Andre Rieu - Ave Maria

Two versions, which one do you like. I like the first version she did.

Jessye Norman - "Amazing Grace" (Sidney Poitier Tribute) | 1995 Kennedy Center Honors

Opera singer Innocent Masuku BLOWS Judges away | Auditions | BGT 2024

HBD QUEEN OPERA DIVA LEONTYNE PRICE (97 years young)

Miss Price was over 97 years old before she passed. She open up the door for a lot of great African American opera stars.

Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American spinto soprano who was the first African American soprano to receive international acclaim. From 1961 she began a long association with the Metropolitan Opera, where she was the first African American to be a leading performer. Leontyne Price (singer; born February 10, 1927, Laurel, Mississippi) Information provided by the Kennedy Center Leontyne Price was born Mary Violet Leontine Price, to James Anthony Price, a carpenter, and Kate Baker Price, a midwife with a lovely soprano voice. Price received excellent vocal training at an early age when she is said to have sat enthralled in her stroller listening to her mother singing in the choir at the St. Paul Methodist Church in Laurel. Her formal music instruction began at age 5, when she started taking piano lessons. Price entered Oak Park Vocational High School in 1937, where she was quickly designated as the pianist for the school concerts and functions. She was also considered one of the most talented members of her high school choir. In 1944, she went on to the College of Educational and Industrial Arts in Wilberforce, Ohio, to study to be a music teacher. After hearing her sing in the choir one Sunday morning, the president of the college, Dr. Charles H. Wesley, advised her to change her major from education and public school music to concentrate on voice. Price earned her M.B.A. in June 1948, and headed to New York to study at the Juilliard School of Music where she had won a full tuition scholarship. At Juilliard, she received voice training from Florence Ward Kimball, a distinguished teacher, and, in her last year, she gave a strong performance as Mistress Ford in the student production of the opera, Falstaff. Upon seeing her in this production, Virgil Thompson immediately invited her to star in a revival of his opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, which ran on Broadway for three weeks in April 1952. Less than two months later, Price made her debut in Dallas, in a role that would carve her name in the minds of audiences everywhere; she appeared as Bess in a revival of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. For the next two years, Price toured with the production all over the world, including eight months in New York, an extended period in Europe, and finally in Russia. As a result of the show's worldwide success, Price gained international recognition. In addition, she married her co-star, William Warfield. Throughout the 1950s, Price broadened her career as an opera singer by starring in a number of works in recital halls, opera stages, and on television. In February 1955, with Samuel Barber on piano, she made her television debut as Floria Tosca in an NBC-TV Opera Company production of Puccini's Tosca, and in 1956, she starred in NBC's production of Mozart's Magic Flute. The following year, Price made her opera house debut as Madame Lidoine in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites at the San Francisco Opera House. In 1958, she made her European operatic debut as Aida at the Vienna Staatsoper. On July 2, 1958, she had a triumphant debut in London, at Covent Garden, and two years later, she played Aida to a packed house at the venerable La Scala on May 21, 1960, becoming the first black singer to sing a major role at this citadel of opera. Price achieved one of the greatest artistic victories of her career on January 27, 1961, when she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore. This performance ignited a 42-minute ovation, one of the longest in the Met's history. Critic Harold Schonberg wrote: "Her voice was dusky and rich in its lower tones, perfectly even in its transitions from one register to another, and flawlessly pure and velvety at the top." The 1960s welcomed Price to packed houses and rave reviews the world over. From 1961 to 1969, she sang in 118 performances. On October 23, 1961, she opened the Met's new season, playing Minnie in The Girl of the Golden West. That same year, Musical America voted her Musician of the Year with a poll of editors and critics all over the country. In 1964, she was awarded the Presidential Freedom Award, and the following year, she won the Italian Award of Merit. Price also was chosen to open the Met's 1966-67 season as Cleopatra in Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra. Although she chose to perform less frequently during the 1970s, Price continued to accept challenging new roles. In 1974, she starred as Manon Lescaut in Manon, a role she repeated at the Met the following year. She made her debut as Ariadne in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the San Francisco Opera, on October 19, 1977. Over the years, Price has won 15 Grammy Awards for vocal recordings she has made, and she has been on the cover of Time and 27 other magazines. In addition, she was the only opera singer to be represented in the list of "remarkable American Women: 1776-1976" in Life Magazine's Bicentennial issue in 1976.

Leona Mitchell is one of America's most beloved and celebrated Sopranos. She sung for four of the United States Presidents.

