My Notes: I just downloaded several videos of the great operatic performances of Todd Duncan. Mr Duncan was very active in the civil rights movement. He has been credited as helping to break down the Jim Crow barrier in Opera.
Todd Duncan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Todd Duncan (February 12, 1903 – February 28, 1998) was an American baritone opera singer and actor.
Biography
Todd Duncan was born in Danville, Kentucky in 1903. He obtained his musical training at Butler University in Indianapolis with a B.A. in music followed by an M.A. from Columbia University Teachers College.
Career
In 1933, Duncan debuted in Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana at the Mecca Temple in New York with the Aeolian Opera, a black opera company.
Duncan was George Gershwin's personal choice as the first performer of the role of Porgy in Porgy and Bess in 1935 and played the role more than 1,800 times. He led the cast during the Washington run of Porgy and Bess at the National Theatre in 1936, to protest the theatre's policy of segregation. Duncan stated that he "would never play in a theater which barred him from purchasing tickets to certain seats because of his race." Eventually management would give into the demands and allow for the first integrated performance at National Theatre. Duncan was also the first performer for the role of Stephen Kumalo in Kurt Weill's Lost in the Stars.
Duncan taught voice at Howard University in Washington, D.C. for more than fifty years. While teaching at Howard, he continued touring as a soloist with pianists William Duncan Allen and George Malloy. He had a very successful career as a concert singer with over 2,000 performances in 56 countries. He retired from Howard and opened his own voice studio teaching privately and giving periodic recitals.
In 1945, he became the first African American to sing with a major opera company, and the first black person to sing in an opera with an otherwise white cast, when he performed the role of Tonio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with the New York City Opera. In the same year he sang the role of Escamillo, the bullfighter, in Bizet's Carmen. In 1955, Duncan was the first to record Unchained Melody, a popular song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. The recording was made for the soundtrack of the obscure prison film Unchained, in which Duncan also played a minor character. Following Duncan's version, the song went on to become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century.
In his final interview, Todd Duncan spoke of his love for spirituals: "... spirituals are so deep inside of me, it's difficult for me to find words that are meaningful. Spirituals are a part of whatever I am. When I sing them my being sings them, not my throat.... It is very difficult for me to put into words something that is at the bottom of my very being. Honors and death
In 1978, the Washington Performing Arts Society presented his 75th birthday gala. Duncan was awarded the George Peabody Medal of Music from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Johns Hopkins University in 1984. Other awards he received include a medal of honor from Haiti, an NAACP award, the Donaldson Award, the New York Drama Critics' Award for Lost in the Stars, and honorary doctorates from Valparaiso University and Butler University.
Duncan was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
He died of a heart ailment at his home in Washington, D.C., in 1998.
Mr Todd Obiturary From The New York Times
Todd Duncan, 95; Sang Porgy and Helped Desegregate Opera
Todd Duncan, the baritone who created the role of Porgy in Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'' and was the first black singer to join the New York City Opera, died on Saturday at his home in Washington. He was 95.
Mr. Duncan, whose stage credits beyond Porgy include the Lord's General in Vernon Duke's ''Cabin in the Sky'' and Stephen Kumalo in the first production of Kurt Weill's ''Lost in the Stars,'' was known for his elegant phrasing and burnished tone, as well as his dramatic persuasiveness. Those qualities won him his debut role at the New York City Opera in 1945, when he sang Tonio in a production of Leoncavallo's ''Pagliacci.''
Although he had appeared in New York with black opera companies, starting with a 1934 production of Mascagni's ''Cavalleria Rusticana,'' with the Aeolian Opera, his City Opera debut made him the first black singer to perform opera with a white cast. That debut occurred 10 years before Marian Anderson made her celebrated debut at the Metropolitan Opera. By then he had also appeared at City Opera as Escamillo in Bizet's ''Carmen'' and in the title role of Verdi's ''Rigoletto.''
Mr. Duncan was also a much sought-after recitalist, and often said that recitals interested him more than opera and the theater. In a career that lasted 25 years, he sang 2,000 recitals in 56 countries. He also appeared in two films, ''Syncopation'' in 1942 and ''Unchained'' in 1955.
Robert Todd Duncan was born in Danville, Ky., in 1903. After earning a bachelor's degree at Butler University in Indianapolis in 1925, and a master's at Columbia University Teachers College in 1930, he joined the music faculty of Howard University in Washington. He began his operatic career while on the Howard faculty, and he remained there through three productions of ''Porgy and Bess.''
When Gershwin was casting Porgy, and was unenthusiastic about the 100 baritones he had already auditioned, Olin Downes, the music critic for The New York Times, suggested that he get in touch with Mr. Duncan, whose debut with the Aeolian Opera he had recently heard. Mr. Duncan said that Gershwin offered him the role after hearing him sing 12 bars of an Italian aria, accompanying himself at the piano. He added that he had doubts about accepting the role.
'I didn't have sense enough to know that here was the most successful man on Broadway who had never had a failure,'' Mr. Duncan told The New York Times in 1978. ''I thought he was Tin Pan Alley -- and I always sang Schubert and Schumann and Brahms. And I said, 'Well, I don't know whether I could or not, I'd have to hear your music.' ''
Mr. Duncan accepted the role, and appeared in 124 performances during the premiere run at the Alvin Theater in 1935. He also sang Porgy in revivals in 1937 and 1942, and recorded some of the music, along with songs from ''Lost in the Stars.'' Porgy, he said, presented some daunting technical challenges, mainly because the character, with one leg horribly twisted, is confined to a cart.
''In 'Porgy' it is especially difficult,'' he said in 1942, ''because I am on my knees all the time, and I'm thrown about the stage in all sorts of postures. But I studied the problem very scientifically. The audience hardly knows it, but no matter what position I'm in I always keep the torso completely straight so that I breathe perfectly.''
With his opera and recital career at full throttle, Mr. Duncan left Howard University in 1945. But he later returned to teaching, both privately in Washington and at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He taught into his 90's and had hundreds of students.
He is survived by his wife, Gladys Jackson Duncan, and a son, Charles Duncan.
Todd Duncan sings 'You must be new born again'
Todd Duncan, Anne Brown " Bess, You is My Woman" Original Porgy and Bess (1940
Todd Duncan - Unchained Melody (original 1955)
Todd Duncan - Lost in the Stars (Original Broadway Cast)
Todd Duncan, Anne Brown " Bess, You is My Woman" Original Porgy and Bess (19
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