Marilyn Cotlow - Career

Career

Cotlow made her professional operatic debut as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute with a small company in Los Angeles in the early 1940s. The cast also included Brian Sullivan as Tamino, and Johnny Silver as Monostatos. Cotlow also worked as a voice-over artist during the early to mid-1940s for Hollywood musical movies, often performing high notes in songs for artists who had difficulty singing in the upper register. As most high tones above the ledger are indistinguishable from one soprano to another, the studios hired Cotlow to "cut in" the note.

After World War II, she auditioned for the Central City Opera in Colorado. During her audition, the judges asked if she knew the arias of Blondchen in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Marilyn answered, "Why, yes, I know the whole role." After she finished both arias, the judges asked if she knew the arias of Constanze. She answered, "Why yes, I know that whole role, too," and sang all three arias from that role. She was offered a contract to sing Blondchen that summer in Colorado with Eleanor Steber, Felix Knight, and Jerome Hines.

Upon arriving in New York, Cotlow auditioned for several parts and heard that Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., and Chandler Cowles were producing a double bill of opera on Broadway. The operas were The Telephone, or L'Amour à trois and The Medium by a young Italian composer, Gian Carlo Menotti. The double bill premiered on February 18, 1947, at the Heckscher Theater, and the Broadway production opened on May 1, 1947, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and remained for more than 7 months. A Columbia Records recording was made, and it remains the #1 selling complete operatic recording of all time.

In 1948, Cotlow made her Metropolitan Opera (Met) debut, singing Philine in Mignon after winning the company's Audition of the Air competition. That same season, she sang Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore. For the next several years, she appeared in roles with minor houses in the United States and in Europe. In 1952, she joined the company of Theater Basel and stayed there for one year. In 1953, she joined Theater Bremen, where she sang roles for two seasons. She left the company in 1955 to give a concert tour in the Netherlands and sing the role of Amina in La Sonnambula with Wexford Festival Opera.

After Cotlow married in the late 1950s, she retired from her stage career and took up teaching. She taught out of her home for many years and then later at the Peabody Conservatory. She still maintains a home studio in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. One of her most famous students, Alessandra Marc, became her daughter-in-law when Marc married her son Remy David; the couple has since divorced. She has another son, Daniel.