Death of Juilliard’s voice legend

The death has been made public of Marlena Kleinman Malas, dean of admission at Chataqua, also known comically as ‘the diva of rejection’. She was 87.

Marlena, a mezzo, taught in the voice faculty at Juilliard for three decades. She also founded the summer programme for young singers at the Chautauqua Institution. Her star students included Susan Graham, Neil Shicoff and Tatiana Troyanos. She touched many lives.

She was married to the bass-baritone Spiro Malas, who died in 2019.

James Gandre, president of Manhattan School of Music, writes:

It is always heartbreaking to lose a long-standing and valued faculty member, but this

loss is very personal to me as Marlena was my last teacher. Because of that personal

relationship, I wanted to take a moment to share some of my foundational experiences

with her.

I met and worked with her in 1984 at the Blossom Music Festival. At that time, I was

living in San Francisco where I had completed my master’s degree. In several lessons

that summer, I realized I had found the person who would bring to my singing

heightened technique, critical skills that I desperately needed. Four months later I was

living in NYC and studying with her here at MSM as a non-degree student. Although my

life ultimately went in a different direction, that decision to study with her over a longer

term changed my life, as my connection with MSM started because of her.

We stayed in touch and became friends over what was to become a 39-year

relationship, and when I was later a college dean in Chicago, I brought her to my college

annually to teach master classes. More recently, when Neidorff-Karpati Hall was being

renovated, Mrs. Neidorff asked that Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy be performed at the

Hall’s 2018 re-opening and that I sing. Although I initially resisted the idea – mainly

because I hadn’t sung on stage in several years – Mrs. Neidorff persisted. So, the

only route I had was to go to Marlena for lessons, this after not having seen her in the

studio for more than three decades. We worked together and she got me in shape to

sing that concert. It was a joy to once again work with her in that teacher/student

relationship.

I would posit that Marlena loved teaching as much or more than anything else in her

life. Even as she battled cancer four times, she kept teaching through most of her

treatments. The last time I saw her was about three months ago, and we had dinner

along with my husband Boris and her long-time and dearest friend Claudia Catania (an

MSM alumna and current member of the Musical Theatre voice faculty). We had a

lovely time chatting and laughing, but when a performance of one of her long-time

students was about to begin at the Aspen Music Festival, she went right to her iPad and

listened, analyzing each moment with great clarity and laser focus.

She was an amazing person and extraordinary pedagogue. MSM is that much better

because she came here to teach 41 years ago. Personally, I will miss her greatly, but I

am also so very thankful that she was part of my life, and that she quite literally brought

me to MSM.