REMEMBERING Jan Peerce -(1904-1984) Now Playing: YouTube post Topic: CLASSICAL VIDEOs Singing "Questa O Quella" from "Rigoletto" by Giuseppe Verdi. Jan Peerce with Beersheba Chamber Orchestra, Mendi Rodan, conductor Recorded in 1982. Jan Peerce's birth name was Jacob Pincus Perelmuth, he grew up in New York and remained devoutly religious all his life. He was a trained violinist and also sang popular songs when it was discovered almost by accident, that he had an unusually good voice. This brought him an engagement with the Radio City Music Hall company from which he moved on to make his operatic debut in Philadelphia in 1938. He finally arrived at New York Metropolitan Opera in 1941. While his operatic home was to remain the Met, for just about all his career, he also sang abroad and was a sensation when he visited Russia in 1956. He enjoyed a particularly long career, singing well into his 70's. He was also brother-in-law of tenor Richard Tucker, with whom he shared
an intensely personal and professional rivalry.