Marilyn Cotlow

Marilyn Rose Cotlow (born January 10, 1924) is an American lyric coloratura soprano best remembered for creating the role of Lucy in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone in both the original Broadway and West End productions.

[4] While she was in Junior High School the Cotlow family lived in the home of Mr. Cunningham, a bass player with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.

[4] Cotlow's father moved the family of five to Los Angeles in 1936 during the Great Depression in an effort to find work as an attorney.

[2] The following summer she performed the role of Blondchen in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio Central City Opera (CCO) with Eleanor Steber, Felix Knight, and Jerome Hines.

[4][3] She returned to the CCO in the summer of 1948 to perform as Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte in a production staged by Herbert Graf with sets by Donald Oenslager.

[8] Upon arriving in New York, Cotlow auditioned for several parts and heard that Efrem Zimbalist Jr., and Chandler Cowles were producing a double bill of opera on Broadway.

The operas were The Telephone, or L'Amour à trois and The Medium by a young Italian composer, Gian Carlo Menotti.

[9] The double bill premiered on February 18, 1947, at the Heckscher Theater, and the Broadway production opened on May 1, 1947, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and remained for more than 7 months.

[14] In September 1947 Cotlow performed the role of Rosina in The Barber of Seville at Philharmonic Auditorium with the American Opera Company of Los Angeles.

[18] Music critic Oliver J. Gingold wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "Marilyn Cotlow made her debut as Philine in Mignon and is a sterling artist.

[24] That same year she starred in Oscar Straus's The Chocolate Soldier in Toronto, and as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata at the New Orleans Opera.

[1] In 1956 she performed a concert of opera arias and duets with tenor Brian Sullivan and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) under conductor Alfredo Antonini.

[29] In 1957 she performed a program of opera excerpts from works by Offenbach with the CSO under Julius Rudel with bass Joshua Hecht.

[33] In 1979 she starred in the world premiere of Thomas Czerny-Hydzik's The Tell-Tale Heart; an opera adaptation of the 1843 short story by Edgar Allan Poe.