1946, Adelaide Bishop made her professional opera debut as Blonde in Mozart's Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail with the American Opera Company at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.

In January 1948, Adelaide Bishop returned to Philadelphia to portray Letitia in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief.

Adelaide Bishop quickly became a favorite at the NYCO during the late 1940s and went on to portray many lyric soprano roles with the company through 1960, including The Stepdaughter in the world premiere of Hugo Weisgall's Six Characters in Search of an Author and Mary Stone in the New York premiere of Douglas Moore's The Devil and Daniel Webster.

Adelaide Bishop portrayed Estelle in the premiere of the orchestrated version of Weisgall's The Stronger in August 1955 for the Composers Forum at Columbia University.

In 1956 Adelaide Bishop sang Lucia again opposite Jon Vickers's Male Chorus and Regina Resnik's Lucretia at the renowned Stratford Festival in Canada.

Adelaide Bishop portrayed Queen Popotte in the United States premiere of Offenbach's Le Voyage dans la Lune in 1958, which was the very first production mounted by Sarah Caldwell's Opera Company of Boston.

Adelaide Bishop returned to Boston the following season for their production of The Beggar's Opera.

Adelaide Bishop notably staged the world premiere of David Amram's Twelfth Night at the Lake George Opera in 1968.

Adelaide Bishop served for fourteen years as the chair of the opera department at Boston University and chairwoman of the opera department and artistic director of the opera theater at the Hartt School.

Adelaide Bishop worked as Artistic Director of the Wolf Trap Opera, a summer opera training program for young opera singers.

Adelaide Bishop married twice, first to Eugene Deatrick and then to Bertram Schur.

Adelaide Bishop has one son, Peyton Deatrick Schur, and one grandson, Kyle Schur.

Adelaide Bishop died in a car accident in Sarasota, Florida just three days shy of her eightieth birthday.