Mary McCormic

Mary McCormic (November 11, 1889^[1] – February 10, 1981) was an American operatic soprano and a professor of opera at the University of North Texas College of Music (1945–1960).

For more than a decade (early 1920s to late 1930s), McCormic was among the most famous sopranos in the world. She was most known for her leading roles with the Paris National Opera, the Opéra-Comique (14 years), the Monte Carlo Opera, and the Chicago Civic Opera (10 years). She spent much of 1937 touring with the Kryl Symphony Orchestra.^[2]

McCormic was born in Belleville, Arkansas. A onetime obscure Arkansas housewife, McCormic rose to stardom and enjoyed a colorful personal life — four marriages and four divorces (men of no resemblance to one another), almost a fifth, a high-dollar lawsuit defense for assaulting an unauthorized female biographer, boom and bust personal wealth, witty humor, and brush with royalty. McCormic captured world intrigue with the panache of the operas she starred in, all with the backdrop of being born at the end of the Gilded Age, growing up as a teenager during World War I, flourishing as an opera superstar through the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition, the Jazz Age, the Great Crash, and failing in her last two high-profile marriages in the throes of the Great Depression. She died, in her eighties, in Amarillo, Texas.

Selected singing roles

Chicago Opera Association

• 1921-1922 Season — Operatic debut as Micaela in Carmen. McCormic was a protégé of Mary Garden, who, rather than sing, debuted as General Director for what became the final year of Chicago Opera Association.
• 1922, Feb 1 & 8 — New York debut as Musetta in La Boheme at the Manhattan Opera House.

Chicago Civic Opera

• 1923 — Referred to as "the Cowgirl Soprano" by The New York Times, McCormic and Charles Marshall sang the leading roles in the premier of The Snow Bird, an American one-act opera.^[3][4]

Paris Opera

• July 24, 1926 — McCormic was signally honored by receiving the title role for a special presentation of Romeo and Juliet at the Paris Opera House in honor of Mulai Yusef, Sultan of Morocco.^[5]

Opera Comique

• July 23, 1929 — Opera Comique debut, singing the title role in Manon.^[6] She and William Martin, in July 1927, earned the distinction of being the only American natives singing in leading roles with Opéra-Comique.^[7] McCormic was the first American woman in 60 years to sign a long-term contract with Opera Comique.^[8]

Artistic management

• 1924 — McCormic, early in her career, gained the artist management services of Charles L. Wagner (1869–1956), who also managed world figures that included Mary Garden, Amelita Galli-Curci, Walter Gieseking, Jussi Björling, Alexander Kipnis, and Jeanette MacDonald.
• 1938 — McCormic, later in her career, was managed by Mme. LaReine.^[9]

Early life

Born in Belleville, AR, and reared in Dardanelle, AR, and Ola, AR (all three in Yell County, AR), McCormic, was known growing up as Mamie Harris. Mary McCormic was one of 4 born to:

• John H. Harris (1860, Forsyth, GA - Nov 9, 1946^[10]) and wife,
• Mary Jimmie Harris, née Williard (1865, Tennessee - Dec 31, 1929, Amarillo, TX^[11])

1. Odelle Crawford Harris (July 4, 1886, Belleville, AR - May 26, 1950 Amarillo, TX)
2. Thurman Harris (died young)
3. Mamie Harris (Nov 11, 1889, Belleville, AR – February 10, 1981, Amarillo, TX)
4. Williard Harris (Feb 20, 1892, Yell County, AR - Mar 24, 1949 Amarillo, TX^[12])
5. Norborn Harris (c. 1898 - Feb 10, 1944, San Francisco^[13])

1. Johnnie Harris (a girl, died young)

Mamie's interest in becoming an opera star began at age nine, and continued while attending Ola High School of Ola, Arkansas. She, with her family, moved to Portales, NM, in 1907, then to Amarillo in 1909.

Emil Frey Myers (1886–1957) gave McCormic's her first voice lessons in Amarillo. He was the conductor the Amarillo Civic Chorus and was a major concert promoter in the Texas Panhandle. Myers, with his wife, Lila, founded the Amarillo School of Music, Inc.