Mitchell started singing at an early age in the choir of the Antioch Church of God in Christ in Enid, where her father, Reverend Dr. Hulon Mitchell, was the Minister along with her mother, Dr. Pearl Olive Mitchell (née Leatherman), who was the pianist. Leona was the tenth-born of Hulon and Pearl Mitchell's 15 children. One of her elder brothers, Hulon Mitchell Jr., was better known as Yahweh ben Yahweh, leader of the Nation of Yahweh. Leona Mitchell received a BA in music from Oklahoma City University where she was a student of Inez Silberg. She went on to graduate studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. She married Elmer Bush III, by whom she had one son, Elmer Bush IV. Professional career In 1973, she made her debut as Micaela in Georges Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen with the San Francisco Opera, subsequently she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York City on December 15, 1975 in the same role. She sang [when?] the role of Bess in the first complete recording of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess from which she received a Grammy for "Best Opera Recording". Mitchell has contributed to several recordings, had many television appearances, and served as honorary chair for Black Heritage Month to the Oklahoma legislature. In 1988, Mitchell performed the role of Liù from Turandot, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, at the Metropolitan Opera. She collaborated with many great conductors, including Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, James Levine, and Seiji Ozawa. She was a leading soprano with the Metropolitan Opera of New York for 18 seasons. She sang at most of the world's best-known opera houses in such roles as Turandot, Aida, Micaela, Manon, Leonora, Amalia Delilah, Mimi, and Musetta, as well as Pamina, Madama Butterfly, Lauretta, and Madame Lidoine. She performed for five U.S. Presidents: Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, along with many dignitaries which include Prince Charles, Princess Anne, The Honourable Sandra Day O'Connor, and Bishop Desmond Tutu. On July 5, 1986, she performed in the New York Philharmonic tribute to the 100th Anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, which was televised live from Central Park on ABC Television. She sang both the aria "Un bel dì vedremo" from Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and the American spiritual "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands". She appeared in a production with each one of the Three Tenors: Ernani with Luciano Pavarotti, Turandot with Plácido Domingo, and Carmen with José Carreras. She appeared on such televised broadcasts as The Merv Griffin Show, The Dick Cavett Show, and The Jerry Lewis Telethon. info provided by wikipedia

Leontyne Price: The First Black Opera Singer on TV - Grammys Greatest Divas

Denyce Graves "Ave Maria"

"Ol" Man River" from "Showboat" by Ken Anderson Bass/Baritone Singer

Jules Bledsoe, Opera Singer born - African American Registry

Jules Bledsoe was born on this date in 1897. He was a Black classical baritone and composer. Born in Waco, Texas, he was the son of Henry L. and Jessie (Cobb) Bledsoe. He attended Central Texas Academy in Waco from about 1905 until his graduation as class valedictorian in 1914. He then attended Bishop College in Marshall, where he earned a B.A. in 1918. He was a member of the ROTC at Virginia Union University in Richmond in 1918-19 and studied medicine at Columbia University in New York City between 1920 and 1924. While attending Columbia, he studied voice with Claude Warford, Luigi Parisotti, and Lazar Samoiloff. His professional singing debut occurred on April 20, 1924, at Aeolian Hall in New York. As a concert singer, Bledsoe performed in the United States and Europe. He was praised for his ability to sing in several languages, for his vocal control and range, and for his command to communicate through music. He is best known for his portrayal of Joe in the 1927 production of Jerome Kern's "Showboat." His interpretation of "Ol' Man River" made the song an American classic. In his career, Bledsoe performed with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players (1926), the BBC Symphony in London (1936), and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam (1937). He also sang in vaudeville, on radio, and in opera. He sang the role of Amonasro in Giuseppe Verdi's "Anda" with the Cleveland Stadium Opera (1932), the Chicago Opera Company at the Hippodrome in New York (1933), and the Cosmopolitan Opera Company, also at the Hippodrome (1934). A highlight of his career was his title role for the European premiere, in Amsterdam, of Louis Gruenberg's opera "The Emperor Jones" (1934). In 1940 and 1941, Bledsoe worked in films. He played the part of Kalu in "Drums of the Congo," and, although his name did not appear in the credits, he probably played in "Safari," "Western Union," and "Santa Fe Trail." He wrote several patriotic songs, spirituals, and folk songs, including "Does Ah Luv You?" (1931), "Pagan Prayer," Good Old British Blue" on a poem by Countee Cullen (1936); and "Ode to America" (1941). He wrote an opera, "Bondage" (1939), based on the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." His "African Suite," a set of four songs for voice and orchestra, was featured by the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Jules Bledsoe died from a cerebral hemorrhage on July 14, 1943, in Hollywood. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Waco. information provided by AAREG (inspiriting the young minds of our future)

Ol Man River

Marie Selika Wiliams

She was born Marie Smith in Natchez, Mississippi, around 1849. After she was born her family moved to Cincinnati, where a wealthy family funded voice lessons for her. She moved to San Francisco in the 1870s and studied with Signora G. Bianchi. She then studied in Chicago with Antonio Farini, who taught the Italian method. There she met a fellow student, operatic baritone Sampson Williams, whom she would later marry. Williams became the first Black artist to perform in the White House in 1878. On November 13, she sang for President Rutherford B. Hayes and First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes in the Green Room and was introduced by Marshall Fred Douglass. She performed at Philadelphia's Academy of Music in 1878 and at New York's Steinway Hall in 1879. From 1882 to 1885 she performed across Europe with her husband, giving a concert in St James's Hall, London, for Queen Victoria in 1883. Williams probably took her stage name from the character Sélika in Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera L'Africaine.Due to her rendition of E. W. Mulder's "Polka Staccato", she was often called the "Queen of Staccato".

