In our archival image above, he’s shown singing his big generous Yiddish heart out in a broadcast for Forward studio audience listeners, as well as those tuning in elsewhere to the Forward’s own radio station WEVD.

Richard Tucker was born Rubin Tucker in Brooklyn in 1914 to Yiddish and Russian-speaking, immigrant Jewish parents. In his youth he studied music with cantor Samuel Weisser at the \[landmarked Tifereth Israel synagogue] East Village synagogue (https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/historic-east-village-synagogue-landmarked), pictured above, in downtown Manhattan.

As a teenager Tucker excelled in both music and athletics at New Utrecht High School, pictured above, in Brooklyn, where he played baseball, basketball and football. He sang at weddings and bar mitzvahs and worked in the silk-lining business in Manhattan’s garment district to make ends meet before becoming a fulltime cantor.

In 1936, Tucker married Sara Perelmuth. They lived at 20 East Clark Place in the Bronx, a few houses down from the image above, while he worked as cantor at Riverdal's Temple Adath Israel.

By 1943 he was cantor at the historic Brooklyn Jewish Center.

In 1945, Tucker made his debut as Enzo Grimaldo in “La Gioconda” at the New York Metropolitan Opera. Per a 1962 letter to The Forward published at the time, Tucker reveals himself to be as much a fan of the Yiddish paper, as readers were of the Metropolitan Opera Star. Referred to in the paper as “the golden tenor,” Tucker who started out life as Riven (a traditional Yiddish pronunciation of the name Rubin) Ticker, expressed gratitude for WEVD as the first radio station to broadcast him. “My heartfelt thanks for your generosity and interest in my appearance on WEVD last Sunday,” he wrote. “I don’t know how the audience felt about my performance there, but it was most meaningful to me to be back at the station where I once began performing. I feel very close to the station’s staff and personnel.”

In 1961, The Forward spent a page’s worth of ink describing in great detail Tucker’s silver wedding anniversary blowout celebration celebrating his years of marriage to opera star Jan Peerce’s sister Sara Perelmuth Tucker. It took place at the New Yorker Hotel's grand ballroom where “over 400 guests were invited,” The Foward excitedly regaled readers. The article reads like an account of any fabulous Saturday night in the city that never sleeps. “It began at 8 p.m. and saw the last guests straggling out of there, with the beginnings of Sunday morning on the horizon.”

Leading the band that night was none other than Sholom Secunda. Famed musician and composer of Yiddish crossover shlager, major hit song Bei Mir Bistu Sheyn . Secunda was also a Forward feature writer on the city’s music scene in his later years. Secunda who lived in a block from Washington Heights’ Hebrew Tabernacle shown here and famously also performed “out of town” at Sullivan County borsht belt hotels, especially on the Jewish high holidays. Those times, Richard Tucker would typically perform cantorial services, as Secunda directed the orchestration and choral arrangements. These events would typically be advertised in The Forward and were very much looked “forward” to by readers and lovers of both Jewish popular musicians. But back then, in 1962, Secunda was at the New Yorker hotel, directing Tucker’s anniversary band. The Forward’s report told of a star studded evening of dancing and song. “The place was full of dancing and singing. And what dancing! And what singing! Had I even attempted to get up and move I’d have bumped into an opera star at every move! And if not an opera star then a rabbi and his rebetsin wife.”

In 1975, Richard Riven Tucker's sudden death while out of town in Michigan, made front page news in The Forward. As if emphasizing his premature death, the headline read: Richard Tucker Dead At 60. The subheading was equally impactful, relaying the dramatic news of the funeral that was to take place at Tucker's long time employer and secular synagogue, New York's beloved Metropolitan Opera House seen above. His funeral was unsurprisingly well attended by over 3,000. Had he survived his heart attack, he'd have performed for the 504th time. Instead mourners paid respects to one of the city's multitasking Jewish opera and cantorial heroes. Noted as among the first Jewish opera singers invited to sing on the Metropolitan Opera's stage Tucker was undoubtedly highlighted in The Forward for his proud Jewish identity there. His minimalist tombstone features his last name name and this, one line from Shelley's poem: Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory...