Helen Traubel Biography

Fast Facts

• Made her performance debut as a soloist at the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in December 1923
• Made her Metropolitan Opera debut in May 1937 in the role of Mary Rutledge in the world premiere of "The Man without a Country" by Walter Damrosch
• Began performing in nightclubs in the 1950s after the Metropolitan Opera failed to renew her contract in 1953, performing songs like "St․ Louis Blues" and "Bill Bailey Please Come Home" in between operatic arias
• Performed excerpts from Wagnerian operas at Carnegie Hall with tenor Lauritz Melchior in a live broadcast for the NBC Symphony Orchestra in February 1941
• Best known as a soprano singer who performed in operas and concerts across America
• After it was discovered that she could also do comedy, she began doing shows with the likes of Jimmy Durante, Red Skelton, and Groucho Marx
• Played the role of Anna Mueller in the film "Deep in My Heart" in 1954, in which she performed a song and dance number with Jose Ferrer
• Wrote two mystery novels, "The Ptomaine Canary" and "The Metropolitan Opera Murders," as well as an autobiography in 1959 called "St․ Louis Woman․"
• Although she later became well-known for her Wagnerian operas, her first regular performance at the Metropolitan Opera was as Sieglinde in "Die Walküre" because the company already had two Wagnerian sopranos: Kirsten Flagstad and Marjorie Lawrence
• Wanted to sing Italian opera but never did a complete performance, although she did include Italian arias in her recitals