Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester passed away at age 79 on June 16th, 2010. in Toronto, Canada. Throughout her career, she was hailed for her rich, plush sound that marked her as one of few star contraltos, and one who was especially for her famous interpretations of Mahler, Handel, and the German lieder repertoire.
Born to a Scottish-Irish family in francophone Montreal, she grew up singing in church and local choirs. She dropped out of school as a young teenager, and took up small jobs. But within a few years, she began studying voice seriously, and made her debut with the Montreal Symphony in 1953, and with the Toronto Symphony the following year.
Forrester made her New York recital debut at Town Hall in 1956; though she hadn't yet garnered a reputation in the United States, her performance was immediately hailed as the arrival of a major talent. The timing of her recital was serendipitous: around the same time, New York Philharmonic music director Bruno Walter was in search of a contralto to sing Mahler's Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection," which contains a solo in the fourth movement for contralto; their resulting recording together has become iconic. She also recorded Mahler's Lied von der Erde with Walter, and became a favorite soloist with orchestras worldwide.
Roles for contralto in the opera house are fairly limited, but she did embrace a repertory that included Wagner, Gluck, Massenet, and Verdi as well as Gian Carlo Menotti. But perhaps her most notable opera performances were at her 1966 debut at the New York City Opera, where she sang opposite Beverly Sills in Handel's Giulio Cesare. She also taught at the Philadelphia Music Academy in the 1960s. Twenty years later served as the chairwoman for the Canada Council for the Arts, and in recitals she was always a prominent force for contemporary Canadian composers.
Her marriage to Eugene Kash in 1957 resulted in five children, though the couple divorced in 1976. Although in later years she faced many personal struggles, including alcoholism and eventually the onset of dementia, her performances at her prime remain prime examples of a vocal legend.
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by Anastasia Tsioulcas
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