Wilfrid Pelletier - Studying and Working in Europe and The United States

Studying and Working in Europe and The United States

In October 1916 Pelletier and his wife arrived in Paris, France in the midst of World War I and the outbreak of a major flu epidemic. Undaunted, the couple remained until circumstances related to the war forced them to leave at the end of June 1917. Although only in France for roughly nine months, Pelletier's time there was well spent under the tutelage of Isidor Philipp (piano), Marcel Samuel-Rousseau (harmony), Charles-Marie Widor (composition), and most importantly Camille Bellaigue who gave him singing lessons and worked with him in learning the French operatic repertoire on the piano.

In July 1917 the Pelletiers arrived in New York City where they were befriended by conductor Pierre Monteux who introduced them to important people in the musical social circles of the city. These connections led to his being hired at the Metropolitan Opera as a rehearsal pianist for the company's French opera productions, a position he maintained until 1922 when he was promoted to assistant conductor at the Met. Between 1917-1924 he also frequently played the piano for the Met's Sunday Night Concert Series, and he also portrayed the minor role of Boleslao Lazinski in Umberto Giordano's Fedora on the Met stage between 1924-1926. During these early years with the Met he developed a lasting friendship with Arturo Toscanini, who later hired him to conduct his NBC Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions when he himself was un-available. After having divorced his first wife (with whom he had two sons: Camille and François), he married Met soprano Queena Mario in 1925. That relationship also ended in divorce some years later. He later married a former voice student of Mario's, opera star Rose Bampton in 1937.

From 1919-1922 Pelletier was the rehearsal pianist and assistant conductor for Antonio Scotti's touring company the Scotti Opera Company where he worked under conductors Gennaro Papi and Carlo Peroni. With this company he conducted his first complete opera performance, Giuseppe Verdi's Il trovatore on 21 May 1920 in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1922 he conducted operas for the Ravinia Park Opera Company of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, and on 19 February of that year he conducted for the first time at the Met for one of the Sunday Concerts. On 4 April 1926 he conducted his first opera at the Met, Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, with Carmela Ponselle as Santuzza and Armand Tokatyan as Turiddu. That same year he was appointed Artistic Director of the Sunday Night Concert seies.

On 28 February 1929 Pelletier was promoted by Giulio Gatti-Casazza from assistant to regular conductor at the Met, a position he maintained through 1950. His first performance in this title was conducting Deems Taylor's The King's Henchman on the following 29 March with Edward Johnson, Florence Easton, and Lawrence Tibbett starring. He went on to conduct the house premiere's of Benjamin Godard's ballet Reminiscence, Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, Domenico Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto, and Igor Stravinsky's Apollo. He was also the driving force behind establishing the 'Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air' competition (pre-cursor to the Metropolitan National Council Auditions) in 1936. His final and 462nd performance at the Met was on 15 May 1950 conducting Charles Gounod's Faust with Giuseppe Di Stefano in the title role, Nadine Conner as Marguerite, Luben Vichey as Méphistophélès, and Robert Merrill as Valentin.

During the 1940s Pelletier made several opera recordings at the request of the National Committee for Music Appreciation in New York with artists from the Metropolitan Opera. These gramophone records (78-rpm albums) were abridged versions of popular operas like Aida, La Bohème, Carmen, Faust, I Pagliacci, Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto, and La traviata among others. The recordings were originally released by the World's Greatest Operas label, and many of them were later reissued by RCA Camden and Parade Records on LP. In 1938 he appeared on camera in Paramount's feature film The Big Broadcast of 1938 as he conducted Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad in Brunhilde's Battle Cry from Richard Wagner's Die Walküre.