WESTSIDER JAN PEERCE
The man with the golden voice
3-22-80
In December 1979, in a benefit concert at the Alvin Theatre, about a dozen Broadway stars of the past and present strode to the microphone to sing some of the songs they made famous. John Raitt, Alan Jones, Jack Gilford, Michael Moriarty, Delores Wilson and others received waves of enthusiastic applause from the packed house. But when a short, stocky, barrel-chested man with thick eyeglasses and a nose like Jimmy Durante's shuffled to center stage, the audience didn't merely cheer: it erupted. And when 75-year-old Jan Peerce finished his two arias, he was prevailed upon to give the only encore of the evening. Appropriately enough, his choice was "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof, the show in which he made his Broadway debut at the age of 67.
Although Peerce has been one of America's most beloved singers for almost half a century, it was not for sentimental reasons alone that he was treated with such acclaim that evening. He still has one of the clearest, strongest, sweetest tenor voices in the business, and his repertoire is enormous. Besides arias and showtunes, he performs ballads, German lieder, French contemporary songs, cantorial and oratory music with equal facility. In order to keep his voice in top form, he now limits his concerts to about 50 a year, but last summer, on a tour of Australia, he did 17 concerts in 21 days.
"I vocalize every day of my life, I keep observing the laws of decent living, and I face every booking as it was my first," he says in a recent telephone interview, contacted at his Westside apartment. "I believe in the adage that the show must go on, but you must not go out at the expense of your health, or impair the quality of your voice by singing against nature."
This fall will find him doing a one-man show at Carnegie Hall. In addition to his regular schedule of cross-country concerts, he makes cruises of the Caribbean several times each year aboard the SS Rotterdam.
His parents were Orthodox Jews who had immigrated from Russia, and they were able to afford violin lessons for him by taking in lodgers at the Lower East Side apartment where he grew up. Born under the name Jacob Pincus Perelmuth, he began his career working primarily as a violinist and bandleader in the Catskills. In 1929 he married his childhood sweetheart, Alice Kalmanowitz, and three years later was discovered by the great showman Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel, who hired him as a featured singer at the new Radio City Music Hall.
"People on Broadway said I belonged in opera," recalls Peerce, "and opera people said I belonged on Broadway. But when Roxy gave me my break, things began to happen. And then came Toscanini. He hired me to sing with his NBC Symphony of the Air. And when he accepted me, that sort of clinched things. People said, "If he's good enough for Toscanini, this guy must be good.'"
For 15 years, Arturo Toscanini preferred Peerce to all other tenors in the world. Meanwhile, in 1941, Peerce had joined the Metropolitan Opera. There he sang the major tenor roles up until 1968, when, after losing the sight in one eye, he retired from the Met and began to concentrate on recitals. In 1976 he published his memoirs, The Bluebird of Happiness, named after his recording that has sold 1.5 million copies. Peerce has made dozens of other recordings, including many complete operas.
A deeply religious man, long noted for his humanitarian efforts, Peerce is particularly supportive of Bonds for Israel. "My wife Alice is the only woman on the board of governors. She's the chairperson," he says proudly. "It's to help Israel build and keep building, and develop to the point where she belongs. She's growing beautifully, and she will grow even more."
The Peerces, who have two daughters and a son, maintain a house in New Rochelle as well as the Westside apartment that they have had for the past 15 years. Although Jan Peerce stopped playing the violin long ago, he is still a dues-paying member of the local violinists' union. "One day I asked them if they could give me an honorary membership," he chuckles, revealing his famous offbeat humor. "They said they were very sorry, they couldn't do it. I said why not, and they said, 'All our honorary members are dead.'"
Another time, when he was the guest of honor at a dinner party, the hostess, seated next to him, chatted with such energy that Peerce had trouble getting in a single word. He got his chance when the waiter brought around a tray of assorted salad dressings. The gabby woman asked, "Mr. Peerce, how do you usually eat your salad?"
"In complete silence, madame," he replied.
Of the dozens of conductors he has worked with, Peerce is quick to name Toscanini his favorite. "First of all, he was a great man, and second of all, he was a genius musically. He had no tricks, except that he had a certain vision about the music. He made everybody sing or play as the composer meant it to be. And that was the secret of his success. He was an inspiration to anybody who worked with him or under him."