It Started with a Song 

By Shlomo Newfield, MD

I was a shy, nerdy, ten-year-old who liked to sing. This is the story of how I wound up on Broadway, in the Boy’s Chorus of the world-famous Metropolitan Opera—and how it had a lifelong effect on me. I learned to aim high and reach for the stars. 

My mother, Ruth Newfield, a staunch Yiddishist, was born to immigrant parents and raised in a tenement building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She went to college at night and became a public-school teacher. Her unwavering support and encouragement got me started. One summer day, we went on a family trip to Neponsit Beach in the Rockaways. We ran into my mother’s friend, Mrs. Marks, who was a music teacher. My mother had me sing for her, there on the beach. She said, “He has such a wonderful voice. He should sing in the Metropolitan Opera!” 

That gave us the idea. It seemed far-fetched and illusory, but we followed through on it. Mom called the opera house—the old Met—on Broadway and 39th Street in Manhattan and got the date of the Boys Chorus audition. She accompanied me there, shaking like a leaf. I remember walking up the stairs to a large room called Studio Two. I waited for my turn to try out. Maestro Martin played a few bars on the piano and I did my best to sing a song. Needless to say, my performance was not nearly as impressive—actually not impressive at all—as many of the other boys. (At that time, there were no girls in the chorus, unlike today, where it is a co-ed “children’s” chorus.) At any rate, I was not chosen. The first rehearsal was set for a week later and everyone left for home. 

I was terribly disappointed and upset. For days I walked around in a fog. Gloom. Depression. Rejection. Finally, my mother had an inspiration. We would go to the first rehearsal, anyway! And so it was. We walked in. Maestro Martin was in a hurry to begin the rehearsal. Mom whispered a few words to him. He asked me to sing again. I chirped something—don’t ask me what. He said “Fine. Sit down. Let’s get started.” And thus began my operatic career.

The maestro called out to the twenty or so assembled boys, “Everybody sing together!” 

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah—Aah! ...” 

“Again!”

For three seasons, when I was in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, I traveled by subway to the opera house, usually by myself, to rehearsals and performances. At that time, in 1959, subway tokens (does anyone remember them?) cost 30 cents each way. I made a handsome profit, since I got paid three dollars in cash for each performance. Sometimes, after a rehearsal, I splurged and bought a giant Red Delicious apple from a street vendor for twenty-five cents. In the course of my time at the opera, I appeared on stage with Richard Tucker, Franco Corelli, Renata Tebaldi, and other greats in operas such as Tosca, La Boheme, Turandot, La Gioconda, Macbeth, and Boris Godunov. I wouldn’t have missed this opportunity for anything!

The Boys’ Chorus members were on stage mostly to be seen, and incidentally, to be heard. Once we put on our costumes and got a few dabs of yucky makeup we were instantly transformed from ordinary New York kids to Parisian street urchins, Italian choir boys, Chinese peasants, English pages, or sailor children from who knows where. When I first came on stage, I was startled by the bright lights which temporarily blinded me for a few seconds. But soon I adjusted and only had to squint a little. I tried to act “natural” and make it seem as if I was just part of the action going on around me.

From time to time the opera called for more performers such as groups of dancers and supernumeraries (silent actors needed for crowd scenes on stage). The chorus sang. The orchestra played. There was lots of movement, lots of action, and lots of coming and going on stage. This was all totally impressive to a little kid who had never even been in a school play! Of course, I kept all this to myself, and didn’t mention anything to my schoolmates. I surely didn’t want them to know I sang in public, wore paste makeup, and came on stage dressed in white tights. You can call this my secret life.

My mother, whenever she could, would watch the performance from the wings backstage. She was so proud of me—her little tatteleh—on Broadway! One Friday night, my mother was standing in the wings backstage before the curtain went up on Act II of Tosca. Her old childhood friend from the tenement house on the Lower East Side, Richard Tucker, was on stage. The scene was beautifully furnished with a fancy dinner table topped by a candelabra holding burning candles. He turned to my mother and with a smile wished her a “Good Shabbos!”

The illusion of the scenery fascinated me. From the audience's side, it looked like solid stone buildings and castles. But from backstage, it was the flimsiest canvas stretched over rickety wooden frames. Even my childhood sukkah was sturdier. When the curtain came down on a scene, the stage crew immediately broke the sets apart and carried the pieces right out the back door to the waiting trucks parked outside on Seventh Avenue.

The singers and the orchestra were directed by the all-important conductor. He set the pace for the music. When the opera called for singers backstage, they stood looking intently at an assistant maestro perched on a ladder, peeping through a tiny hole in the scenery to get the beat from the maestro in the pit. In addition, there was a prompter in a little box at the front of the stage calling out cues. The stage director paced anxiously in the wings, hoping all his instructions and preparations were being carried out. 

Even the audience, mostly hidden in the darkness of the auditorium, knew how to do its part. When the curtain went up, there was a hush, almost like a thousand people inhaling together. Later, came the coughs and throat clearings, and finally the tumultuous applause. Sometimes this was punctuated with shouts of, “Bravo!” or “Brava!” Of course, at that time, we didn’t have to worry about cell phones going off! All in all, it was a magnificent, complex operation that usually moved along like clockwork.

As a schoolboy, the opera gave me the chance to do something unusual and extraordinary. Something that left an indelible impression on me. As I grew a bit older and more assured of myself, I looked forward to taking on more responsibilities at home and at school. I looked forward to traveling and meeting new friends. I look forward to becoming a scholar and a scientist. I knew I had the talent and ability to work towards important life goals. 

Now I was ready to hit the books, put my nose to the grind, and make my mark on society and the world. The old Metropolitan Opera House, demolished long ago, is but a faded memory, if that. But for me, it lives on as a vibrant and amazing part of my childhood. 

I was not cut out to be an opera singer, or any kind of performer. But I gained the confidence to achieve my goals in life. As the years passed, I decided to become a doctor and took a chance on applying to Harvard Medical School. As I said, I learned to aim high. Fortunately, it worked out in more ways than one, and off I went to spend the next four years in Boston.

It was during this time that, by hashgacha protis, I was introduced to the frum community. I frequented the Bostoner Rebbe’s shtiebel and the Lubavitch shul in Brookline, Massachusetts. Every Motzei Shabbos, I attended the weekly public lectures by Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik, better known as the Rav. My closest connection was with Rabbi Dovid Wichnin, the principal of the Lubavitch Yeshiva in Brookline at the time. He and his rebbetzin hosted me every Shabbos throughout the first two years of my medical school. 

This was followed by an opportunity to participate in medical research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and my choosing the specialty of dermatology. Following my graduation, I joined the Chabad community and moved to Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Boruch Hashem, today, my wife Basha Rayzl and I are the proud parents of many children and grandchildren. 

But something remains from my time in the opera. I still like to sing at the Shabbos table and in shul. A few days ago, I was called upon to recite the brachos on the Chanukah menorah in our little shteibel in Brooklyn. I gave it my best shot, singing with warmth and passion. Afterwards, one of the congregants came up to me and said, “I didn’t know you were a chazzan!” He also didn’t know about my stint in the opera world sixty years ago. 

Here I am in costume for “La Boheme” along with my fellow chorus members. Our “clubhouse” was in a large practice room up four flights of stairs. Next to us was the studio of the Met photographer, Louis Melancon. We constantly snuck into his room and bothered him for discarded prints which covered every conceivable surface from floor to ceiling. The poor guy did not appreciate our company, but occasionally consented to take a picture of us, such as the one above.