From 1885 to 1891, Williams toured the United States with her husband, who took the stage name "Signor Velosko (the Hawaiian tenor)". They toured Europe a second time and performed at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition before settling in Cleveland, Ohio. Marie joined fellow Black singers Flora Batson and Sissieretta Jones for a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York on October 12, 1896. After her husband died in 1911, Williams gave private lessons and taught at the Martin-Smith Music School in New York City. She died on May 19, 1937.

A New Black Opera, it's about Time: "Fire shut up in my Bones", Composer Terence Blanchard

Librettist Kasi Lemmons Sung In

English Met titles In English German Spanish ACT I Charles Blow, age 20, drives down a Louisiana backroad with a gun in the passenger seat. Destiny sings to him, calling him back to his childhood home. He begins reliving memories from his childhood. Charles’ seven-year-old self, Char’es-Baby, talks to his mother, Billie. He is desperate for affection, but Billie is too frazzled to give him the validation that he craves. They are dirt poor. Billie works in a chicken factory, but she dreams of Char’es-Baby getting a good education and escaping their town. Her husband, Spinner, is a womanizing spendthrift. When she hears that he’s flirting with other women, she confronts him at gunpoint. She doesn’t shoot, but Billie tosses Spinner out. Billie and her five sons move in with Uncle Paul. Char’es-Baby dreams of a different life, collecting “treasure” from the junkyard while Loneliness sings to him. One day, his cousin Chester comes to visit. When Chester sexually abuses him, he is too horrified and ashamed to say anything. Adult Charles begins to weep as he recoils from these memories, while Destiny reminds him that there is no escape. ACT II As Charles grows into a teenager, he is full of confusion and rage. He attends a church service where the pastor is baptizing people, promising that God can wipe all sins clean. Charles decides to get baptized, but phantom terrors still haunt him. Charles tries to talk to his brothers, but they refuse to engage in any “soft talk.” Loneliness reappears, promising to be his lifelong companion. Evelyn, a beautiful young girl, interrupts Charles’s reverie. Their chemistry is clear. Charles feels a new sense of independence and is finally ready to strike out on his own; Grambling State University has offered him a full scholarship. Billie is left alone to reflect on all that she has sacrificed for her family and wonders what might lie ahead. ACT III Charles is one of several fraternity pledges being hazed at his college. Charles stoically takes each indignity in stride: Pain is nothing new for him. Later, he goes to a nightclub and meets an attractive young woman, Greta. They begin a passionate love affair. Charles eventually shares his awful secret with Greta, only to find out that she’s still seeing someone else. Charles is left alone again. He calls home, desperate to hear his mother’s voice. To his shock, Billie tells him that Chester has come back to visit. Charles instantly decides to return home to confront Chester, gun in hand. Charles sits in his car on the dark road, contemplating the choice lying before him. Destiny starts to sing to him once again, seductively promising to stand by him through to the bloody end. As Charles reaches his childhood home, Char’es-Baby appears, urging him to leave his bitterness behind. Charles must decide whether to exact his revenge or begin his life anew. Synopsis reprinted courtesy of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Email Signup Find The Metropolitan Opera on Facebook (opens new window) Find The Metropolitan Opera on Twitter (opens new window) Find The Metropolitan Opera on Instagram (opens new window) Find The Metropolitan Opera on Instagram (opens new window) Information provided by the Met in New York Fire Shut Up in My Bones: Movement Exercise The Creative Forces Behind Fire Shut Up in My Bones Highlights from 'Fire Shut Up in My Bones' Fire Shut Up in My Bones: TV Spot (30 sec)

