MIDPOINT: MERCURY=VENUS/APOLLON

RISE STEVENS, SOPRANO--TEACHERS WERE HER SPRINGBOARD

MERCURY=VENUS/APOLLON  (Venus/Apollon=Music)

In the audience one night was Anna Schoen-René, a well-known voice teacher on the faculty of the Juilliard School. She began teaching Ms. Stevens privately, and arranged for her to attend Juilliard on a scholarship, starting in the fall of 1933.  Ms. Stevens spent two and a half years at Juilliard, where she continued her studies with Mlle. Schoen-René. Though Ms. Stevens had been considered a contralto, Mlle. Schoen-René discerned her true vocal register and helped lighten her voice for mezzo roles. In 1935, financed by Mlle. Schoen-René, Ms. Stevens spent the summer at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where her teachers included the distinguished soprano Marie Gutheil-Schoder.

Fom there, she joined the Metropolitan Opera.

She was a Gemini w Saturn in Gemini too.