1000+ images about Marion Anderson - Contralto Opera Singer on Pinterest | Carnegie hall, Philadelphia and Blackest person Forward Marian Anderson - Brief Summary - An African American operatic and concert singer that was renowned thoughtout the world for her extraordinary contralto voice. The first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. The following web resource has related information: Marian Anderson - A Voice of Hope See More Marian Anderson, Contralto: Biography and Facts Marian Anderson, Contralto By Jone Johnson Lewis Marian Anderson Facts Known for: critically acclaimed solo performances of lieder, opera and American spirituals; dignified determination to succeed despite the “color barrier”; first black performer at the Metropolitan Opera Occupation: concert and recital singer Dates: February 27 , 1897 – April 8, 1993 Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Marian Anderson was known first as an incredible concert singer. Her vocal range was almost three octaves, from low D to high C. She was able to express a broad range of feeling and mood, appropriate to the language, composer and period of the songs she sang.

She specialized in 19th century German lieder and 18th century classical and sacred songs by Bach and Handel, plus others composed by French and Russian composers. She sang songs by Sibelius, the Finnish composer, and on tour met him; he dedicated one of his songs to her. Background, Family Mother: Annie Delilah Rucker, from Lynchburg, Virginia, who worked taking in laundry at home and later as a cleaning woman at the Wanamaker Department Store continue reading below our video 10 Facts About the Titanic That You Don't Know Father: John Berkley Anderson, sold coal and ice Siblings: two younger sisters Husband: Orpheus Fischer (married 1943; architect); no children, one stepson Marian Anderson Biography Marian Anderson was born in Philadelphia, probably in 1897 or 1898 though she gave 1902 as her birth year and some biographies give a date as late as 1908. She began singing at a very young age, her talent apparent quite early. At eight years old, she was paid fifty cents for a recital.

Marian’s mother was a member of a Methodist church, but the family was involved in music at Union Baptist Church where her father was a member and an officer. At Union Baptist Church, young Marian sang first in the junior choir and later in the senior choir. The congregation nicknamed her the “baby contralto,” though she sometimes sang soprano or tenor. She saved money from doing chores around the neighborhood to buy first a violin and later a piano. She and her sisters taught themselves how to play. Marian Anderson’s father died in 1910, either of work injuries or of a brain tumor (sources differ). The family moved in with Marian’s paternal grandparents. Marian’s mother, who had been a schoolteacher in Lynchburg before moving to Philadelphia just before she married, did laundry to support the family and later worked as a cleaning woman in a department store. After Marian graduated from grammar Anderson’s mother became seriously ill with the flu, and Marian took some time off from school to raise money with her singing to help support the family. Members at Union Baptist Church and the Philadelphia Choral Society raised money to help her return to school, first studying business courses at William Penn High School so that she could earn a living and support her family.

She later transferred to the South Philadelphia High School for Girls, where the curriculum included college prep coursework. She was turned down by a music school in 1917 because of her color. In 1919, again with the help of the church members, she attended a summer course to study opera. She continued performing, especially at black churches, schools, clubs and organizations. Marian Anderson was accepted at Yale University, but she did not have the funds to attend. She received a musical scholarship in 1921 from the National Association of Negro Musicians, the first scholarship they gave. She had been in Chicago in 1919 at the first meeting of the organization. The church members also collected funds to hire Giuseppe Boghetti as a voice teacher for Anderson for a year; after that, he donated his services. Under his coaching, she performed at Witherspoon Hall in Philadelphia. He remained her tutor and, later, her advisor, until his death. Beginning a Professional Career Anderson toured after 1921 with Billy King, an African American pianist who also served as her manager, touring with him to schools and churches, including the Hampton Institute.

In 1924, Anderson made her first recordings, with the Victor Talking Machine Company. She gave a recital in New York’s Town Hall in 1924, to a mostly white audience, and considered quitting her musical career when the reviews were poor. But a desire to help support her mother brought her back to the stage. Boghetti urged Anderson to enter a national contest sponsored by the New York Philharmonic. Competing among 300 contenders in vocal music, Marian Anderson placed first. This led to a concert in 1925 at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City, singing “O Mio Fernando” by Donizetti, accompanied by the New York Philharmonic. The reviews this time were more enthusiastic. She was also able to appear with the Hall Johnson Choir at Carnegie Hall. She signed with manager and teacher, Frank LaForge. LaForge did not, however, advance her career much. Mostly she performed for black American audiences. She decided to study in Europe. Anderson went London in 1928 and 1929. There, she made her European debut at Wigmore Hall on September 16, 1930.

