Background

Goldovsky was born on June 7, 1908, in Moscow to a well established Jewish musical family. His father was lawyer Onissim Goldovsky, his mother the well-known concert violinist Lea Luboshutz, and several relatives were accomplished musicians, including his pianist uncle, Pierre Luboshutz, his first teacher. After the Russian Revolution, his family lost their wealth and he became, at the age of nine, his mother's accompanist, to secure more food for the family.

Education

From 1918-1921, Goldovsky studied piano with his uncle and took courses at the Moscow Conservatory. At the age of 13, Goldovsky made his debut as a pianist appearing with the Berlin Philharmonic. He continued his studies with Artur Schnabel and Leonid Kreutzer at the Berlin Academy of Music from 1921 to 1923. Subsequently, he studied with composer Ernst von Dohnanyi at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.

In 1930, Goldovsky moved to Philadelphia to study at the Curtis Institute of Music, where his mother was on the faculty. While at Curtis, Goldovsky became an assistant to conductor Fritz Reiner and also worked as an opera coach. (He would return to teach at Curtis in the late 1970s until 1985).

He graduated from Curtis Institute Music, Philadelphia, in 1932. Later he became a Doctor of Music at Bates College in 1956 and a Doctor of Music at Cleveland Institute in 1969.

He received another Doctor of Music at Southeastern Massachusetts University in 1981, a Doctor of Music at New England Conservatory of Music in 1989. In 1972 Goldovsky became a Doctor of Fine Arts at Northwestern University.

Career

In 1936, Goldovsky was offered a position directing the opera program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he remained for six years. Goldovsky moved again in 1942, to Boston, where he held the position of opera director at the New England Conservatory until 1965.

During the summers of 1946-1962, Goldovsky also served as the director of the opera program at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, where he worked with renowned conductor Serge Koussevitzky. In addition to these positions, Goldovsky founded the New England Opera Theater in 1946, which later became known as the Goldovsky Opera Theater in 1962. This ensemble produced operas in Boston and toured throughout the United States until 1984. For this was the final performance of the Goldovsky Opera Theater, a company that has toured the United States for 38 years, bringing to 47 states more than a thousand performances of operas - works ranging from Pergolesi's ''Livietta and Tracollo'' to Stravinsky's ''Mavra'' and much of the standard repertory in between. Under the artistic direction of Boris Goldovsky, the company often presented the first live performances of opera to many listeners, in towns like South Bend, Yakima, Owensboro, and Reno.

The company has just returned from its final, 22d cross-country tour, and though Mr. Goldovsky himself will still travel with a handful of singers and a pianist, presenting ''operatic highlights,'' the touring company as a whole, Mr. Goldovsky points out, has served its purpose. The operatic world of 1946, in which Mr. Goldovsky's company made its debut as the New England Opera Company, is not the same as the operatic world of 1984.

''We are no longer as valid or as necessary as we once were,'' Mr. Goldovsky said yesterday before the final performance. ''At one time this was a really wonderful and important thing to do.'' But since then, regional opera has begun to flourish, and though touring companies like the Texas Opera Theater still exist, they are far less important. Opera, Mr. Goldovsky explains, has now become available on television and film, with imposing sets and singers, leaving the humble unit constructions and young singers of his company with stiff competition. ''My regret,'' the director continues, in a voice that has become familiar to millions of listeners through his continued participation in the intermission features of the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts, ''my regret is that this kind of tour offered an opportunity to gifted young singers to develop their artistry by singing leading roles many times in succession.'' Such training is not easily found today. Such alumni as Sherrill Milnes, Rosalind Elias, and Phyllis Curtin were schooled on his tours lasting up to 14 weeks.

''What advice,'' one listener asked Mr. Goldovsky, ''would you give to someone seeing 'La Traviata' for the first time?'' Mr. Goldovsky smiled. ''Enjoy!'' he said and laughed.

