Opera mezzo soprano Dorothy Cole leaves legacy behind at 71

SEATTLE -- Dorothy Cole, who went from singing for diners on Mount Rainier to an opera career as a Valkyrie, witch, goddess and dozens of other supporting roles with leading companies, is dead at 71.\nCole, best known for her performances in works by Richard Wagner, died Sunday of congestive heart failure, relatives and professional associates said.\nA mezzo soprano, she performed at San Francisco Opera and other major companies, toured with Luciano Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland and sang supporting roles in a number of recordings, including Sutherland's "Live in Australia 1965." Cole also brought her full, rounded tone to the first Wagner Ring cycles that brought world attention to the Seattle Opera in the 1960s and 70s.\nBorn in Waukegan, Ill., she completed high school at age 15, visited Seattle and by chance sang for University of Washington conductor Stanley Chapple, who immediately gave her a four-year scholarship, said Jolly Miller, Cole's husband of 37 years. One of Cole's early jobs was at the Paradise Inn in Mount Rainier National Park, accompanied by future Seattle Opera colleague Gordon Grant as Everest climbers--to--be Jim and Lou Whittaker rappelled from the ceiling during "Climb Ev'ry Mountain."\nCole's opera career began after she finished first among 101 young singers in the first Northwest Regional auditions of the Metropolitan Opera National Council and went on to win the Met's national auditions in 1956.\nShe won a Fulbright grant to study in Europe, then moved to New York and was invited by Sutherland to join a six-month operatic tour of Australia with Pavarotti.\n"Every night they went back to the hotel and Luciano made the pasta and Dori made the salad," Miller said. "Much later, when Pavarotti came to Seattle, he found out Dori was in the audience, and he invited us back to the hotel -- where he made the pasta and she made the salad."\nA memorial concert is planned.