She also studied with teachers who helped her expand her musical capacities. Returning briefly to America In 1929, the American Arthur Judson became her manager; she was the first black performer he managed. Between the beginnings of the Great Depression and the race barrier, Anderson’s career in America did not go well. In 1930, Anderson performed in Chicago at a concert sponsored by the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, which had made her an honorary member. After the concert, representatives from the Julius Rosewald Fund contacted her, and offered her a scholarship to study in Germany. She stayed at the home of a family there and studied with Michael Raucheisen and with Kurt Johnen Success in Europe In 1933-34, Anderson toured Scandinavia, with thirty concerts funded in part by the Rosenwald Fund: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, accompanied by pianist Kosti Vehanen from Finland. She performed for the King of Sweden and the King of Denmark. She was enthusiastically received, and in twelve months she gave more than 100 concerts. Sibelius invited her to meet with him, dedicating “Solitude” to her.

Coming off her success in Scandinavia, in 1934 Marian Anderson had her Paris debut in May. She followed France with a tour in Europe, including England, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Soviet Union and Latvia. In 1935, she won the Prix de Chant in Paris. The Salzburg Performance Salzburg, Austria, in 1935: the Salzburg Festival organizers refused to permit her to sing at the festival, because of her race. Permitted her to give an unofficial concert instead. Arturo Toscanini also on the bill, and he was impressed by her performance. He was quoted as saying, “What I have heard today one is privileged to hear only once in a hundred years.” Return to America Sol Hurok, American impresario, took over management of her career in 1935, and he was a more aggressive manager than her previous American manager had been. That, and her fame from Europe, led to a tour of the United States. Her first American concert was a return to Town Hall in New York City, on December 30 , 1935. She hid a broken foot and cast well. Critics raved about her performance.

Howard Taubman, then New York Times critic (and later ghost writer of her autobiography), wrote, “Let it be said from the outset, Marian Anderson has returned to her native land one of the great singers of our time.” She sang in January, 1936, at Carnegie Hall, then toured for three months in the United States and then returned to Europe for another tour. Anderson was invited to sing at the White House by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 – the first black performer there – and he invited her back to the White House to sing for a visit by King George and Queen Elizabeth. Her concerts -- 60 concerts in 1938 and 80 in 1939 – were usually sold out, and she was booked two years in advance. While not publicly taking on the racial prejudice that was often an obstacle for Anderson, she did take small stands. When she toured the American South, for instance, contracts specified equal, even if separate, seating for black audiences. She found herself excluded from restaurants, hotels and concert halls.

1939 and the DAR 1939 was also the year of the highly publicized incident with the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). Sol Hurok attempted to engage the DAR’s Constitution Hall for an Easter Sunday concert in Washington, DC, with Howard University sponsorship, which would have an integrated audience. The DAR refused use of the building, citing their segregation policy. Hurok went public with the snub, and thousands of DAR members resigned, including, quite publicly, Eleanor Roosevelt, the President’s wife. Black leaders in Washington organized to protest the DAR’s action and to find a new place to hold the concert. The Washington School Board also refused to host a concert with Anderson, and the protest expanded to include the School Board. Leaders of Howard University and the NAACP, with the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, arranged with the Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes for a free outdoor concert on the National mall. Anderson considered declining the invitation, but recognized the opportunity and accepted. And so, on April 9 , Easter Sunday, 1939, Marian Anderson performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. An interracial crowd of 75,000 heard her sing in person.

And so did millions of others: the concert was broadcast on radio. She opened with “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” The program also included “Ave Maria” by Schubert, “America,” “Gospel Train” and “My Soul Is Anchored in the Lord.” Some see this incident and the concert as the opening of the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. Though she did not choose political activism, she became a symbol of civil rights. This performance also led to an appearance at the film premiere of John Ford’s Young Mr.Lincoln, in Springfield, Illinois. On July 2, in Richmond, Virginia, Eleanor Roosevelt presented Marian Anderson with the Spingam Medal, an NAACP award. In 1941, she won the Bok Award in Philadelphia, and used the award money for a scholarship fund for singers of any race. The War Years In 1941, Franz Rupp became Anderson’s pianist; he had emigrated from Germany. They toured together annually in the United States and South America. They began recording with RCA.