McCormic's father and two brothers, Odell and Williard, built a grocery store business — "J H Harris & Sons" and "Harris Food Stores" and "Rolling Stone Stores" (as many as 10 stores located in Borger, Pampa, Dalhart and Amarillo). The business was sold in 1946, shortly before the death of the father. The father, Odell, and Williard also operated a 58,000-acre (230 km²) ranch in Union County, NM, 15 miles (24 km) north of Clayton. The father purchased the first portion of the ranch in 1915.

During a 1914 Tri-State Fair Music Festival in Amarillo, McCormic became aware of the operatic possibilities of her voice.^[14] By way of a Methodist Choir in Chicago and a singing contest sponsored by Mary Garden, her operatic potential became known to others.^[15]

Attending college

McCormic studied music at Ouachita College,^[16] University of Arkansas and then, with the intention of becoming a lyric soprano, Northwestern University where she took vocal lessons.^[17] McCormic became a protégé of Mary Garden (1874–1967). Both McCormic and Garden had been vocal students of Mrs. Sarah Robinson-Duff ( -1934)

Marriages

Quotes on men & marriage

Filmography

• Paddy the Next Best Thing

Teaching at the University of North Texas College of Music

In 1944, Wilfred Bain, dean of the University of North Texas College of Music, recruited Mary McCormic to create and direct an Opera Workshop. McCormic transformed herself from diva to artist-in-residence educator. She founded, defined, directed, and, when necessary, defended the school's first Opera Workshop. She built the Opera Workshop from scratch – on a shoestring budget – molding it over 16 prolific years into what has become her crowning legacy that, for 72 years, has enriched the Southwest. Wilfred Bain went down in history as one of the greatest music school deans of all time. In books and memoirs of accomplishments, Bain often tells of the hiring of Mary McCormic as one of this great accomplishments at North Texas.

The North Texas Opera Workshop was the first collegiate touring opera workshops west of the Mississippi and, at the time of its founding, was the only opera production company in existence in the Southwest. The San Antonio Grand Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera in the Heights and others were not yet in existence.

Through the opera workshop, McCormic pioneered an approach to opera in an era that wiped out major opera companies on the heels of the Great Depression. The new "low-cost workshop" model also offered new opportunities for composers who otherwise would never have their operas produced. And the workshop model gave hope for opera itself, when many in the world dismissed opera as a bygone luxury of the rich. The new "low cost model" also gave access in regions of the world that otherwise had little hope of having opera.

Under McCormic, the opera workshop performed locally, toured, and did broadcasts in radio and TV often with near quality of a reputable professional company.

When the Dallas Opera was founded in 1957, the UNT Opera Workshop and Vocal Studies provided a steady supply of singers for the Dallas Opera Chorus.

In 1966, McCormic retired and moved to Amarillo to make her home with her widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. Odell Harris.

The UNT Opera Workshop is an integral part of one of the most comprehensive music schools in the world; a school that, since the 1940s, has been among the largest in the country, and in recent years, holds the largest enrollment of any music institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.^[27] The UNT College of Music is also the oldest (and first) in the world to offer a degree in jazz studies.

UNT Opera Workshop Productions

Directed by Mary McCormic

Composition dedicated to McCormic

• Blanche Robinson (Mrs. Martin Hennion Robinson) (née Williams b. May 18, 1883, near Liberty, Kansas; d. Aug 1969, Los Angeles, CA) composed Love Was a Beggar for Mary McCormic.

References

External links

Mary is buried at Llano Cemetery, Amarillo in section D, lot 6 space 1 (Feb. 12, 1981). By her is:

Pat Harris, Section D lot 6 space 1A (Feb. 22, 1993)

Mary Elizabeth Harris, Section D lot 6 space 2 (Feb. 6, 1990)

Willard Harris, Section D lot 6 space 2 (Mar. 26, 1949)

• McCormic's Grave Marker and Llano Cemetery in Amarillo
• Biography of Mary McCormic (in German), Operissimo Concertissimo, Milan, Zurich