Achievements

• Musician, commentator, and author, Goldovsky was a pianist who served as a weekly commentator on the Metropolitan Opera for nearly fifty years. Originally a member of the Berlin Philharmonic during the 1920s, he went on to direct the opera departments at such institutions as the New England Conservatory of Music. The author of a number of works, Goldovsky’s first work written in 1953 with Mary Ellis Peltz was Accents on Opera. Some of his later works include Bringing Opera to Life, Road to Opera, and Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. Goldovsky was also the founder of what became the Goldovsky Opera Theater. Boris Goldovsky has been listed as a notable Musician by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen!: Intermission Scripts from the Met Broadcasts

    (For listeners to the Saturday afternoon broadcasts of the...)

  • Bringing Opera to Life: Operatic Acting and Stage Direction

    (Bringing Opera to Life is designed primarily for persons ...)

  • Bringing Soprano Arias to Life

    (This book supplies a soprano with nearly everything she m...)

    1979
  • My Road to Opera 1979
  • Official Libretto and Souvenir Book Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" 1954

Views

Goldovsky was a strong advocate for operas being produced in English, and he himself wrote translations for many libretti. He believed in presenting opera in English translation, less because it is the language of the audience than because it is the language of the singers, and it is important that every actor understand every line. In order to ensure ''self-reliance'' of singers in his company, he forbid them to look at the conductor. ''I actually threatened them with a $15 fine if they looked,'' he said.

Quotations: ''When I was young,'' Mr. Goldovsky recalled, ''I had complete contempt for opera.''

''I never try to do things differently; I only try to do things better.''

Membership

Boris Goldovsky was a Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences.

• 

  Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences , United States

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Renowned baritone Sherrill Milnes described Goldovsky as "one of the most important popularizers of opera in our time."
  
  "We all love Mr. Goldovsky. He's fabulous. It won't hit a lot of us till later." - Judith Gray, an opera singer.

Connections

Boris Goldovsky married opera singer Margaret Codd on December 30, 1933. The couple had two children: Michael, born in 1937 and Marina, born in 1939.

Father:

Onissim Goldovsky

Onissim Goldovsky (January 6, 1865 – September 7, 1922) was a Russian attorney, political philosopher and activist, author, and champion of Jewish causes. A so-called "Westerner" influenced by ideas of the French enlightenment, he was one of the founders of the Kadet party and advocated for a constitutional democracy for Russia.

Mother:

Lea (Luboshutz) Goldovsky

Lea Luboshutz was a Russian violinist. She had a performing career in Europe and the United States of America, settling in America and becoming a teacher at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Spouse:

Margaret Codd

Daughter:

Marina Goldovsky

Son:

Michael Goldovsky

Uncle:

Pierre Luboshutz

Pierre Luboshutz (June 17, 1891 - April 17, 1971) was a Russian concert pianist.

Brother:

Yuri Goldovsky

Yuri Goldovsky, the oldest son of Lea Luboshutz and Onissim Goldovsky, showed great promise as a mathematician, matriculating at Moscow University at the age of sixteen. Coddled by the Soviets and treated well by his Aunt Anna’s family, he had no intention of leaving the Soviet Union despite Lea’s pleas.

Sister:

Irina Goldovsky

Irina (later known as Irene) Goldovsky, the youngest child, was born nine years after her brother Boris, just at the time the Russian Revolution was breaking out in 1917. At one time, Her mother had hopes that Irina might have a career as a dancer. Eventually, that idea was abandoned in favor of bringing Irene up as a proper lady who would dress elegantly, have perfect manners, and marry a rich man.

Friend:

Artur Schnabel

Goldovsky studied with Artur Schnabel in Berlin beginning in 1924.

Friend:

Ernő Dohnányi

Goldovsky studied with Ernő Dohnányi in Budapest beginning in 1924.

teacher:

Fritz Reiner

In 1930 Boris became a conducting student of Fritz Reiner and later Reiner's assistant.

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 194
  2010