After her 1924 Victor recordings, Anderson had made a few more recordings for HMV in the late 1920s and 1930s, but this arrangement with RCA led to many more records. As with her concerts, the recordings included lieder (German songs, including by Schumann, Schubert and Brahms) and spirituals. She also recorded some songs with orchestration. In 1942, Anderson again arranged to sing at the DAR’s Constitution Hall, this time for a war benefit. The DAR refused to permit interracial seating. Anderson and her management insisted that the audience not be segregated. The following year, the DAR invited her to sing at a China Relief Festival benefit at Constitution Hall. Marian Anderson married in 1943, after years of rumors. Her husband, Orpheus Fischer, known as King, was an architect. They had known each other in high school when she stayed at his family’s home after a benefit concert in Wilmington, Delaware; he had later married and had a son. The couple moved to a farm in Connecticut, 105 acres in Danbury, which they called Marianna Farms.

King designed a home and many outbuildings on the property, including a studio for Marian’s music. Doctors discovered a cyst on her esophagus in 1948, and she submitted to an operation to remove it. While the cyst threatened to damage her voice, the operation also endangered her voice. She had two months where she was not allowed to use her voice, with fears that she might have permanent damage. But she recovered and her voice was not affected. In 1949, Anderson, with Rupp, returned to Europe to tour, with performances around Scandinavia and in Paris, London, and other European cities. In 1952, she appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on television. Anderson toured Japan at the invitation of the Japanese Broadcasting Company in 1953. In 1957, she toured Southeast Asia as a goodwill ambassador of the State Department. In 1958, Anderson was appointed for a one-year term as a member of the United Nations delegation. Opera Debut Earlier in her career, Marian Anderson had refused several invitations to perform in operas, noting that she did not have acting training.

But in 1954, when she was invited to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York by Met manager Rudolf Bing, she accepted the role of Ulrica in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), debuting on January 7 , 1955. This role was significant because it was the first time in the Met’s history that a black singer – American or otherwise – had performed with the opera. While Anderson’s appearance was mostly symbolic – she was already past her prime as a singer, and she had made her success on the concert stage – that symbolism was important. In her first performance, she received a ten minute ovation when she first appeared and ovations after each aria. The moment was considered momentous enough at the time to warrant a front page New York Times story. She sang the role for seven performances, including once on tour in Philadelphia. Later black opera singers credited Anderson with opening an important door with her role. RCA Victor in 1958 issued an album with selections from the opera, including Anderson as Ulrica and Dimitri Mitropoulos as conductor.

Later Accomplishments In 1956, Anderson published her autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning. She worked with former New York Times critic Howard Taubman, who converted her tapes into the final book. Anderson continued to tour. She was part of presidential inaugurations for both Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. A 1957 tour of Asia under the auspices of the State Department was filmed for a CBS television program, and a soundtrack of the program was released by RCA Victor. In 1963, with an echo of her 1939 appearance, she sang from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom – the occasion of the “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. Retirement Marian Anderson retired from concert tours in 1965. Her farewell tour included 50 American cities. Her final concert was on Easter Sunday at Carnegie Hall. After her retirement, she lectured, and sometimes narrated recordings, including the “Lincoln Portrait” by Aaron Copeland. Her husband died in 1986. She lived on her Connecticut farm until 1992, when her health began to fail.

She moved to Portland, Oregon, to live with her nephew, James De Preist, who was the music director of the Oregon Symphony. After a series of strokes, Marian Anderson died of heart failure in Portland in 1993, at age 96. Her ashes were interred in Philadelphia, in her mother’s grave at Eden Cemetery. Sources for Marian Anderson Marian Anderson’s papers are at the University of Pennsylvania, in the Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Books About Marian Anderson Her autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning, was published in 1958; she taped sessions with writer Howard Taubman who ghost-wrote the book. Kosti Vehanen, the Finnish pianist who accompanied her on tour early in her career, wrote a memoir of their relationship of some 10 years in 1941 as Marian Anderson: A Portrait. Allan Kellers published a biography of Anderson in 2000 as Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey. He had the cooperation of Anderson family members in writing this treatment of her life.

