Treigle, Norman
Treigle, Norman
Treigle, Norman, remarkable American bass-baritone; b. New Orleans, March 6, 1927; d. there, Feb. 16, 1975. He sang in a church choir as a child, and upon graduation from high school in 1943, he served in the navy. After two years in service, he returned to New Orleans and studied voice with Elizabeth Wood. He made his operatic debut in 1947 with the New Orleans Opera as Lodovico in Verdi’s Otello. He then joined the N.Y.C. Opera, making his debut there on March 28, 1953, as Colline in La Bohème; he remained with the company for 20 years, establishing himself as a favorite with the public. Among his most successful roles were Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Méphistophélès, and Boris Godunov; he also sang in modern operas, including leading roles in the premieres of 3 operas by Carlisle Floyd: The Passion of Jonathan Wade (N.Y., Oct. 11, 1962), The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair (Raleigh, N.C., Dec. 2, 1963), and Markheim (New Orleans, March 31, 1966). Treigle’s other parts in contemporary operas were the title role in Dallapicco-la’s The Prisoner and that of the grandfather in Copland’s The Tender Land. His untimely death, from an overdose of sleeping pills, deprived the American musical theater of one of its finest talents.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire