Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, a champion of both Baroque and contemporary opera, passed away July 3 at the age of 52. Her husband, Peter Lieberson, was by her side in their Santa Fe, N.M. home. Although she had battled breast cancer some time ago and cancelled many of her engagements in 2005 and 2006 because of a lower back problem, officials did not reveal the exact cause of Hunt Lieberson’s death.
Hunt Lieberson was the daughter of conductor Randolph Hunt and contralto Marcia Hunt, who survive her, as do a brother and a sister. Another sister died of cancer six years ago. A singer who knew what was important in life, Hunt Lieberson cancelled all of her engagements six years ago to care for her dying sister.
Born in San Francisco in 1954, Lorraine first studied piano and violin, switching to viola at the age of 12, when she also began to sing in school choirs. She studied viola and voice at San Jose State University and upon graduation began a career as a free-lance instrumentalist. In 1979, when Kent Nagano became music director of the Berkley Symphony Orchestra, she was its principal violist.
Sometime later, she left California and attended Boston Conservatory, where she majored in voice but continued to play the viola. In 1988, her uninsured instrument was stolen and she took that as a sign she should continue her career as a singer. By that time, she had already gotten rave reviews for her performance as Sesto in the Peter Sellars production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the Pepsico Summerfare Festival in Purchase, N.Y. She and Sellars liked working together and he used her in several of his updated productions. She was Donna Elvira in his 1987 version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Some years later, she appeared as Irene in Handel’s Theodora at Glyndebourne, and in 2001, she appeared in Sellar’s staged presentation of two Bach cantatas in New York, Paris, and London.
She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Myrtle Wilson in the 1999 premiere of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby. She returned in 2003 to sing Dido in Berlioz’s Les troyens and had been expected to portray Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo e Euridice there this coming season.
Hunt Lieberson met her husband, Peter Lieberson, at Santa Fe Opera. She appeared as Triraksha in the 1997 premiere of his Ashoka’s Dream and they fell deeply in love. They were married two years later. Unfortunately, they were only to have seven years together, but during that time he wrote powerful music for her, which she sang with exquisite grace and a stunningly beautiful tone.
In May 2005, she gave the first performance of his “Neruda Songs,” musical settings of love poems by Chilean writer Pablo Neruda. She first sang them with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the magnificent new Walt Disney Hall, and it was a fitting backdrop for her passionate, soul-searing rendition. Months later, she sang them again with the Boston Symphony, but they ultimately became her swan song.
Critics have often praised Hunt Lieberson’s ability to convey emotion to her audience and increase their appreciation of little known works. Certainly, she did not follow the commonly trodden career path. She chose her own route through the artistic firmament, but she found a secure place among its most brilliant stars. She once told the Boston Globe that “the voice is the music of the soul.” Thanks to her many recordings, we can still hear the consummate beauty that was hers alone.