Russell Freedman published The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights in 2004 for elementary school readers; as the title indicates, this treatment of her life and career especially emphasizes the impact on the civil rights movement. In 2008, Victoria Garrett Jones published Marian Anderson: A Voice Uplifted, also for elementary school readers. Pam Munoz Ryan’s When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson is for preschool and early elementary students. Awards Among Marian Anderson’s many awards: 1930/1: Rosenwald Fellowship 1933: decorated by King Gustaf of Sweden 1935: Prix de Chant, Paris 1939: Spingam Medal, NAACP 1941: Bok Award, Philadelphia (used to establish as scholarship fund for vocalists) 1963: U.S.

Presidential Medal of Freedom 1977: Congressional Medal 1978: Kennedy Center Honors (first group of Americans to receive these awards for lifetime achievement in the arts) 1984: Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award of the City of New York Gloria Davy, First African-American to Sing Aida at the Met, Dies at 81 - The New York Times The New York Times Music |Gloria Davy, First African-American to Sing Aida at the Met, Dies at 81 Search Gloria Davy , a Brooklyn-born soprano who was the first African-American to sing Aida with the Metropolitan Opera , died on Nov. 28 in Geneva. She was 81. Her death, after a long illness, was confirmed by the soprano Martina Arroyo , a longtime friend. A lirico-spinto (the term denotes a high voice that is darker and more forceful than a lyric soprano’s), Ms. Davy performed mainly in Europe from the 1960s onward. She was equally, if not better, known as a recitalist.

In particular, she was an interpreter of 20th-century music, including the work of Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten and Paul Hindemith. Though she was praised by critics for the beauty of her voice, the sensitivity of her musicianship and the perfection of her pianissimos — the elusive art of attaining maximum audibility at minimum volume — Ms. Davy sang with the Met just 15 times over four seasons, from her debut in the title role of Verdi’s “Aida,” opposite Leonard Warren, in 1958 to her final performance, as Leonora in Verdi’s “Trovatore,” opposite Giulio Gari, in 1961. She also sang Pamina in Mozart’s “Magic Flute” and Nedda in Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” with the company. In concert, she appeared with the New York Philharmonic and at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall in New York. The daughter of parents who had come to the United States from St. Vincent, in the Windward Islands, Gloria Davy was born on March 29, 1931.

Her father, according to a 1959 article about her in Ebony magazine, worked as a token clerk in the New York City subway system. Photo Gloria Davy as Nedda in Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci.” Credit Louis Mélançon/Metropolitan Opera Archives She graduated from the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and in 1951 and 1952 received the Marian Anderson Award. The prize, for young singers, was established in 1943 by Ms. Anderson, the first black singer to appear at the Met. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1953 from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Belle Julie Soudent, Ms. Davy embarked on a career as a concert singer. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In January 1954, as a prize for having won a vocal competition sponsored by the Music Education League, Ms. Davy appeared at Town Hall with the Little Orchestra Society , singing Britten’s song cycle “Les Illuminations,” a rigorous undertaking for even a seasoned singer.

Reviewing the concert in The New York Times, Ross Parmenter wrote: “The ease with which she negotiated it immediately stamped her as a singer of unusual technical skill. And skillful accuracy was only the beginning of her story, for she has a voice of wide range that is soft, fresh, clear and warm.” That May, Ms. Davy replaced Leontyne Price as Bess in an international tour of “Porgy and Bess,” providing her with her first significant stage experience. When the tour reached Milan, the conductor Victor de Sabata suggested Ms. Davy learn the role of Aida for a forthcoming production at La Scala. Though she was unable to sing it there — political turbulence in Italy caused the performance to be canceled — she made her debut in the role in Nice, France, in 1957 and later sang it elsewhere in Europe. Photo Ms. Davy as Pamina in Mozart’s “Magic Flute” in 1958. Credit Allyn Baum/The New York Times When Ms. Davy first sang at the Met, she was only the fourth African-American to appear there, after Ms.

