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Saturday, December 14, 2019
Leontyne Price (b. February 10, 1927): Legendary, iconic, and innovative musician, singer, producer, and teacher
The daughter of a carpenter and a midwife, African-American soprano Leontyne Price
(born Mary Violet) studied piano and singing with the assistance of a
local family that recognized her innate talents. After earning her
degree from College of Education and Industrial Arts at Wilberforce, OH
(where she studied with Catherine Van Buren), Price
was awarded a scholarship to attend the Juilliard School of Music where
she continued vocal training with Florence Page Kimball. Upon hearing
her there, Virgil Thomson
invited her to sing Saint Cecilia in the 1952 revival of his Four
Saints in Three Acts. She then toured the United States and Europe as
Bess in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1952-1955); on this tour she met and married bass-baritone William Warfield who was singing the role of Porgy.
In October 1953, Price sang the premiere of Samuel Barber's
Hermit Songs at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and she
gave her first New York recital in November 1954; in December of the
same year she sang Barber's Prayers of Kierkegaard with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Her appearances in Tosca, Die Zauberflöte, Dialogues des Carmelites,
and Don Giovanni on television brought her to wide attention for both
her outstanding singing, and for being the first African American
leading soprano of note.
In the following seasons, she made her debuts at San
Francisco, Chicago, Vienna, London, and Milan. This culminated in her
first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House as Leonore in Il
trovatore, an evening that garnered a front page review in The New York
Times. The Metropolitan would soon become her favored opera house; she
sang most of her wide repertoire there, including Aida, Tosca, Madama
Butterfly, Leonore in La Forza del Destino, Ernani, Amelia in Un ballo
in maschera, Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte),
Fiorgiligi (Così), Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos), and Tatiana in Eugene
Onegin. She sang her last operatic performance there in 1985 as Aida.
Price
was known as much for her concert and recital appearances as for those
in opera. Besides performances of common repertory works, such as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and the Verdi Requiem, she also undertook Honegger's rather obscure Jeanne d'Arc (with the New York Philharmonic) and Bruckner's
Te Deum (at Salzburg). Her solo concerts often featured lesser-known
arias and excerpts, including the "Awakening of Helen" from Strauss'
Egyptian Helen, selections from Barber's Anthony and Cleopatra and The Songs of the Rose of Sharon by John La Montaine.
She gave annual recitals throughout North America
and was also heard regularly in Europe, being a special favorite at the
Salzburg Festival. Her recital repertoire was extensive, ranging from
the songs of Poulenc,
Hahn, and Marx, to traditional spirituals; her final encore was often
"This little light of mine" -- one of her mother's favorite pieces.
Leontyne Price's voice was a spinto soprano of great beauty. She had a wonderful feeling for the sweep of the long phrases of Verdi
and her technique allowed her to encompass all of the difficulties of
Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) and Elvira (Ernani). Her lower register had a
quality often described as "dusky" which many listeners found quite
sensual. Most of her important operatic roles were recorded by RCA, but
only a small fraction of her recital repertoire found its way onto disc.
Leontyne Price will always be remembered as one of the greatest Verdi sopranos of the twentieth century.
"This
award is visible evidence to the world of the esteem in which we as a
nation hold opera. It was a long journey from my hometown of Laurel,
Mississippi, to the capital of the greatest country in the world. I
thank everyone who was involved in my selection and I share this
recognition with everyone who helped me along the way. They have my
sincerest thanks and appreciation. I am still almost speechless." There are very few singers with voices that are as instantly
recognizable, and revered, as the rich, creamy lyric soprano of Leontyne
Price. She continues to be a powerful advocate not only for the art she
loves, but for human rights. Born in Laurel, Mississippi in 1927, Price
played the piano early on and soon began to sing at church and school.
When she was 9 years old, she heard Marian Anderson in concert; that,
Price has said, "was what you might call the original kickoff" for her
pursuit of what became an astonishing vocal career. Although her 1961
debut as Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera instantly made her a legend -- and landed her on the cover of Time
magazine -- she was already well known to opera audiences in cities
such as San Francisco and Vienna (where, at the invitation of Herbert
von Karajan, she made her debut as Aida in 1959). Price has
made a long career in opera, concert and recital. Though she is best
known as a Verdi and Puccini singer, she has always embraced the work of
American composers, particularly Samuel Barber. She gave the premiere
of his Hermit Songs at New York City's Town Hall in 1954, with the composer at the piano, and Barber went on to write many pieces for her.
In 1997, Price introduced children to one of opera's greatest heroines in her book Aida.
Her scores of awards include the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964),
the Kennedy Center Honors (1980), the National Medal of the Arts (1985),
the National Association of Black Broadcasters Award (2002), the French
Order of Arts and Letters, the Italian Order of Merit, 19 Grammys and
three Emmys.