The Voice of Black Cincinnati with Soja Lui Rey Epps

· First 28 – Madame Selika (1849 – 1937), First Black artist to perform at the White House Marie Smith, her given name, moved with her family from Natchez, Mississippi, to Cincinnati, Ohio, soon after birth. Her beautiful voice was discovered in childhood, and a wealthy family funded her music education. As a young adult, she moved to San Francisco to study music with Signora G. Bianchi and debuted as a concert soprano. In the 1870s, Smith moved to Chicago, where Antonio Farini developed her coloratura soprano voice and taught her the Italian singing method. There she also met a fellow student Sampson Williams, an operatic baritone whom she would later marry. In 1878, Williams became the first Black artist to perform at the White House, being introduced by Frederick Douglass and singing for President Rutherford B. Hayes and First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes. Her rendition of E. W. Mulder's "Polka Staccato" earned her the nickname the "Queen of Staccato." Williams continued to perform in the United States and adopted the stage name “Madame Selika,” believed to be from the character Sélika in Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera L'Africainelater. From 1882 to 1885, Madame Selika toured Europe with her husband, who took the stage name "Signor Velosko (the Hawaiian tenor)" and even performed for Queen Victoria. The Williams’ then toured around the world before settling in Cleveland. Despite her reputation and talent, Madame Selika had difficulty obtaining quality management and was known to organize her tours and concerts. Between 1885 to 1891, the couple opened a music studio in Cleveland and toured the United States performing primarily for all-Black audiences. In 1896, Madame Selika joined fellow Black singers Flora Batson and Sissieretta Jones for a historic performance at Carnegie Hall. After her husband died in 1911, Williams gave private lessons and taught at the Martin-Smith Music School in New York City. Her legacy remains as the most recognized and lauded African American woman singer of the late 19th century. Blacks would not be welcomed to the American operatic stage until the 1930s. Sources: 19th Century Black Cincinnatians you should know | Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library (cincinnatilibrary.org) Marie Selika Williams - Wikipedia Marie Selika Williams Gave White House Recital - Racing Nellie Bly-Famous women in history First African American to perform at the White House – Media Diversified Vocalist Marie Selika Williams born - African American Registry (aaregistry.org) The First 28, graciously sponsored by the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, celebrates Black Cincinnatians who were the first in their fields.

BLACK OPERA LIVE - November 14th (MOZARTEAN MAGIC AT THE MET

BLACK OPERA LIVE - November 28th (Porgy Across the Pond)

Marian Anderson - Black Voices in Opera and Why They Matter

Marian Anderson

I grew up in Virginia in a town named after Pocahontas . In grade school we were all taught that Marian Anderson was one of the greatest Opera stars in the world. Her beautiful voice and story made us feel proud to be little Black boys and girls growing up in a segregated society. Our grade school teacher taught us to hold our heads up high and be proud of our race. They also taught us that we could be anything we wanted to be as long as we worked hard to accomplish our goals. Please check out the video, it will warm your heart.

Marian Anderson

Basso Profundo: How a college football standout became an international opera star

Reprinted from the Atlanta Magazine

Basso Profundo: How a college football standout became an international opera star
Atlanta native Morris Robinson was known as “The Singing Football Cadet” at Citadel, then became a salesman. Today, he’s the Atlanta Symphony’s second-ever artist-in-residence.


Morris Robinson is trying to lay low, something that’s never been easy for him. If anyone failed to see the 6-foot-3, 300-plus-pound vocalist lumbering through the lobby of the Woodruff Arts Center an hour ago in black ostrich-skin boots, tuxedo pants, and untucked maroon T-shirt, they certainly heard his voice. Or rather felt it—a sonorous “Hello! How’s it going?” to the doorman at Symphony Hall that seemed to make the walls, the carpeted concrete floor, even the humid air waver like a tuning fork.

Tonight Robinson’s bass is even deeper thanks to some congestion—the onset of what he fears is a cold. That’s why he spent the afternoon resting alone in a darkened Buckhead hotel room instead of surrounded by family at his home in Tyrone, just 35 minutes south. And it’s why he sequestered himself in a cramped dressing room in the bowels of the Woodruff, where he periodically cleared out his pipes with bursts of la-la-la’s, doh’s, and rolling Italian rrrrr’s that made the white-tied instrumentalists start as they passed. And it’s why now, minutes before showtime, Robinson is backstage pacing, size-15 boots falling heavy on the hardwood to and from the stage door, where he keeps peeking out at the packed house. “I’m going to own the room,” he says to himself. “When I walk out, I’m going to take control.”


The sweat is beading on his shaved head. This is a rare show in Robinson’s hometown, a recital to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, his sixth performance in this building as artist-in-residence for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Many of the people out there are friends and family. Some remember him as DeRhon—his middle name—the boy who sang in church but set aside music to play football, becoming an All-American lineman at the Citadel, before moving north to embark on a career in business. Maybe they’ve heard something about the man who, in his 30s, rediscovered classical music and left the world of corporate sales to become an opera singer.

It’s time. Robinson takes a last swig of lukewarm water and straightens his jacket. He clears his throat one final time and quickly blows a kiss to the sky, to the one lifelong fan who isn’t here—the mother who seemed to know all along that her son’s voice was meant to stir the masses.



