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Helen Jepson was an American lyric soprano noted for being a "stunning blond beauty" as well as for her voice.
She was born in Titusville, Pennsylvania on November 28, 1904 and raised in Akron, Ohio, where she studied voice performed in high school operatic productions. She attended the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia on scholarship. She sang with the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company and formed a four singer group called "The Mississippi Misses", traveling "6,000 miles in 12 weeks giving concerts in 87 towns".
Her professional success accelerated in Philadelphia leading to a move to New York City with her husband, flautist George Poselle. Her career in radio began in 1933 with a performance with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Philip James. The broadcast was only local to New Jersey. She would later perform on the radio with bandleaders Paul Whiteman and Rudy Vallee also. She was selected as Most Important New Air Personality of 1934".
Her radio broadcasts attracted the attention of the Metropolitan Opera and her debut there was in John Laurence Seymour's one-act opera In the Pasha's Garden. Her husband also found employment at the Met. She sang lead soprano with the Metropolitan Opera from 1935 to 1941. Some of her best known roles while at the Met include Desdemona and Marguerite. The Faust recording is still in print, as is her recording of Porgy and Bess; she was the first soprano to record in that role, and the extant recording of her was supervised by Gershwin himself.
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