Robert Rounseville

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Robert Rounseville (1914-1974) was an American tenor, who appeared in opera, operetta, and Broadway musicals. He also appeared in two films. He is perhaps best known to opera buffs for starring in the role of Hoffmann in Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's film of Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), the first color film of an opera to use genuinely cinematic techniques (as opposed to filming a performance on stage). That same year, he was also the first Tom Rakewell, in the world premiere of Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, onstage at La Fenice. He was fortunate to have as his co-stars Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Jennie Tourel.

In 1956, Rounseville played both his best remembered screen role and one of his most memorable stage roles. In the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel (musical), he portrayed the snobbish fisherman Mr. Snow. In December of that year, he opened on Broadway in the original production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide (musical), playing the title role.

In 1960, he appeared in the role of Nanki-Poo in a Bell Telephone Hour television abridgement of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Mikado, starring Groucho Marx as Ko-Ko, the executioner. He was also an occasional guest star on the musical series The Voice of Firestone.

Rounseville also made a few studio cast recordings of Broadway shows. Among them was a 1952 mono LP - the most complete one made up to that time - of Sigmund Romberg's operetta The Student Prince, in which he starred with Dorothy Kirsten. It went out of print for a very long while, but has since been reissued on CD.

Most frequently, Rounseville appeared in modest revivals of operettas and musicals at the New York City Center, in shows such as Brigadoon (as Charlie Dalrymple) and Show Boat (as Gaylord Ravenal). But in 1965, he returned in a major Broadway production, when he appeared as the priest in the original stage version of Man of La Mancha.

Rounseville died quite suddenly only nine years later. Theatre World reported that he collapsed from a heart attack while teaching a singing class.