Sedora “Louise” Robinson was a housewife who sang in the church choir and made sure that her home in Kings Forest, a middle-class neighborhood in southwestern Atlanta, was full of music. All four of Louise’s children sang and played an instrument. Morris took piano lessons and practiced with the Israel Baptist Church choir, standing on a chair to soak in the applause after a Sunday solo on “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus.” When he was just seven years old, his mother took him to try out for the Atlanta Boy Choir; he made first soprano. But after a couple of years, feeling out of place, he quit. “I was a big black kid from Southwest Atlanta, bigger than most of the boys in the choir,” he says. “And I wasn’t playing football.”

It turned out, though, that he was too big, 130 pounds by age 10, for his age group in organized ball. So he gravitated back to music. He picked up the more socially acceptable drums, which he played for cash in churches all over town. He also played baritone in junior high band, which fed into the prestigious Northside School of the Performing Arts (now North Atlanta). The day after Robinson made the high school band, his mother made him audition for the school choir. By senior year he was touring with the school’s stage show, which, to the young teen’s eternal embarrassment, involved wearing a sequined vest and tights. “Where do you even go to buy tights for a 200-pound dude?” says Derrick Bailey, who grew up two streets away from Robinson and played football at Northside. Not that Robinson suffered much ridicule. “There are easier targets,” says Bailey. “Leave the baritone player alone and go after the guy who plays piccolo.”

During spring of his freshman year, Robinson went out for football. When the band director came looking for him one day, the football coach said, “He won’t be in band anymore.” From then on, the teenager’s life was two-a-days in the sweltering Georgia summer, weekday a.m.’s in the weight room, and plowing lanes for running backs and protecting his QB on autumn Friday nights. And when it came time for college, Robinson was picking between Division 1 football programs instead of conservatories.
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Robinson chose a full ride to the Citadel, where he enrolled as a 265-pound cadet. The offensive line coach at the time, Jeff Bleamer, set about addressing the gentle giant’s demeanor. “He was a really nice guy,” Bleamer says. “And he didn’t want to turn that personality off on the field; I gave him vocal lessons, all right, but they weren’t singing.” Bleamer credits Robinson’s extraordinary work ethic in shaping the soft underclassman into a senior All-American who dominated opposing defenses.

Off the field he played piano and directed the gospel choir, which was a refuge and community for the few African American cadets. Music was a way to feel connected to his childhood and God. It was also getting him some national exposure: “The Singing Football Cadet” was featured briefly in Sports Illustrated and on CBS College Football Today. In 1991 he even sang the national anthem at the NBA All-Star Game.



Robinson was scouted by NFL teams, but he was deemed too small. As for music, that didn’t seem like a viable career option either. His English degree ultimately took him to Washington, D.C., where he worked in corporate sales for 3M. En route to a conference, he met a flight attendant named Denise, and the two eventually married. One day his young wife and his mother scheduled a tryout with the Choral Arts Society of Washington, a pro-caliber volunteer chorus. “I had a 1 p.m. audition, and I needed to prepare a song,” says Robinson. He still had “Tuba Mirum” from Mozart’s Requiem memorized from high school. He rushed to the National Cathedral and made the cut.



Still, it wasn’t until Robinson moved to New Hampshire for a sales job with Advanced Elastomer Systems in 1997 that he saw music as anything more than just a hobby. “I knew I had this talent, and I could see that people loved it, but I didn’t know what would afford me the opportunity to do it for a living,” he says. He enrolled in the continuing education program at the New England Conservatory of Music and performed in weekend shows throughout the region. It was at one of these offbeat concerts, playing the devil in a tiny production of Satanella in Salem, Massachusetts, where Robinson caught his break. One night Sharon Daniels, a former Broadway and New York City Opera singer who taught voice at Boston University, was in the audience. When Robinson made his entrance from the back of the hall, Daniels heard all she needed to. “It was chilling,” she says. “After 25 years of professional singing, I knew what that sound was.”

After the show, Daniels approached the devil with a deal. “I asked him if he had ever considered taking his voice seriously,” she says. She couldn’t promise anything more than an audition for the prestigious BU program, which, if he were accepted, would require a full-time commitment; he’d have to quit his corporate job. He took her card and said he’d think about it.

About a week later, Robinson called Daniels to set up an audition.
A shower of applause greets Robinson as his boots pound a path to center stage. He’s standing in front of the conductor and the seated orchestra, wearing a black suit jacket and matching button-down with the collar open. Tonight’s show is a selection of songs, not an opera. Still, Robinson puts his mind in Italy in the 14th century, where Verdi’s opera Simon Boccanegra takes place. Once the crowd settles and the strings sound the ominous, mournful introduction to “Il lacerato spirito” and the horns answer, Robinson inhabits his character, Jacopo Fiesco, who is lamenting the death of his daughter, Maria.

