Count John Francis McCormack[1] (14 June 1884 – 16 September 1945),[2] was an Irish lyric tenor celebrated for his performances of the operatic and popular song repertoires, and renowned for his diction and breath control.

Sabatini found McCormack's voice naturally tuned and concentrated on perfecting his breath control, an element that would become part of the basis of his renown as a vocalist.

The next year, he began his first important operatic performance at Covent Garden in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, becoming the theatre's youngest principal tenor.

Steane ("The Grand Tradition" 1971) stresses that, for all his later devotion to the concert platform (and his Irish identity), he was (for albeit a relatively brief period) in essence an Italian operatic tenor.

In February 1911, McCormack played Lieutenant Paul Merrill in the world premiere of Victor Herbert's opera Natoma with Mary Garden in the title role.

By 1912, he was beginning to become involved increasingly with concert performances, where his voice quality and charisma ensured that he became the most celebrated lyric tenor of his time.

McCormack was associated particularly with the songs of Thomas Moore, notably "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls", "The Minstrel Boy", "Believe Me If All (Those Endearing Young Charms)", and "The Last Rose of Summer".

[9] In 1927, McCormack moved into Moore Abbey, Monasterevin, County Kildare, and adopted a very opulent lifestyle by Irish standards.

McCormack used his salary for this movie to purchase the estate and built a mansion he called "San Patrizio", after Saint Patrick.

The McCormacks made many friends in Hollywood, among them Errol Flynn, Will Rogers, John Barrymore, Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman, Charles E. Toberman and the Dohenys.

McCormack married Lily Foley in 1906; they had two children, Cyril and Gwen.Ill with emphysema, he bought a house near the sea, "Glena", Booterstown, Dublin.

[c] After years of increasingly poor health, and a series of infectious illnesses, including influenza and pneumonia, McCormack died at his home in Booterstown on 16 September 1945.

One of the most famous performances of McCormack's Irish career was his singing of César Franck's Panis angelicus to the hundreds of thousands who thronged Dublin's Phoenix Park for the 1932 Eucharistic Congress.

The street is near the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and commemorates McCormack's role in supporting its construction by singing a benefit recital in 1928.