Edward Patrick Johnson was a Canadian operatic tenor who was billed outside North America as Edoardo Di Giovanni. He became general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan, New York City from 1935 to 1950.
Background
Johnson was born on August 22, 1878, in Guelph, Canada, the son of James Evans Johnson, a grain merchant, and Margaret O'Connel. Johnson's father, an amateur clarinetist in the local band, encouraged his interest in music, and Eddie (as he was called throughout his life) became proficient on the flute and piano. But singing was his real interest, and at the age of five he first appeared before an audience, singing "Throw Out the Lifeline" at a Guelph Sunday school.
Education
Johnson attended local schools and then studied law at the University of Western Ontario, but before taking any examinations he left Canada to study singing in New York. His good looks, beautiful manly tenor, and engaging personality ensured his success.
Johnson received several honorary degrees, and in 1928 he gave $25, 000 to further musical education in his Canadian birthplace, Guelph.
Career
A soloist's job at the Brick Church on Fifth Avenue enabled Johnson to pursue his studies, and he was soon a sought-after performer. In one season, he appeared in forty-eight cities and towns in the United States in song recitals, concert versions of operas, and oratorios. His first professional engagement in New York was in Elgar's The Apostles, with the Oratorio Society. Johnson appeared in English-language performances of Aida, Faust, Carmen, Cavalleria Rusticana, The Damnation of Faust, The Flying Dutchman, and Il Trovatore.
In late 1907, Johnson was persuaded by a friend, the bass Herbert Witherspoon, to audition for the role of Lieutenant Niki in Oscar Strauss's operetta A Waltz Dream, which was being prepared for a Broadway opening. The role's seven high B naturals required an operatic voice. Johnson was reluctant to accept the part, but as Musical America reported at the time, he received an offer too tempting to refuse. The weekly salary was $500, and he was excused from the two matinees (an understudy was to be paid $200 for those performances). Johnson hired himself as his own understudy and thus received $700, the highest salary paid a tenor on Broadway. This business acumen was to characterize his entire career. A Waltz Dream opened in January 1908 and was hugely successful. Johnson immediately became a great favorite with the public. The show ran for four months, and besides the music was noted for a forty-five-second kiss between Johnson and his leading lady, Sophie Brandt. Newspapers breathlessly reported that some members of the audience timed the kiss with stopwatches at every performance.
Rejecting a career in operetta, Johnson left the United States in the summer of 1908 to study opera in Europe. He had auditioned for, and impressed, Enrico Caruso, who recommended Johnson to Vincenzo Lombardi, the great tenor's own teacher. By 1911, Johnson was ready. Under the name Edoardo di Giovanni, Edward Johnson made his debut in Andrea Chenier at Padua. Within two years, he was singing at La Scala, Milan, and was being called Italy's leading dramatic tenor. His repertoire ranged from Tristan to Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi. He was the first Parsifal in Italy. In 1919, Johnson's wife died, and he returned to America with his ten-year-old daughter, Fiorenza, where on November 30, 1919, Johnson made his debut with the Chicago Opera - under the name Edward Johnson. As Loris, in Giordano's Fedora, he stopped the show with the famous, albeit brief, romanza and was obliged to repeat the aria before the opera could continue. Johnson appeared regularly at Chicago until 1922, when he joined the Metropolitan Opera. Johnson's debut at the Metropolitan, as Avito in L'Amore dei Tre Re, was a resounding success, and for the next thirteen years he was a favorite tenor at that house. For many operagoers there was no other Pelléas, Rodolpho, or Romeo, especially when he sang opposite Lucrezia Bori. Johnson sang twenty-three roles with the Metropolitan in 208 performances, including the lead in the world premieres of Peter Ibbetson, The King's Henchman, and Merry Mount. In his first season, he appeared in ten different operas in less than three months. His appearance in the first Metropolitan performance of Pélleas et Mélisande on March 21, 1925, was the first of thirty-two times he would sing the part with the Metropolitan Opera. He and Bori became the very personification of the two lovers for Met audiences.
Johnson was also a popular speaker and writer, and he was generally conceded to be the most popular man at the Metropolitan. While still at the peak of his performing career, at the age of forty-seven, Johnson entered a new career. Giulio Gatti-Casazza had retired as general manager of the Metropolitan Opera and his successor, Herbert Witherspoon, Johnson's old friend, died before assuming the position. Johnson was prevailed upon by the board of directors to become general manager. With the nation in the midst of the Great Depression, and the Metropolitan Opera fighting to survive, Johnson accepted the challenge. Opening night, December 16, 1935, was one of the most glittering in Metropolitan history. He had obviously decided to "put out more flags, " and the performance on stage reflected the glamour of the opening-night audience. The opera was La Traviata and starred Bori, Richard Crooks, and Lawrence Tibbett. The new regime had served notice that the show would go on. After Johnson, it would no longer be necessary for an American artist to become an Edoardo di Giovanni to have a career. Among his discoveries were Richard Tucker, Jan Peerce, Risë Stevens, Helen Traubel, Eleanor Steber, Robert Merrill, Leonard Warren, Dorothy Kirsten, Regina Resnik, Blanche Thebom, and Jerome Hines. European singers continued to be mainstays of the house, and Johnson introduced such legendary figures as Zinka Milanov, Jussi Bjoerling, Licia Albanese, and Ljuba Welitsch; and it was under his aegis that Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior came to represent Wagnerian opera for millions of Americans. Johnson produced seventy-two operas in all and must be credited with making Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro popular. He also successfully revived Falstaff and Otello and hired Bruno Walter, Sir Thomas Beecham, George Szell, Fritz Busch, and Fritz Reiner to conduct at the Met. His belief that opera should be accessible to everyone was realized on the tours and the radio broadcasts. Seven of his fifteen seasons ended in the black.
After his retirement in 1950, the entire company honored him at a gala benefit (produced by Bori) in the Opera House. He then returned to the town where he was born. He stayed in music, however, as chairman of the board of the Royal Conservatory of Music at the University of Toronto. He died in Guelph, while attending a ballet performance, on April 20, 1959.
Achievements
Personality
Johnson's matinee idol appearance, superior acting ability, and great musical intelligence - combined with a uniquely beautiful voice - enthralled his audiences. His talks and articles reveal a man of intellect and good sense-with an unfailing sense of humor. His good manners and lack of pretension endeared him to colleagues and employees. He lived in a three-room walkup apartment on Madison Avenue and disdained a car and driver, preferring to walk to work.
Quotes from others about the person
As W. J. Henderson wrote of the 1933 revival of Roméo et Juliette, "Johnson's vocal powers were at their zenith. " A fellow critic reported of the same performance that the house was "held spellbound by the beauty of acting and glory of voice. "
As Francis Robinson observed at a 1960 memorial tribute, "There was not one of us who wouldn't have gone out and died for him. "
Connections
In 1919, Johnson's wife, the Countess Beatrice d'Arneiro, whom he had married in Paris on August 2, 1909, died.