Leontyne Price, Legendary Diva, Is a Movie Star at 90
Leontyne Price, being interviewed this year. She steals the show in the new documentary “The Opera House,” about the building of the “New Met” at Lincoln Center. RogerPhenix/Metropolitan Opera
COLUMBIA,
Md. — The soprano Leontyne Price, who retired from singing 20 years
ago, assumed that the triumphs of her illustrious career were behind
her. Not so. At 90, Ms. Price has become an unlikely movie star
She
may not quite be in line for a spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But
again and again, Ms. Price steals Susan Froemke’s new documentary, “The Opera House,”
which tells the complex, tense saga of the building and inauguration,
in 1966, of the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.
The “New Met” opened with the lavish premiere of Samuel Barber’s
“Antony and Cleopatra,” tailored to Ms. Price’s radiant voice and prima
donna grandeur. And she dominates the documentary, both in footage from
the ’60s and in interview segments filmed just before her 90th
birthday, in which Ms. Price recounts the opening night with impressive
detail and droll humor, along with charming (and amply justified)
self-regard.
“I really sang like an angel,” she recalls at one point. “You just want to kiss yourself, you sound so great.”
These delightful
sequences make the movie: In an interview earlier this year about her
documentary, Ms. Froemke said that when her interview with Ms. Price
ended, she was so elated that she texted her colleagues: “We have a film
now.”
But does Ms. Price like the results?
“Are
you kidding?” Ms. Price said during a December interview in the homey
apartment here, where she has lived for several years. “I’m having it
put in my casket. It was so exciting for me to go back and remember all
the things that happened that night.”
She said she considers the Met “the temple of grand opera,” so “to be there from the very beginning was a very great honor.”
Ms. Price, in her debut Met role as Leonora in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” in 1961. Credit: Louis Mélançon/Metropolitan Opera Archives
On
opening night, Ms. Price recalled in the interview, she was swept up in
thoughts about the unlikely path she had traveled, from her birth to
humble parents in a small Mississippi town in the segregated South — her
mother was a midwife and her father worked in a sawmill — to her
momentous Met debut in 1961 singing Leonora in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore,”
to the 1966 theater opening in a made-to-order grand opera.
“It left me speechless,” she said.
Actually, in the film — which will be screened next month across Canada and the United States, including at the Walter Reade Theater
at Lincoln Center and several others in New York on Jan. 13 and 17 —
Ms. Price hardly comes across as speechless. She volubly recounts the
mishaps that plagued Franco Zeffirelli’s monumental staging. And she was
anything but searching for words during our recent interview, greeting
me at the door with a diva-style vocal flourish.
She
sings every day, she said proudly. “It’s practically the only thing in
me that still works,” she added — at least without Bengay, athletic
creams or Emu oil.
Ms. Price moved
from New York to Maryland at the urging of her younger brother, George
B. Price, a retired Army general whose large family lives mostly in the
region. Mr. Price became his sister’s manager after she retired from
opera in 1985, singing a final Met performance of Verdi’s “Aida,” and
began a final phase of concert work, which lasted 12 years.
“I’m
doing so good here, thanks to my brother and the kids,” she said. “I
didn’t think I could be this happy without singing, without being center
stage.”
She
certainly relished her time in the spotlight. On opening night in 1966,
Rudolf Bing, the Met’s general manager, came backstage to wish her good
luck.
“I told him, ‘I’m about to scream — not sing — to scream
with happiness,’” Ms. Price recalled. That afternoon, she had learned
that radio stations in and around her hometown, Laurel, Miss., had been
linked into the Met’s radio network and would carry “Antony and
Cleopatra” live.
This
represented a titanic shift from a painful event a decade earlier. NBC
Opera Theater, a TV series that broadcast live opera stagings, had
chosen Ms. Price to sing the title role of Puccini’s “Tosca” in 1955.
This was “a breakthrough for me,” she said, before adding, almost as an
aside, “My state didn’t carry it.” Indeed, many NBC affiliates in the
South refused to show a program featuring a black Tosca and her white lover.
But
racism was a reality for her from birth. When she was 9, her mother,
celebrated for her singing in church, took the young Leontyne on a bus
trip to Jackson, Miss., to hear the great contralto Marian Anderson in
recital.
“She came out in a white
satin gown, so majestic,” Ms. Price said. “And opened her mouth, and I
thought, ‘This is it, mama. This is what I’m going to be.’”
Even
though it was a concert by a distinguished black artist, the hall was
segregated; Ms. Price and her mother sat in the “colored” section.
Though just a child, she said she put this irony out of her mind. But
even as Ms. Price argued that art “has no color,” she acknowledged that
artists, of course, have origins and identities.
“One
of the things about this extraordinary instrument that I have is the
blackness in it, the natural flavor,” Ms. Price said. “It’s something
extra.”