Robinson’s voice rumbles to life as he extends a hand to the audience, as if opening a pit in the middle of the auditorium. Hurling thunderbolts over the crescendoing 72-piece orchestra, Fiesco condemns both the seducer who brought this tragedy upon his family and the Virgin Mary, who allowed it to happen. As he holds the final sorrowful note—steadily, without a hint of congestion—even the patrons who don’t speak the language and haven’t found the translation on page 37 of the program can feel this father’s pain.



Robinson’s command of his voice (not to mention Renaissance Italian) didn’t come to him naturally. When he began studying under Daniels at BU in 1999, he was little more than raw talent. “He didn’t have the musical education,” says Daniels. “He had no sense of style, no vocal technique.”

Robinson spent hours each day learning how to harness his voice’s raw power—to securely access his high range, add more richness and nuance to his lower register, and smooth out the transition between them. He studied Italian, German, and French—the tongues of classical opera—including diction and style as well as comprehension. And he struggled with deportment, moving and singing in period velveteen.


In his spare hours, Robinson worked at Best Buy, but after a stellar debut in 1999 with the Boston Lyric Opera as the King of Egypt in Verdi’s Aida, roles started flooding in: Bartolo in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and other parts in Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni, Salome. In 2001 he placed third in the New England region of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, which ultimately led to an invitation to audition for the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. He was one of only nine singers accepted from all over the globe. He and his wife moved to New York City, where he made his Met debut in Beethoven’s Fidelio. His mother was in the audience.

Now on a world stage, Robinson worked even harder. He paired with instructor Mark Oswald, a former baritone with the Met, who gave Robinson more than 200 lessons over three years. Oswald worked with Robinson on breathing exercises. His student sang arpeggios in every key, which helped build muscular support for every vowel sound, of which there are about 20 in the combined European languages. Robinson recalls it as a “vocal gym.”

“He had to build his voice note for note, vowel by vowel,” says Oswald. “He needed refinement as he ascended the range. But he had the voice of God on the low notes.”

The roles of gods and titans in Wagner and Verdi soon came to Robinson from opera houses in Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Sydney. To compete against singers who’ve been training since childhood, he simply worked harder. He paid a pianist by the hour to run through the parts with him, recording the session on his phone. After weeks of listening to the recording on repeat and singing a cappella while pacing his home, he gradually absorbed the role.

Robinson was also approached about roles in musicals. But he was reluctant, for fear of being typecast early in his career. Then, in 2012, he was offered the role of Joe in Show Boat, which meant the classic bass solo “Ol’ Man River.” “Show Boat was a big deal,” he says. “I’d been working my entire career to that point to sing German and Italian repertoire at reputable houses. I sat with that contract in my lap for a while. I asked myself, ‘Have I done enough yet in this business to justify doing this?’ The answer was, ‘I think so.’”


Around that time, Robinson and his family (including his young son) moved into a comfortable six-bedroom Tyrone home near family and good schools. “If they don’t hire me to do it, they’re going to hire another black actor who’s going to make all this money,” he says. “I’ve got a Hummer, an Escalade, and a kid who has to go to college.”

Robinson performing as Joe in Show Boat, San Francisco Opera, 2014, with his son, Miles.
Photograph courtesy of Morris Robinson


Last November, Robinson’s homecoming was complete when he was selected as the ASO’s second-ever artist-in-residence. In this capacity, Robinson acts as a community advocate, gives recitals and masters classes for music students, appears at ASO outreach events, and of course, performs, as he is tonight in Symphony Hall. The residency runs through October.

Robinson performing as Ferrando in Il Trovatore, Cincinnati Opera, 2015

Photograph courtesy of Morris Robinson
As the applause rises and ebbs between songs, Robinson looks out upon the darkened house. No one, including himself, could have imagined he would one day be standing on that stage. No one, of course, except his mother. Just two years after she saw his debut in New York, Louise Robinson died of a stroke. “Mom wanted me to sing more than anything,” he says. “Mom always knows.”

The orchestra starts the next song, a ragtime-style tune with a plucked banjo casually keeping time. Despite Robinson having wiped several times with a gray towel, the sweat still glistens on his brow. The song is written for a baritone, and even without the congestion, it would reach into the loftier parts of his register. It’s also the first time he’s ever performed this number in public. “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’” is a song from the second act of Gershwin’s 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, a love story between a disabled beggar and a former prostitute in the black tenements of Depression-era Charleston. Porgy is a role that Robinson has intentionally avoided, for the same reasons he avoided Show Boa
- See more at: http://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/basso-profundo/#sthash.XvGxFUDy.dpuf

Robinson performing as Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Sydney Opera House, 2014;
Photograph courtesy of Morris Robinson


Now, 17 years into his career, Robinson feels like he’s established himself enough as a classical artist in the serious world of opera to take on Porgy’s baritone in a performance at Milan’s legendary La Scala opera house this fall. Robinson’s decision has sparked a bit of controversy among both mainstream classical musicians who don’t accept Gershwin as a true opera and fellow African Americans who consider the stereotype-laden work offensive. “The part that hurts the worst is that it comes from within my demographic,” says Robinson. “Little do they know that the same fire that I developed on the football field, they just ignited it. I don’t usually try to be the best ever; I usually just try to be the best me. But now, I’m fired up.”

