Irene J. Caplan, 97,

DALTON, Mass. — Irene Jordan Caplan, 97, a native of Birmingham, Ala., died on May 13, 2016, at Craneville Place in Dalton, where she resided since 2008. Mrs. Caplan was formerly a resident of Plainfield, Mass., and New Rochelle, N.Y.

Born April 25, 1919, in Birmingham, daughter of the late Eugene and Sara Ann (Whitehurst) Jordan, she attended schools in Birmingham and graduated in 1939 from Judson College in Marion, Ala., where she majored in voice and drama. Miss Jordan taught in the music department at Judson during the 1939-1940 and 1942-1943 school years.

In 1940 she moved to New York City, where she pursued a music career and studied singing, ballet, German, French and Italian. She worked in choruses and roles in summer theater and on Broadway. In 1946 she auditioned for NBC radio and was awarded a weekly radio show called “Songs by Irene” accompanied by the NBC Symphony. In the same year she auditioned at the Metropolitan Opera Company and was given a three-year contract as a mezzo-soprano and made her debut that year in “Lakmè” on opening night at the Met. 

After being retrained as a soprano, Miss Jordan returned to the Metropolitan Opera in 1957 to sing the dramatic coloratura role of Queen of the Night in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” In addition to her career at the Met, she sang with major symphony orchestras and opera companies in the US and around the world. In 1961, recommended by Leonard Bernstein, she won a Ford Foundation Grant presented to the “Top Ten American Performing Artists.”

A critically acclaimed actress, her repertoire included Shakespearean arias. Among her successes, she performed for six weeks at the Stratford Ontario Shakespearean Festival in 1959 and with Agnes Moorehead in a Shakespearean program at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964. Miss Jordan also gave concerts on behalf of the Southern Baptist Foreign Missions Board in Lebanon, Germany, Trinidad, Venezuela, Ecuador and Nigeria. 

A teacher as well as an artist, she taught voice at Northwestern University, Eastman School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, The King’s College and Kennesaw College.

Her brilliant career spanned six decades. Her last major public appearance was in the summer of 1999 at age 80 performing Braham’s “Songs for Voice and Viola” with the Mohawk Trail Concert Series in Charlemont, Mass.

In 1947, Miss Jordan married the late Arnold Caplan, a first violinist with the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. They had four children: Joel Caplan of Tarrytown, N.Y.; the late Rosebeth Miller; Rowen Caplan of Plainfield Mass.; and David Caplan of Norwalk, Conn. Mrs. Caplan is survived by one brother, David Jordan of Birmingham; plus five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Funeral notice: A Memorial Service is being planned for a later date in the Plainfield Congregational Church.  

The Flynn & Dagnoli-Bencivenga Home for Funerals is in charge of arrangements.