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The American soprano Eleanor Steber (July 17 1916-October 3, 1990) was a well-known opera singer during the 1940s and 1950s. She was admired for her great versatility; she sang Italian, French and German roles.
her easy upper range, coupled with a rich, smoothly produced lower voice
Steber was born into a musical family in Wheeling, West Virginia. Her mother was an accomplished amateur singer and taught her voice and piano, took her to concerts, arranged for coaching
Steber studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, originally intending to major in piano, but her voice teacher, William Whitney, persuaded her to focus on singing. In 1936, Steber made her operatic debut at age 21 as Senta with the Commonwealth Opera in a WPA production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. After graduating in 1938, she did radio, oratorio, and church work. In 1939, Steber went to New York to study with Paul Althouse. In 1940 she won first prize at the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air, earning a Met contract.
In October 1940, Steber made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Sophie in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier . During the next years she benefited from conductors such as Bruno Walter, Sir Thomas Beecham, Erich Leinsdorf and George Szell. She was a versatile artist and appeared in Italian, French and German operas. Things began to change for her at the Met when Rudolf Bing took over the company in 1950. By this time, her career extended well beyond New York (San Francisco, Chicago and Europe). At the Met, though, she began to feel that she was being passed over for mainstream Italian roles in favour of Tebaldi and Callas. Altogether she appeared 286 times in New York and 118 times on tour. She sang 28 leading roles in an extremely large repertoire. Her easy upper range, coupled with a rich, smoothly produced lower voice made her a natural for Mozart roles
. Which she sang brilliantly, such as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and even Konstanze in the Abduction from the Seraglio, with its vocal pyrotechnics, as well as in other Mozart operas. As her voice matured, she sang some of the spinto roles in both the German and Italian repertoire. Her roles in this repertoire included Violetta, Elisabetta, Desdemona, Marguerite, Manon Lescaut, Mimi, and Tosca, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. In Wagner’s operas she sang Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Elsa in Lohengrin. She was also the company’s first Arabella in 1955, and in 1959 was the first to perform at the Met the challenging part of Marie in Berg’s opera Wozzeck. Steber was perhaps most famous for her creation of in January 1958 of the title role in Samuel Barber’s opera Vanessa (but it was first offered to Maria Callas and Sena Jurinac who both declined), and for commissioning his Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Steber was one of the most important sopranos in the USA during the 1940’s and 1950’s, with a sweet and yet full voice, and outstanding versatility (her recitals were practically vocal pentathlons for their wide range of styles and vocal demands, and the day she sang Desdemona in Verdi's Otello for a Met matinee and Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte that evening is still a legend). Her European engagements included appearances at Edinburgh (1947), Vienna (1953), and Glyndebourne. In 1953 she was the first American to appear at the Bayreuth Festival after the Second World War.