King Philip II and the Grand Inquisitor | DON CARLO


There is no strain in Robinson’s voice as he streamlines his operatic bravado into the pop standard on the comforts of having nothing to lose: “Got my gal, got my Lord,” and then the sustained high note on “Got my song.” The audience comes to its feet.

Robinson (No. 58) played as a lineman for the Citadel, 1990
Photograph courtesy of Morris Robinson


At intermission, well-wishers crowd the backstage, congratulating Robinson. A swarm of friends, family, former teammates and their kids. The instrumentalists scurrying to use the bathroom have to duck and dodge their way through the reunion. People take turns posing for photos beneath his massive outstretched arms. He does his best not to speak beyond a few thank-you’s. His part of the program now over, he’ll skip out on the remainder of the show and sneak back to the Buckhead hotel room to unwind alone in peace. He’s got another performance, an hour-long set of Russian opera here at this same time tomorrow night. And he’s worried he might be getting a cold.

Robinson with the ASO, 2016
Photograph by Jeff Roffman


This article originally appeared in our April 2016 issu


Tags: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, College Football, football, Morris Robinson, music, opera, performing arts

Elizabeth Talylor Greenfield, First Black internationally known OPera Star

 Information provided by biography.com

 Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was an internationally recognized African-American vocalist in the 1800s, known in the press as the "Black Swan."

Synopsis

Born in or around the second decade of the 1800s in Natchez, Mississippi, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield established a career as an acclaimed vocalist, touring the United States and Great Britain, where she gave a Buckingham Palace concert for Queen Victoria. Known as the "Black Swan," Greenfield continued performing into the 1860s and also worked as a teacher. She died in in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 31, 1876.

Background

Born Elizabeth Taylor, the exact date of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield's birth is unknown, with various sources listing different years. She was born into slavery somewhere reportedly around the second decade of the 1800s in the region of Natchez, Mississippi to mother Anna and father Taylor (his listed last name). The mistress of the grounds, the widowed Mrs. Holliday Greenfield, moved to Philadelphia in the 1820s and took the young Elizabeth with her. Holliday eventually became a Quaker, freeing her slaves. Though her parents moved overseas to Liberia, Elizabeth continued to live with Holliday for a time as a child and later as an adult, taking her last name.

Named 'Black Swan'

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield had a passion for song, becoming a church vocalist and learning how to play instruments like the harp and piano on her own. She was only able to receive limited musical training due to racist ideology but was nonetheless able to develop a stunning voice, with an apparently multi-octave range and the ability to sing soprano, tenor and bass. It is believed Greenfield began performing for private events by the 1840s.
In the fall of 1851, upon traveling to Buffalo, New York to attend a concert by fellow vocalist Jenny Lind, Greenfield was later able to give a performance of her own. With accolades coming in from the newspaper press, she went on a multiple city tour the following year and would come to be hailed as the first nationally recognized African-American concert singer, eventually receiving the same acclaim in parts of Europe as well. For Greenfield, the media initially came up with the nickname "African Nightingale" and, later, "Black Swan."

 Reenactment of The Black Swan
 Portraits

Mattiwilda Dobbs Dies at 90

Mattiwilda Dobbs, Soprano and Principal at Met, Dies at 90. If you would like to listen to some of her performances, just type her name in the search box.
By MARGALIT FOXDEC. 10, 2015

