Opera Singer. A mezzo soprano who later retrained as a coloratura soprano, she shall be best remembered for her career at the Metropolitan Opera. The child of a musical family, she was raised in Birmingham and at 16 entered Judson College to study voice. Following her 1939 graduation, she relocated to New York City where she continued training while working as a Broadway chorister; hired by NBC in 1946, she had her own 15 minute weekly radio show entitled "Songs By Irene", then after an audition she made her November 11, 1946 Metropolitan Opera bow as Mallika from Leo Delibes' "Lakme". Over the next two seasons she was heard 70 times, her assignments including Feodor of Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov", a Page in Verdi's "Rigoletto", a Genie from Mozart's "The Magic Flute", the Second Esquire of Wagner's "Parsifal", a Peasant in Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", Kate Pinkerton of Puccini's "Madame Butterfly", and Flora from Verdi's "La Traviata". In 1947, Irene married Met violinist Arnold Caplan and largely withdrew from the stage to raise her family, though she did return to the Metropolitan one last time on March 23, 1957 in the leading coloratura role of The Queen of the Night in "The Magic Flute", an effort that was not well received. A Shakespearean actress of some renown, in 1959 she had a six week run at the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival, then in 1964 undertook an extensive singing tour to raise money for the Southern Baptist Foreign Missions Board. Irene taught at the Eastman School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and elsewhere, received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater in 1969, was active in her church, and retained her vocal prowess, last being heard in public with a 1999 recital of Brahms songs. She lived out her days in a nursing facility and died of the effects of advanced age.