Class Notes

A little bit of sunshine left Rochester when my dear friend and colleague Rita Shane, professor of voice at Eastman since 1989, died in October after a brief and courageous battle with cancer at the age of 78. Rita was a world-renowned opera singer of a rare vocal category (dramatic coloratura soprano) and equally rare as an artistic colleague. A native of New York City, she didn’t attend a music school but studied at Barnard College under Beverly Peck Johnson, a brilliant vocal technician whom I knew later in my own studies in piano accompanying at the Juilliard School. Rita became a leading soprano at the Metropolitan Opera for 10 seasons after her 1973 debut in what became her signature role, the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. She also sang at the Chicago Lyric, San Francisco, New York City, and many other American opera companies, as well as in Milan, Vienna, Munich, and a dozen other houses in Europe and South America. She performed roles in Manon, Lucia di Lammermoor, L’elisir d’amore, Carmen, and La bohème, as well as creating the title role of Miss Havisham’s Fire by Eastman alumnus Dominick Argento ’58E (PhD) for New York City Opera.

Rita taught her students with a sunny disposition and an ebullient smile that was not only figurative, but a vital element of the vocal technique that she cultivated with her devoted and successful Eastman students. Many of them would move to New York City after completing their degrees, where she generously helped them with their careers whenever she could. One of the earliest of these alums was tenor John McVeigh ’93E, who when not at Rita’s bedside during her illness this fall, was rehearsing himself at the Met for seven productions this season.

Every week for 25 school years, this commanding but eminently practical diva found it worth her while to rise at 5 a.m. on Tuesday mornings at her home on the Upper West Side, deal with the vagaries of the airlines and whatever the weather threw her way, and teach a nearly full load of voice majors before heading back to New York on Thursday afternoons to coach professional singers on the weekend. I’ve known this about Rita since I joined Eastman’s Department of Voice and Opera in 1995; another soulmate of even longer standing, Eisenhart Professor of Voice Carol Webber, said that “Rita’s extraordinary voice, truly one of a kind, was matched by her warmth, generosity, and fierce loyalty.” Rita loved quality in all things—good singing, good scotch, late night meals at Max or the Inn on Broadway, which was her home away from home, and mostly, the well-deserved admiration of her students and colleagues. She was a unique star among us, dauntless, ageless, and unforgettable.

—Russell Miller

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Miller is the chair of the Department of Voice and Opera at Eastman. A memorial concert for Rita Shane will take place in Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall at 2 p. m. Sunday, April 19.