18 Facts About Tatiana Troyanos

Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano remembered as "one of the defining singers of her generation".

Tatiana Troyanos grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, and attended Forest Hills High School.

Tatiana Troyanos was looked after by Greek relatives and lived for around a decade at the Brooklyn Home for Children, which had relocated to Forest Hills.

Tatiana Troyanos was employed as a secretary to the director of publicity at Random House, and performed in choruses, ranging from church choirs to musical theater; "Tatiana Troyanos, almost hidden in the chorus, came soaring through with a pellucid and magnificent quality of tone as the Arab Singing Girl," proclaimed Kevin Kelly of The Boston Globe in his review of a summer stock production of Fanny in September 1958.

Tatiana Troyanos sang Jocasta in Stravinsky's Oedipus rex that season, Marina in the company's first production of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov the following year, and various other roles through 1965.

Tatiana Troyanos returned to New York to make her Metropolitan Opera debut as Octavian, closely followed by the Composer, in the spring of 1976.

Tatiana Troyanos appeared in seven new productions at the Met, including the company's premiere productions of Berg's Lulu in 1977, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex in 1981, Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito in 1984, and Handel's Giulio Cesare in 1988.

Tatiana Troyanos was known for her impassioned portrayals of everything from trouser roles to femmes fatales; "the most boyish rose-bearer was the most womanly Charlotte," wrote George Birnbaum in the Classical CD Scout.

Tatiana Troyanos sang roles in concert performances of operas ranging from Ulysses in Handel's Deidamia and Farnace in Mozart's Mitridate, re di Ponto to Sara in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux and Judith in Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle.

Tatiana Troyanos was featured in Chicago Symphony broadcasts from the Ravinia Festival from 1980 to 1990, which included works like Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Mahler's Das klagende Lied.

Concert telecasts with Tatiana Troyanos included Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder with the Boston Symphony in 1979 and a recital with pianist Martin Katz, featuring Ravel's Sheherazade, Falla's Siete canciones populares espanolas and songs by Berlioz and Mahler, at the Casals Festival in 1985.

Tatiana Troyanos enjoyed an equally versatile career as a recording artist; her first appearance as a soloist in a recording hall was as Dorabella, opposite Leontyne Price's Fiordiligi, in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte under Erich Leinsdorf.

Soprano Benita Valente provided a unique glimpse of Tatiana Troyanos as working musician.

Tatiana Troyanos died on August 21,1993, in New York, at the age of 54, of cancer.

Tatiana Troyanos was interred in Pinelawn Memorial Park, Long Island, New York.

Tatiana Troyanos's death was unforeseen and "came as a shock to the close-knit opera community," as Tim Page wrote at the time.

Tatiana Troyanos had kept her illness to herself and continued to perform almost to the end.

Tatiana Troyanos was scheduled to reprise the Mahler Third at Tanglewood in August, but her final stage appearances were in a somewhat lighter vein, as the actress Clairon in Richard Strauss' Capriccio at San Francisco Opera between June 12 and July 1,1993.