JOHNSON, EDWARD

Edward Johnson was born in 1878 in a small cottage on Verney Street in Guelph and died here in April of 1959 while attending the first preformance of the ational Ballet in Guelph as the Memorial Gardens.

In 1890 Edward Johnson was 12 years old and began singing as a boy soprano in the Norfolk Street Methodist Choir.

He was a musician, impresario and educator. After initial successes on Broadway, he went to Italy to study and emerged as one of the distinguished Tenors of a generation that also produced Caruso, Gigli and Martinelli. He sang for 23 years in the leading opera houses of the world before becoming general manager of the Metropolitan Opera Company (1935-50).

During his tenure in New York and after his retirement and return to Canada, Edward Johnson worked to make opera a popular art on this continent and to develop North American singers.

Edward Johnson was gifted with a rare voice and singing ability. Music was common in his home where his father played the clarinet. Later he took piano lessons at Miss McLean's private school. He learned his trade singing in the Norfolk St Church Choir during the era of Maud Stevenson "Guelph's sweet-voiced singer".

As an amateur he would have been paid something occasionally, but even after studying in New York and several years in Florence, he never sang in Guelph 'professionally'. Whenever he returned during his career as a leading tenor or as manager of the Metropolitan Opera, he sang freely at his old school, at the Opera House for the Presto Club or at the college. Guelph, like other small Canadian towns, did not yet understand professionalism in the arts. Edward, though, understood civic responsibility.