Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon
Born Margaret McEathron in Altadena, California, Nixon began singing at an early age in choruses. At the age of 14, she became part of the newly formed Los Angeles Concert Youth Chorus under conductor Roger Wagner; this choir evolved into the Roger Wagner Chorale in 1948, and later into the Los Angeles Master Chorale in 1964.
She went on to study singing and opera with Carl Ebert, Jan Popper, Boris Goldovsky and Sarah Caldwell. She embarked on a varied career, involving film and musical comedy as well as opera and concerts. She appeared on American television, dubbed the singing voices of film actresses in The King and I, West Side Story and My Fair Lady, and acted in several commercial stage ventures. She has performed works by Anton Webern, Igor Stravinsky, Charles Ives, Paul Hindemith andAlexander Goehr, many of which she has also recorded.
Marni Nixon
Nixon’s opera repertory includes Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, both Blonde and Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Violetta in La traviata, the title role in La Périchole and Philine in Mignon. Her opera credits include performances at Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera and the Tanglewood Festival among others. In addition to giving recitals, she appeared with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra among others. Marni Nixon taught at the California Institute of Arts from 1969–1971 and joined the faculty of the Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, in 1980 where she taught for many years.