Anderson, a contralto, and Robert McFerrin , a baritone, both of whom made their debuts in 1955, and the soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs , who first sang there the next year. (The African-American soprano Camilla Williams , who died this year, had made her debut with the New York City Opera in 1946.) Before Ms. Davy was cast in the role, Aida, an Ethiopian princess, was perennially sung by white singers in dark makeup. Ms. Davy’s other opera work includes appearances with the American Opera Society, a midcentury ensemble in New York, with which she sang the title role in Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena.” In Europe, she appeared at the Vienna Staatsoper and at Covent Garden in London. For decades Ms. Davy had made her home in Geneva, returning to the United States periodically to perform and teach: she was on the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University from 1984 to 1997. Ms. Davy was married several times. Survivors include a son, Jean-Marc Penningsfeld.

Among her recordings are albums of music by Paul Bowles and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and an album of spirituals. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Though she had planned to be a concert singer, Ms. Davy took unhesitatingly to the operatic life. “For sheer joy of singing,” she said in an interview with Opera News in 1958, “there’s nothing like opera.” A version of this article appears in print on December 14, 2012, on Page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: Gloria Davy, Historic Aida, Dies at 81. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Leontyne Price, New York Met Opera Star Updated September 11, 2015.

Leontyne Price Facts Known for: New York Metropolitan Opera soprano 1960 – 1985; one of the most popular opera sopranos of recent history, known as the first black American-born prima donna; she was the first black opera singer on television Occupation: opera singer Also known as: Mary Violet Leontyne Price Background, Family Mother: Kate Baker Price, a midwife and singer in the church choir Father: James Price, a carpenter who also sang in the church choir Husband: William C. Warfield (married August 31, 1952, divorced 1973; opera singer) Education Central State College (formerly the College of Education and Industrial Arts), Wilberforce, Ohio. BA, 1949 Juilliard School of Music, 1949 - 1952 Voice with Florence Page Kimball Leontyne Price Biography A native of Laurel, Mississippi, Mary Violet Leontyne Price pursued a singing career after graduation from college with a B.A. in 1948, where she had studied to be a music teacher.

continue reading below our video Test Your General Science Knowledge She had been inspired first to pursue singing upon hearing a Marian Anderson concert when she was nine years old. Her parents encouraged her to learn piano and to sing in the church choir. So after graduation from college, Leontyne Price went to New York, where she studied at the Juilliard School of Music, with Florence Page Kimball guiding her as she would continue to do. Her full scholarship at Juilliard was supplemented by a generous family friend, Elizabeth Chisholm, who covered most of the living expenses. After Juilliard, she had her 1952 debut on Broadway in Virgil Thomson’s revival of Four Saints in Three Acts. Ira Gershwin, based on that performance, chose Price as Bess in a revival of Porgy and Bess that played New York City 1952-54 and then toured both nationally and internationally. She married her co-star, William Warfield who played Porgy to her Bess on the tour, but they separated and later divorced.

In 1955, Leontyne Price was chosen to sing the title role in a television production of Tosca, becoming the first black singer on a television opera production. NBC invited her back for more telecasts of operas in 1956, 1957 and 1960. In 1957, she debuted in her first stage opera, the American premier of Dialogues of the Carmelites by Poulenc. She performed primarily in San Francisco until 1960, appearing in Vienna in 1958 and Milan in 1960. It was in San Francisco that she first performed in Aida which was to become a signature role; she also played that role in her second Viennese performance. She also performed with the Chicago Lyric Opera and the American Opera Theater. Returning from a successful international tour, her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in January, 1961, was as Leonora in Il Trovatore. The standing ovation lasted 42 minutes. Quickly becoming a leading soprano there, Leontyne Price made the Met her primary base until her retirement in 1985.

She was the fifth black singer in the Met’s opera company, and the first to really achieve stardom there. Associated especially with Verdi and Barber, Leontyne Price sang the role of Cleopatra, which Barber created for her, at the opening of the new Lincoln Center home for the Met. Between 1961 and 1969, she appeared in 118 productions at the Metropolitan. After that, she began to say “no” to many appearances at the Metropolitan and elsewhere, her selectivity earning her a reputation as arrogant, though she said she did it to avoid overexposure. She also performed at recitals, especially in the 1970s, and was prolific in her recordings. Many of her recordings were with RCA, with whom she had an exclusive contract for two decades. After her retirement from the Met, she continued to give recitals. Books About Leontyne Price Aida: Leontyne Price, illustrated by Diane and Leo Dillon. Trade Paperback, 1997. Price retells the story of the Ethiopian princess who is sold into slavery in Egypt.

