Baritone (dramatic Verdi baritone)
Cornell MacNeil was an American operatic baritone known for his exceptional voice and long career with the Metropolitan Opera, which spanned 642 performances in twenty-six roles. Opera News opined he "was a great baritone in era of great baritones — Warren, Gobbi, Merrill, Milnes — and in the contemporary press, comparisons to his colleagues were frequent. But MacNeil's performances had singular musical richness, and moral and intellectual complexity that were his alone. MacNeil may have had rivals, but he had no equals."
Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
A Minneapolis-born baritone who trained under the legendary Friedrich Schorr, Cornell MacNeil made his professional debut in 1950 and rose to become one of the Metropolitan Opera's most authoritative Verdi interpreters. His expansive, dramatically focused voice—capable of reaching high C-sharp with ease—and commanding stage presence made him a fixture at the Met for over three decades, where he sang more than six hundred performances in signature roles including Rigoletto, Macbeth, and Iago. MacNeil remained active into the 1980s, embodying the golden age of American operatic baritones.
Sang over 600 performances at the Metropolitan Opera as one of the company's leading Verdi baritones (1950s–1980s)
Hartt School of Music (Hartford, Connecticut); Honorary Doctorate in Music, Hartford University
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