Mattiwilda Dobbs, a coloratura soprano who was the third African-American to appear as a principal singer with the Metropolitan Opera, died on Tuesday at her home in Atlanta. She was 90. Her death was confirmed by a niece, Michele Jordan.
Though Ms. Dobbs’s voice was not immense, she was routinely praised by critics for its crystalline purity and supple agility, and for her impeccable intonation, sensitive musicianship and captivating stage presence.
She also had a highly regarded international career as a recitalist, singing at Town Hall in New York and on other celebrated stages, and was especially renowned as an interpreter of Schubert lieder.
When Ms. Dobbs made her Met debut, as Gilda in Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” on Nov. 9, 1956, she had already sung to great acclaim at La Scala in Milan, where she was the first black principal singer; Covent Garden in London; and the San Francisco Opera, where she had made her United States operatic debut, as the Queen of Shemakha in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Le Coq d’Or,” in 1955.
At the Met, she was preceded by two black singers: the contralto Marian Anderson, who made her debut in January 1955, and the baritone Robert McFerrin, who made his a few weeks later. (Mr. McFerrin was the father of the jazz singer Bobby McFerrin.)
Reviewing Ms. Dobbs’s Met debut, opposite the baritone Leonard Warren, Howard Taubman wrote in The New York Times: “The young soprano has a voice of substance and quality, well placed and expertly controlled. Her singing is true, flexible at the top in coloratura passages and glowing in texture throughout the scale.”
The first black woman to be offered a long-term contract by the Met, Ms. Dobbs appeared with the company 29 times through 1964. Her roles there included Oscar the pageboy (sung by a soprano) in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera”; Zerlina in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”; and the title part in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” for which, The Daily News reported in 1957, the audience summoned her back for nine curtain calls after she had sung her mad scene.
If Ms. Dobbs is less well remembered today than some singers of her era, that is partly because she made relatively few recordings. It is also because her debut fell between the historic advent of Ms. Anderson and the blazing ascendance of Leontyne Price, widely considered the first black operatic superstar, who made her Met debut in 1961.
What was more, Ms. Dobbs happened to have joined the Met as part of the incoming class of 1956-57 — a group of newly hired principal singers that included the titanic sopranos Antonietta Stella and Maria Callas.
Named for a grandmother, Mattie Wilda Sykes, Mattiwilda Dobbs was born in Atlanta on July 11, 1925, the fifth of six daughters of John Wesley Dobbs and the former Irene Ophelia Thompson.
Hers was a distinguished family: Ms. Dobbs’s father, a mail-train clerk, was long active in civic affairs, helping to register black voters as early as the 1930s. In the late 1940s he helped found the Atlanta Negro Voters League.

Mr. Dobbs insisted on a college education, along with seven years’ study of the piano, for each of his daughters, and he prevailed in every instance. As a girl, Mattiwilda also sang in her church choir but, retiring and bashful, did not envision a performing career.
She began voice lessons in earnest only as an undergraduate at Spelman College in Atlanta. After earning her bachelor’s degree — she graduated first in her class with majors in Spanish and music — the young Ms. Dobbs moved North at her father’s insistence for advanced vocal training.
“I would never have been a singer if it were not for my father,” she told Look magazine in 1969. “I was too shy.”
In New York, Ms. Dobbs became a pupil of the German soprano Lotte Leonard; she also studied at Tanglewood. At the same time, as a hedge against the uncertainties of a career in music, she earned a master’s degree in Spanish from Columbia University Teachers College.
Ms. Dobbs was a winner of the Marian Anderson Scholarship Fund in 1948, and received a scholarship from the John Hay Whitney Foundation not long afterward. On the strength of her awards, she moved to Paris, where she studied with the art-song specialist Pierre Bernac.
In 1951, she came to wide international attention by winning a first prize in the Geneva International Music Competition.
Over the years, Ms. Dobbs also sang at the Glyndebourne Festival in England and with the Royal Swedish Opera, the Hamburg State Opera and the Israel Philharmonic. In 1959, she was one of four Americans — the others were Gary Cooper, Edward G. Robinson and the producer Harold Hecht — sent by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to establish a cultural exchange program with the Soviet Union.
Ms. Dobbs’s first husband, Luis Rodriguez Garcia de la Piedra, a Spanish journalist whom she married in 1953, died the next year. (Only days after his death, she honored a commitment to sing at Covent Garden before the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.)
In 1957 Ms. Dobbs married Bengt Janzon, a Swedish journalist, and she was known afterward in private life as Mattiwilda Dobbs Janzon.
Mr. Janzon died in 1997. Ms. Dobbs’s survivors include a sister, June Dobbs Butts.
Ms. Dobbs’s recordings include Mozart’s “The Abduction From the Seraglio,” Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers” and Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann.”
After retiring from the concert stage, Ms. Dobbs taught voice at the University of Texas, Spelman College and, for many years, Howard University in Washington.
Throughout her career, Ms. Dobbs refused to sing in segregated concert halls. She did not perform in her hometown, Atlanta, for instance, until 1962, when she sang before an integrated audience at the Municipal Auditorium there.
In January 1974 she performed at another epochal Atlanta event, singing the spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” at the inauguration of the city’s first black mayor, Maynard Jackson.
The choice of Ms. Dobbs to perform at Mr. Jackson’s inauguration seemed almost foreordained, and not merely because of their shared background as racial pioneers. Mr. Jackson, the great-great-grandson of a slave, was also Ms. Dobbs’s nephew.

Voices of Black Opera

Voices Of Black Opera