Leontyne Price: Opera Superstar (Library of Famous Women): Richard Steins, Library Binding, 1993. More women's history biographies, by name: Camilla Williams, an acclaimed soprano who broke racial bounds, dies at 92 - The Washington Post Camilla Williams, an acclaimed soprano who broke racial bounds, dies at 92 The inside track on Washington politics. Be the first to know about new stories from PowerPost. Sign up to follow, and we’ll e-mail you free updates as they’re published. You’ll receive free e-mail news updates each time a new story is published. You’re all set! By Emily Langer By Emily Langer January 30, 2012 Follow @emilylangerWP Camilla Williams, an acclaimed soprano who in 1946 became the first black woman to appear in a leading role with a major American opera company — in the title role of “Madame Butterfly” — and who sang the national anthem at the 1963 March on Washington, died Jan. 29 at her home in Bloomington, Ind.

She was 92 and had complications from cancer, according to Alain Barker, a spokesman for Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where Ms. Williams taught for two decades before her retirement in 1997. Ms. Williams , a native of southern Virginia, was considered a matriarch among African American opera singers. During the first half of the 20th century, opera houses had excluded black musicians, either by relegating them to minor roles or refusing to book them at all. On May 15, 1946, when Ms. Williams appeared on the New York City Opera stage as the tragic Japanese geisha Cio-Cio-San of Puccini’s classic opera — one of the most celebrated roles in the Italian repertoire — classical music had reached a turning point. “It’s impossible to overstate how important that was for . . . the music scene in New York, for African American singers, and for American singers,” F. Paul Driscoll, the editor-in-chief of Opera News, said in an interview.

Camilla Williams, left, as Cio-Cio-San and Margery Mayer as Suzuki in the 1946 production of “Madame Butterfly” at the New York City Opera. Williams, an African American soprano, became the first black woman to appear in a leading role with a major American opera company. (Courtesy of Fred Fehl/New York City Opera) Nine years after Ms. Williams’s City Opera debut, contralto Marian Anderson became the first black singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera. Anderson had drawn national attention in 1939 when, after being turned away from Constitution Hall because of her race, she stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and sang “America” in a concert heard by millions on the radio . After Ms. Williams came American superstars such as Leontyne Price, a mainstay of the Met during the 1960s and ’70s who is widely considered one of the finest sopranos in history, as well as Shirley Verrett, who was known in Italy as the “Black Callas.” Ms.

Williams’s performance in “Madame Butterfly” was hailed by New York Times music critic Noel Straus as “an instant and pronounced success.” She followed it with a string of appearances with the City Opera in productions including Puccini’s “La Boheme” and Verdi’s “Aida.” In 1951, Ms. Williams sang the title female role in a Columbia Records recording of “Porgy and Bess,” the folk opera with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. Those successes helped Ms. Williams launch an international career studded by performances of “Madame Butterfly” in London and at the prestigious Vienna State Opera. At the March on Washington, when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech, Ms. Williams was invited to sing a spiritual. She also sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” when Anderson got stuck in traffic. “I ran up all the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and was out of breath when I got to the microphone,” she recalled, according to a video tribute made by Richard Glazier, a Gershwin scholar and friend of Ms. Williams’s. Ms.

Williams did not achieve the fame of Anderson or Price , but she lacked certain advantages that they enjoyed. Anderson had the backing of the powerful impresario Sol Hurok (and in the case of the Lincoln Memorial concert, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt). In contrast to Ms. Williams, who had a lighter voice, Price had an instrument that was both beautiful and stunningly powerful, capable of filling even the most cavernous opera house. Ms. Williams’s most important contribution to opera may have been her courage to appear on the stage of a major American opera house at a time when many people, including some of her colleagues, did not wish to see her there. Decades after the City Opera debut, she learned that the white singer slated to play Pinkerton, the male lead role in “Butterfly,” had written to former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia to protest her presence. The revelation, made decades later, came as a wrenching shock. “I had resolved years earlier that I had no more such tears left — that I was done crying,” she recalled in an autobiography co-written with Stephanie Shonekan, a music and black studies scholar. “What my parents taught me about being a human being carried me through . . .

