One of my all-time favorite singers, Mignon Dunn (above, as Carmen), has passed away at the age of 98.
A Tennessee native, Ms. Dunn studied with Karin Branzell and (later) with Beverley Peck Johnson. She made her operatic debut in New Orleans as Carmen in 1955.
I started to hear Ms. Dunn in smaller roles on some of her first Metropolitan Opera weekly radio broadcasts back in the early 1960s. Even is these brief but important character roles, Mignon’s voice stood out. She even sang the Shepherd in TOSCA!
As time passed, her repertoire grew steadily, and soon she was singing Venus, Brangaene, Azucena, Amneris, Suzuki, the Princesse de Bouillon, Ulrica, Marina in BORIS GODUNOV, Dalila, Carmen, the Nurse in FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, Herodias, Anna in LES TROYENS, Fricka, both La Cieca and Laura in LA GIOCONDA, Santuzza, Venus, and Kundry. One of her greatest triumphs came in 1977 as Ortrud in LOHENGRIN opposite Pilar Lorengar and Rene Kollo. I saw her in many of these roles, and met her at the stage door, where she was always most cordial.
While she sang at such prominent opera centers as Milan, Paris, London, Vienna, Moscow, Verona, and Buenos Aires, The Met was ever her home: she gave over 650 performances there between her debut as the Nurse in BORIS GODUNOV in 1958 and her farewell – as Klytemnestra – in 1994.
Mignon sings “Amour, viens aider ma faiblesse” from SAMSON & DALILA at a MET Marathon in 1975:
Listen to Mignon as the Nurse in the finale of Act II of Strauss’s FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN in Chicago in 1984. Marilyn Zschau is the Dyer’s Wife. Mignon’s final note brings down the house.
In addition to her many radio broadcasts, Mignon appeared in MET telecasts, most notably in an unforgettable ELEKTRA wherein she, Birgit Nilsson, Leonie Rysanek, and Maestro Levine basked in an endless ovation:
I hope the four of them are having a grand old time in Heaven.
~ Oberon
