Conner, Nadine

(b. 20 February 1907 in Compton, California; d. 1 March 2003 in Los Alamitos, California), leading lyric soprano with the New York Metropolitan Opera during the 1940s and 1950s.

Born Evelyn Nadine Henderson, Conner was the second-youngest of six children of David Henderson, a tenor and a violinist, and Jessie L. (Gaines) Henderson, a contralto and a pianist. Conner was the great-granddaughter of English pioneers who had settled in California before 1850. Her family lived in a big house on her grandfather’s farm near Los Angeles. Conner’s parents were stage troupers with a repertory group. They organized what they called the Literary Society at home for their children to act and sing. All the children were gifted in music. As a child Conner took piano lessons with local teachers. At Compton High School she began to study voice and dramatics privately with Amado Fernandez, a tenor from Mexico who was based in Hollywood, California. Conner was first trained as a dramatic soprano, but then she decided to concentrate on lyric repertory because her voice was not powerful enough in big concert halls. In 1931 she was awarded the Euterpe Opera Reading Club Scholarship to study at the University of Southern California (USC) with Horatio Cogswell. She stayed at USC from 1931 to 1937, but she did not earn a degree. She also studied with the British soprano Florence Easton in New York City. After college she married a USC classmate whose surname was Conner. The marriage was dissolved two years later, but she kept Conner as her stage name.

In autumn 1932 Cogswell started a series of weekly programs at KHJ Radio in Los Angeles. While still a student, Conner made her first appearances on the program in 1933 with Mary Elizabeth Waldorf and Marjorie Wright as a vocal trio. Impressed by her singing, the radio station offered Conner a contract. The success led her to California Melodies with the conductor David Broekman and vocal assignments with Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, and Gordon MacRae. In 1937–1938 Conner was invited to costar with Nelson Eddy in the Vicks Open House series. The composer and conductor Richard Hageman described Conner as “the finest singer on the air in this country.” She worked on radio programs for seven years, during which she started her own radio show and appeared on sponsored programs, including the Coca-Cola Hour, which made her famous. In September 1939 Conner married Laurance Heacock, a Compton surgeon who had operated on her for appendicitis. Conner was ready to give up singing and devote herself to family life, but Heacock encouraged her to turn to opera.

In 1939 Conner joined the Los Angeles Opera Company, which the English conductor Albert Coates had recently founded. In 1940 Conner made her opera debut as Marguerite in Faust by Charles Gounod. She performed with the company for two years and gained practical experience in singing and acting. Earl Lewis, the treasurer of the Metropolitan Opera Association, saw Conner’s performance and recommended her to the conductor Bruno Walter of the Met. Walter suggested that Conner audition for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Conner auditioned for the Met in September 1941, and Edward Johnson, the director of the Met, quickly gave her a contract.

On 22 December 1941 Conner made her Met debut as Pamina in The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart under the baton of Walter. “She played and sang the role with remarkable poise and a confidence that seemed natural, rather than assumed for the occasion,” commented Francis D. Perkins, a critic for the New York Herald Tribune. Perkins noted that Conner “also was able to interpret the character with an appealing and appropriate sense of youth and wistfulness.” Conner soon established her status as one of the leading sopranos at the Met. She sang a variety of roles, such as Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. She also sang in concert halls in a wide-ranging repertoire. In 1942 Conner was invited by Walter to sing a solo part in the Second Symphony by Gustav Mahler with the New York Philharmonic. This performance marked the beginning of her partnership with the orchestra and led to such concerts as Saint MatthewPassion by Johann Sebastian Bach and A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms.

From 1945 to 1948 Conner sang at the San Francisco Opera as Marzelline in Fidelio and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. She appeared in the Twentieth Century–Fox World Artists movie Of Men and Music, with Jascha Heifetz, Artur Rubinstein, Dimitri Mitropoulos, and Jan Peerce. In the movie, which was released in November 1950, Conner sings the love duets “O Paradiso” and “Don Pasquale” with Peerce. In 1953 Conner made her debut in Europe, singing in The Marriage of Figaro at the Holland Music Festival. Later she made guest appearances in England, France, Belgium, and Italy.

During her nineteen-year career at the Met (1941–1960), Conner sang many important roles in her 249 performances. She was best known for her Mozart roles, such as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. On 12 March 1960 Conner gave her farewell performance as Marguerite in Faust, conducted by Jean Morel. Rudolf Bing, the general manager, said in his presentation that Conner was leaving the Met “at the height of [her] powers—and much too early.” Conner was honored during an onstage ceremony preceding act 4. “Her farewell performance,” praised John Briggs of the New York Times, “was one of the best of her Metropolitan career.”

At five feet, three inches tall, Conner was considered a beautiful woman with russet hair and blue-green eyes. She weighed 115 pounds, “and her figure is such,” wrote Frank Merkling of Musical America, “as to silence once and for all, the excuses that are so often made for singers’ shapes.” She followed no particular diet but still “had the smallest waist of anyone at the Met.”

Conner and Heacock adopted two children. Conner maintained a penthouse apartment in New York City. She returned to California with her husband in 1970 and settled in Cypress, where she taught singing. Outside music, Conner enjoyed designing her own clothes, including most of the costumes for her stage appearances. In 1955 she was voted by the Fashion Institute as one of the best-dressed women in the opera world. Conner died of natural causes at a convalescent hospital at the age of ninety-six.

Conner’s repertoire was comprehensive and contained roles for both lyric soprano and coloratura soprano. Her voice was described as warm and sweet with a pure-toned silvery sound. Conner was an enthusiastic advocate of operas sung in English. She sang in English at her opera debuts with the Los Angeles Opera Company and the Metropolitan Opera. In 1952–1953 Conner appeared as Mimi when the Met presented La Bohème in English in a telecast performance on the Columbia Broadcasting System’s Omnibus program. On 27 December 1946 the Met produced the English version of Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck. The New York Sun noted that “Nadine Conner, as Gretel, and Rise Stevens, as Hansel... made up the best brother-and-sister act to be heard at the Metropolitan in recent times.”

Nadine Conner, “Mental Projection in Singing,” Etude 63 (May 1945): 249–286, presents Conner’s views on the qualities that make for excellence of vocal performances. Ida Jean Kain, “Your Figure, Madame!” Washington Post (24 June 1943), and Mary Jane Matz, Opera Stars in the Sun: Intimate Glimpses of Metropolitan Personalities (1955), reveal Conner’s secrets to keeping her body in shape. Frank Merkling, “Gentle Heroine,” Musical America (15 Dec. 1953), gives a vivid description of Conner’s life. Obituaries are in the Los Angeles Times (5 Mar. 2003), New York Times (10 Mar. 2003), and Opera News (June 2003).

Di Su