and kept me sane and grounded even when I felt that the odds were against me.” Camilla Ella Williams was born Oct. 18, 1919, in Danville, Va., the daughter of a chauffeur and a laundress. She grew up in a family of self-taught musicians and by age 9 was playing the piano, dancing and singing in the local Baptist church choir. “All my people sang,” she once wrote, according to information provided by Indiana University. “We were poor, but God blessed us with music.” Ms. Williams took her first formal lessons about age 12 from a Welsh musician who had settled in her Virginia town. Barred from attending the school for white girls, she studied with the teacher in a private home. (One of the songs he assigned her, although she did not learn it at the time, was “Un bel di,” Cio-Cio-San’s signature aria in “Madame Butterfly.”) She was valedictorian of her high school and graduated in 1941 from what is now Virginia State University, a historically black institution.

She received a scholarship to study music in Philadelphia with Marion Szekely Freschl, a voice instructor who also taught Anderson and Verrett . Twice in the 1940s, she won the Marian Anderson Award for young musicians. One of her most important advocates was the American soprano Geraldine Farrar, who was white, and who heard a young Ms. Williams sing in a recital in Stamford, Conn. Farrar wrote to Ms. Williams’s manager that she was “quite unprepared for this young woman’s obvious high gifts,” an endorsement that helped push forward her career even as racial barriers held her back. Traveling around the country in the early years of her career, she had to sit in the back of trains and buses while her white accompanists sat in the front. During her rehearsals with the City Opera, she stayed at the YWCA in Harlem. Ms. Williams was married to Charles Beavers, a civil rights lawyer. He died in 1969 after 19 years of marriage. About a decade ago, she rekindled her friendship with Boris Bazala , her former accompanist, and lived with him until his death last year. She had no survivors.

“I’ve had to endure a lot, go through my ‘Gethsemanes,’ ” Ms. Williams wrote in her autobiography. “But I am not bitter. The thing is how you endure the hard times.” entertainment Camilla Williams obituary: Opera singer who broke race barriers was 92 - LA Times Camilla Williams dies at 92; opera singer broke racial barriers Associated Press Camilla Williams, believed to be the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company, has died. She was 92. Williams died Sunday at her home in Bloomington, Ind., according to her attorney, Eric Slotegraaf. She died of complications from cancer , said Alain Barker, a spokesman for the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where Williams was a professor emeritus of voice. Williams' debut with the New York City Opera on May 15, 1946, was thought to make her the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company and came nearly nine years before Marian Anderson became the first African American singer to appear at New York's more prestigious Metropolitan Opera.

In her City Opera debut, Williams sang what would become her signature role, Cio-Cio-San, in Puccini's "Madama Butterfly." She displayed "a vividness and subtlety unmatched by any other artist who has assayed the part here in many a year," according to a New York Times review of the performance. She also appeared with the City Opera that season as Nedda, in Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci." The next year she performed the role of Mimi, in Puccini's "La Boheme," and in 1948 she sang the title role of Verdi's "Aida." In 1954 she appeared as Cio-Cio-San with the London Sadler's Wells Opera and that year became the first black artist to sing a major role with the Vienna State Opera. Born Oct. 18, 1919, the daughter of a chauffeur and his wife, Williams was introduced to "Madama Butterfly," Mozart and other classical works at age 12 while growing up in Danville, Va. A Welsh voice teacher came to the segregated city to teach at a school for white girls and taught a few black girls at a private home.

By that time, Williams had been singing in the choir at Danville's Calvary Baptist Church for four years. A graduate of Virginia State College, she was teaching third grade and music in Danville schools in 1942 when she was offered a scholarship from the Philadelphia alumni association of her alma mater for vocal training in Philadelphia, where she studied under Marion Szekely-Freschl and worked as an usher in a theater. A lifetime member of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, she performed in her hometown of Danville in 1963 to raise funds to free jailed civil rights demonstrators and sang at the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, D.C., where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. She also sang at King's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony the next year. The Chicago Defender lauded her in 1951 for bringing democracy to opera. In 1950 she married Charles Beavers, a fellow Danville native and a defense attorney whose clients included Malcolm X. He died in 1970. The couple did not have children.

