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ALIDA AUGEN (nee
Alida Margaret Stahl) had the
great good fortune to be born to the beautiful concert pianist, Jeanette van
Dorsten Stahl (soloist at Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall and Aeolian Hall in
New York City), and the
sterling trumpet virtuoso, R. Crawford Stahl (twice National Trumpet
Champion and the first Rochester Prize Scholar at The Eastman School of
Music). She was raised in a
joyous, musical household and has sung all of her life.
With the luxury of having her mother as her piano teacher and
brilliant accompanist and her excellent father as her first violin teacher
and the choir director at the church where she sang growing up, Alida has
always been making music. It followed that she always sang the soprano solos, got the
leading roles in the school musicals and sat concertmistress of all her
school orchestras. And it
follows that her daughter, Jenna Augen, has been living much the same life
in her school career.
Alida’s music education
continued at Binghamton University, where she earned her B.A. in music and
studied voice with William Lewis of The Metropolitan Opera,
Roberta Schlosser (one of her father’s classmates at The Eastman
School of Music) and coached with Stevenson Barrett, also of The Eastman
School of Music. She continued
her voice studies at The Chautauqua Institution with Josephine Antoine
(Eastman faculty) and at The Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia with
Dorothy DiScala. Voice studies
continued in New York with Bernard Taylor (Juilliard faculty) and the
renowned Franco Iglesias. She
studied stagecraft in New York with James Lucas and coached in Connecticut
with Joan Brainerd Noland.
Alida has performed
over 40 leading operatic roles with 30 opera companies throughout New
York and New England, singing several of these roles at Lincoln Center:
Mimi in Puccini’s “La Boheme”;
Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata”;
the title role in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”;
and Josephine in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” with
The Little Orchestra Society at Avery Fisher Hall.
According to the press: her
Mimi “glowed with exquisite
tenderness and delicate beauty”; her Violetta’s “effortless soprano generated the real fireworks of the evening”
and she “created a dramatic intensity one seldom feels in larger houses with
their vast spaces” ; and
her Josephine was “performed with an
elegant power that would be hard to top”.
She appeared as Musetta in “La Boheme” and Norina in
Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” at Columbia Artists Hall in New York
(“Miss Augen, remembered for
her glorious and poignant Madama
Butterfly, suprises us with the many-faceted capriciousness and vixen-like
quality of her Norina. She sang
with generous and sweet tone.”). She
was the leading ingénue at Light Opera of
Manhattan for many performances (most often as Rose Maybud in Gilbert
and Sullivan’s “Ruddigore”) and was guest soloist on WQXR’s
“Listening Room” with host Robert Sherman, after which Raymond Ericson
of The New York Times called her Constance in “The Sorcerer” “charming”.
She appeared in leading roles with The
Syracuse Symphony Opera and as soprano soloist with The Syracuse
Symphony and The Binghamton Symphony.
In Connecticut, Miss Augen
has toured as Miss Silverpeal in Mozart’s “Impresario” and as Gretel
in Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” with Opera New England; has
appeared as Mimi in “La Boheme” and Nedda in Leoncavallo’s “I
Pagliacci” with The New Britain Opera and Symphony (“Fiery
Alida Augen does the vixen Nedda with style and insolence.” and
“Alida Augen was a passionate Nedda and
a delightfully mischievous Colombine. Her
voice was lilting and lucid, especially in the famous Ballatella and
“Stridono lassu.”); has
sung these and many other leading roles with Opera Theater of Connecticut,
Stamford State Opera, Waterbury Opera, Norwalk Opera, Connecticut Opera
Alliance and The Danbury Opera and Symphony.
She was the leading soprano with Troupers Light Opera in Stamford for
ten seasons. Subsequent to her
New Britain Opera performances, conductor David Katz wrote the award-winning
opera, “The Light of the Eye” or “Das Augenlicht”, which is named
for Miss Augen and in which she premiered the role of Laura.
She has also premiered two song cycles written for her voice: “Three Romances” by Mr. Katz; and “The Winds of
August” by Rebecca Tobin. She
was the featured guest on WMNR’s “Evening at the Opera”.
Most recently, Miss Augen has appeared as soprano soloist in
Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” at Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood in Lenox,
Massachusetts; as soprano soloist in Haydn’s “Lord Nelson Mass” with
The Danbury Symphony; as soloist in Handel’s “Messiah” with The
Norwalk Chorale and Orchestra and with The Mastersingers of Stamford,
Connecticut; as The Mother in Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors”
(“Alida Augen, splendid as the
mother”), a role she played opposite her daughter, Jenna, in the title
role (“an outstanding Amahl, Jenna
Augen”) for six Christmas
seasons; and several more times as “Madama Butterfly”, Mimi, Violetta
and Nedda. Alida has been both
Visiting Artist in Voice at Newtown High School and the soloist at First
Church of Christ, Scientist, in Stamford, Connecticut, for many years.
She resides in Redding, Connecticut, with her husband, Dr. Leonard H.
Augenlicht, who is Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology at The Albert
Einstein Cancer Center in New York, Associate Director of The Albert
Einstein Cancer Center, Director of Molecular Oncology at Montefiore Medical
Center, and consultant at The National Institutes of Health, The National
Cancer Institute and The American Institute for Cancer Research in
Washington, D.C.; and with
their daughter, the fabulous actress/singer, Jenna Augen.
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