The Legacy of Edward J. Bing
Edward J. Bing was born in Vienna, Austria in 1904. A lifelong music lover, he graduated from the Vienna Conservatory of Music before making his operatic debut singing the title role of Verdi’s Rigoletto at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. His career took him all over Europe, with a Budapest critic calling him “a mastersinger in every sense of the word.”
But after the Germans advanced into Austria in 1938, he and his wife Frances left the country and eventually emigrated to America, landing in Tyler, Texas where he found work as a choir director. In 1942, they moved to Houston, where he became music and choir director at Central Presbyterian Church, a post he held for 30 years until his retirement in December 1973. Bing held a similar position at Temple Emanuel for more than 10 of those years, in addition to offering private voice lessons, teaching such budding stars as Dorothy Dow, Tommy Tune, and Pauline Stark. He also sang with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, the Houston Symphony, and the Columbia Broadcasting Company in New York.
It is no surprise that over time, Bing forged important connections in Houston’s music and philanthropic communities, and in the mid-1950s, he began to use his influence to advocate for an opera company for our city. He started corresponding with the German-born impresario Walter Herbert, who had recently left his post with New Orleans Opera, and together the two men strategized as they sought to turn their dream into reality. They joined forces with Elva Lobit and Charles Cockrell, Jr., and in 1955, Houston Grand Opera opened its first season, with Herbert as its first general director.
Edward J. Bing died in 1993. He and Frances led a simple lifestyle, allowing them to leave more than $1.25 million to the HGO Endowment, in addition to a bequest to the Rice University Shepherd School of Music. They also left their archives to HGO, and the company has maintained them ever since; a selection will be displayed in the foyer exhibit about all things The Sound of Music. Although the Bings fled Austria under tragic circumstances, they left an incredible legacy in this part of the world, as did so many who fled Europe during the reign of the Third Reich. We are eternally grateful to them.