And something particularly
appropriate, she added, when singing spirituals, which she called “black
heartbeat music.” She speaks and sings with a Southern accent, she
said, which gave her spirituals “even more of me.”
Barber,
like so many, was captivated by her. At the recommendation of Florence
Page Kimball, Ms. Price’s beloved voice teacher at the Juilliard School,
he chose the young soprano, then 26, to give the premiere of his
“Hermit Songs” in 1953. He wrote Cleopatra “for the timbre, the shadings
— everything about my voice, which is not too shabby, actually,” Ms.
Price said.
Ms. Price as Aida at her farewell Met performance in 1985. Credit: James Heffernan/Metropolitan Opera Archives
She
still won’t hear a word against “Antony and Cleopatra,” though she
knows how tough the initial reviews were. Most critics acknowledged the
score’s beautiful moments, especially Cleopatra’s death scene, in which
the character’s plaintive lyrical lines are capped by a chilling choral
threnody. Still, whole stretches of the opera came across as splashy and
grandiose, an impression reinforced by Mr. Zeffirelli’s overblown
production. Barber revised the score significantly for a 1975 revival at
Juilliard and that version has been slowly gaining attention.
He
also adapted a concert suite of Cleopatra’s arias for Ms. Price. “I
sang it all over the world, and I sang the hell out of it,” Ms. Price
said. “I don’t think the opera was a failure. Finally — not totally — in
time, Sam accepted that it’s great music.”
She hopes the film will call attention to the Met and Barber’s opera, and to his works more generally.
She
spoke at length about his “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” for voice and
orchestra, a wistfully beautiful musical setting of a James Agee text,
with its description of a child’s memories of an evening at home. (“On
the rough wet grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread
quilts.”)
That poem “is like painting a picture of my hometown,” Ms. Price said, “and that’s the way I sang it.”
She
recorded it in the summer of 1968, after the death of her father. While
she performed the music in the studio, she “could see the lawn chairs
made by my daddy,” she recalled. “He never finished the ninth grade, and
he could fix anything, which was fabulous.”
Then
she started singing the pensive child’s final line about the parents
who provide so much love, “but will not ever tell me who I am.”
At first Ms. Price faltered. Then she shifted to a higher key and sang the phrase tenderly, right to me.
A version of this article appears in print on , Section AR, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: From Diva to Unlikely Movie Star, at 90. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper
MUSIC REVIEW : Leontyne Price in Recital: A Diva for All Seasons
by MARTIN BERNHEIMER
April 9, 1994
Los Angeles Times
There are sopranos and there are sopranos. Then there are divas. Leontyne Price is a diva. They don’t make them like that anymore. Watch
her sweep onstage in regal splendor, flashing a devastating push-button
smile. Watch her elevate the simple practice of semaphore to a high,
complex art. Watch her cultivate that disarming if not disingenuous 'what all this love for little me? gesture.
Watch her clutch her heart. Watch her emote with bigger-than-life
bravado. Watch her choreograph her own ovations. Watch her model two
gowns, something to drape her statuesque form in spangly blue before
intermission and something to create a softer effect in shocking,
flowing pink afterward. Watch her deflect some of her birth-right
cheers, with grandiose generosity, to her faithful, eloquent and
ever-supportive accompanist, David Garvey. Price, who helped
Ambassador Auditorium celebrate its 20th anniversary Thursday night,
knows what she is doing. And she has been doing it quite splendidly for a
long time. Although it may not seem altogether gallant to mention
just how long, the statistics are no secret. Check the reference books.
Mary Violet Price, a.k.a. Leontyne, was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on
Feb. 10, 1927. Los Angeles first heard her in concert 38 years ago at
Hollywood Bowl. In these pages, Walter Arlen took appreciative notice of
her “dramatic stature” and “especially impressive silvery pianissimo.”
Some things have not changed.
Price’s
position in history is secure. She took, and held, a proud place in the
lonely procession of great lirico-spinto sopranos at the Metropolitan
following Rosa Ponselle and Zinka Milanov. She bridged the gap between
Gershwin’s Bess and Verdi’s Leonora, making the world of opera
blissfully color-blind in the process. She retired from theatrical
challenges, with dignity, in 1985, but continues to stimulate delirium
among her ever-vociferous fans with recital programs that make no
concession to the passing years.
And so it was at Ambassador. The
agenda was broad in scope--an old-fashioned mixed-grille menu--and
demanding in matters of range, style and technique. It was, in fact,
exactly the sort of agenda Price would have chosen 25 years ago.
Arduous
arias of Handel and Mozart served as warm-up exercises, followed by a
set of introspective Lieder by the relatively obscure Joseph Marx and
some heroic signature-piece Verdi. Then, in the pink period, came
sensitive melodies of Poulenc, Duparc and Hahn, followed by a
contemporary American group (Hoiby, Bonds, Dougherty) and the inevitable
spiritual mock-finale.