Williams retired from opera in 1971 and taught at Brooklyn College, Bronx College and Queens College before arriving at Indiana University. She retired from teaching in 1997. The Marian Anderson Award | Marian Anderson Marian Anderson, the most celebrated contralto of the twentieth century, was born in Philadelphia on February 27, 1897 to an African-American family of modest means. Living at Fitzwater and Martin Streets in South Philadelphia, her father sold coal and ice and her mother was originally a school teacher. When Marian was six years old, her family began attending Union Baptist Church close to their home, where she began her musical career, singing in the Junior Choir. Growing up with music, Marian Anderson earned money scrubbing steps to purchase a violin. Her father bought her a piano, which she taught herself to play, remembering some of the simpler melodies played by the church’s pianist. Money earned from odd jobs went toward piano lessons. Her father died when she was fourteen and the family moved into their paternal grandparents’ home while her mother had to work as a domestic to help the family’s financial situation.

As a student at South Philadelphia High School, she was often given the opportunity to sing in school concerts, where she gained recognition and assistance from prominent audience members. Coming to the attention of the world-famous African-American tenor Roland Hayes, he recommended that she take formal music lessons. She sought entry to a music school in Philadelphia, but was denied admission due to race. Because of the music school’s rejection, she was reluctant to seek training at any other school and, in fact, never did. Eventually, she was able to study with Mary Saunder Patterson, an African-American singer. She then became a student of Giuseppe Boghetti, a respected classical music instructor. Donations from her church initially paid for her lessons, but in time Boghetti waived his fees. In 1923, she won a singing contest in Philadelphia and two years later, in 1925, she won first prize in a vocal competition held by the New York Philharmonic, appearing as a soloist with that ensemble in Lewisohn Stadium. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in New York in 1929. Boghetti was instrumental in urging her to study in Europe and master foreign languages.

She sang her first professional engagement in London in 1930. Although the first European trip was somewhat disappointing, she was able to return in 1933 through fellowship money from the Julius Rosenwald Fund of Philadelphia. During this tour she was an unqualified success and performed to critical acclaim in Germany, Austria, England, the Soviet Union and the Scandinavian countries. In 1939 Sol Hurok attempted to secure a concert performance by her in Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall. Because she was black, Ms. Anderson was barred from performing in the auditorium by its managing body, the Daughters of the American Revolution. Politicians, community and church leaders, and the general public – both black and white – denounced this decision. The public resignation from the D.A.R. of Eleanor Roosevelt, then First Lady of the United States, further stirred a national outcry. A people’s committee arranged for a concert by her on Easter Sunday, responding to a formal invitation from Secretary of the Interior Harold I. Ickes, influenced by Mrs. Roosevelt, to use the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as a platform and the great mall as an outdoor auditorium.

Broadcast over national radio, the concert was attended by a huge and enthusiastic audience of 75,000 people – the largest gathering at the mall in its history up to that time. Later in 1939, Ms. Anderson was presented with the NAACP’s Spingarn Award for the “highest and noblest achievement by an American of African descent.” Ms. Anderson continued her acclaimed concert performances throughout the U.S. and Europe, but it was not until 1945 that the color barrier in opera fell, when baritone Todd Duncan became the first African-American male and Camila Williams became the first African-American female to appear – both at the New York City Opera company. The nation’s foremost opera company – the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York – was still closed to black singers, until Marian Anderson was invited by the Met’s General Manager Rudolph Bing in 1954 to join the opera company. She made her long-overdue debut at the Metropolitan in January, 1955, in the role of Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera by Verdi. Ms.

Anderson was the recipient of many honors and awards, particularly from Philadelphia, including the $10,000 Bok Award (which she used to establish an award to assist vocal artists), the Gimbel Award, and the prestigious Philadelphia Award. She was also awarded twenty-four honorary degrees by institutions of higher learning; and she received medals from innumerable countries. In 1957, she was appointed by the U.S. Department of State to serve as a Special Envoy to the Far East, and the following year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower named her to the post of delegate to the General Assembly of the United Nations. She sang at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961; in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom upon her. On her 75th birthday in 1974, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution ordering a special gold medal minted in her honor. Marian Anderson played a vital role in the acceptance of African-American musicians in the classical musical world and world culture. Her grace and virtuosity remains a model for all, and her voice remains a great legacy.

On April 8, 1993, Marian Anderson died at the age of 96 in Portland, Oregon. /

Question: Which American contralto was the first black singe to appear at the Metropolitan Opera?
Answer: Marian Anderson