Jenny Touret

(1900 - 1973)

Born in Russia, Tourel emigrated to France with her family during the Russian Revolution.  It was there that she received early training by a well-known opera house conductor who engaged her for ten years to star at the Opera Comique.  When the Nazis invaded France, she escaped by foot to Portugal and later found her way to the United States.  After several failed attempts to enter the American musical world, she sang with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra, finally debuting at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her later career consisted largely of recitals, where her beautiful voice and impressive repertoire earned her many loyal supporters.  She taught at Julliard in New York and at Samuel Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem and, to the celebrate the end of the Six-Day War, she sang Leonard Bernstein's Jeremiah Symphony - which he had written with her voice in mine - atop Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.

Sources: Jewish Women's Archive