The real finale--presented amid de rigueur standing ovations, tons of floral tributes and raucous choruses of bravo , not to mention an occasional sophisticated brava
--came with the four encores. So did some of the most memorable
vocalism of the evening: in Butterfly’s death scene, in the same
“Summertime” Price introduced at the Bowl in ’55, in “This Little Light
of Mine” (“a favorite,” the diva announced, “of my mother’s”) and, most
notably, in “Io son l’umile ancella” from Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur.”
The
last aria told everything. Her voice sounding warm, poised and
sensuous, Price traced the long, arching contours with extraordinary
tenderness and purity. She offered an object lesson in the lost art of
legato phrasing, and even capped the ultimate ascending line with an
ethereal diminuendo. She mustered far more freshness, in fact, and far
more subtlety than one heard at the Met a couple of weeks ago when
Mirella Freni, a comparative youngster at 59, attempted the same
challenge.
There were other moments that recalled past glories:
the other-worldly downward glissando that climaxed an oddly
free-and-easy “Summertime,” the exquisite caress of Poulenc’s “C” the
insinuation of his “Violon,” the wicked parody of Hoiby’s “Serpent,” the
arching pathos of Cio-Cio-San’s suicide.
It would be less than
realistic to pretend that everything went this well. The
almost-impossible coloratura of “D’Oreste, d’Ajace” from Mozart’s
“Idomoneo” was merely approximated. The classic torment of Handel’s
Cleopatra sounded labored. Harsh register breaks marred “Pace, pace mio
Dio.” Much of the singing early in the evening seemed explosive, the
tone raw and unresonant, the interpretations mannered.
Even here,
however, one had to marvel at the extraordinary preservation of the
singer’s resources. The top range is still in tact. There is no wobble.
The only serious signs of strain involve sporadic problems of breath
support.
At 67, Leontyne Price often sings better than many a soprano half her
age, and she always sings better than any soprano anywhere near her
age. In her own stubbornly independent way, she remains a diva for all
seasons.
Home»Features»Reputations: Leontyne Price, every inch the prima donna
Reputations: Leontyne Price, every inch the prima donna
Guest: 6th February 2017
One
of America's leading sopranos for over three decades, and a favourite
with conductors from Karajan to Levine, Alan Blyth pays tribute
Leontyne Price (photo: Sony/Dave Hecht)
I was present in 1952 at the Stoll Theatre in
London when Leontyne Price made her London debut, virtually unknown, in a
legendary tour of Porgy and Bess. I cannot say I recall much
about the occasion, but I certainly have a strong recollection of her
next appearance in London when she returned, now with a burgeoning
career, to sing the title-role in Aida, at Covent Garden in
1958. She felt and sang it with the instinctive rightness that comes of
thorough training and innate musicality. Soon the role became her
calling-card, including her La Scala debut in 1960 and her first
appearance at the Metropolitan in 1961. By then Price had established herself as the first black singer to
appear regularly in opera houses around the world. True, Marian
Anderson, at the end of a long career as a concert singer, had made a
single appearance at the Metropolitan in 1955, but it was Price who
broke down the colour bar and made certain that black singers had the
same status as their white coevals. She herself has revelled in the
achievement. She has always had a similar pride in her own voice, which she has described as 'gorgeous'. In an interview for Gramophone
(in August 1971), she told me that she liked nothing better than
sitting down and listening to it. She also declared that: 'You cannot be
an opera singer and be humble.' When she spoke like that, it did not
smack of conceit, more of satisfaction at her achievement. She has cause to be proud of that achievement. From about 1960 to
1980, she was a dominant singer on the international scene and in the
recording studio (RCA treated her royally at the time). She was born in
Laurel, Mississippi. Her mother worked hard so that her daughter could
study piano. She was able to accept a scholarship to the Juilliard
School in New York, thanks to the generosity of a prominent family in
Laurel. Seeing and hearing Ljuba Welitsch as Salome at the Metropolitan
in 1949 inspired her to become an opera singer. She made her stage debut
in Paris as St Cecilia in Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts,
then sang Bess at the Ziegfield Theater on Broadway. As already noted,
in the same year - 1952 - she began touring Gershwin's opera. In 1955
she caused a sensation in a TV production of Tosca, which led
to an engagement at the San Francisco Opera. From then on she never
looked back. Her stage career ended only in 1985 with Aida at the Met, though she continued in concert even after that. Her repertory stretched from Purcell's Dido, through Mozart's
Fiordiligi, Pamina (both given at the Met) and Donna Anna, (Salzburg
Festival debut, 1960), to Tatyana, Butterfly, Manon Lescaut and Tosca,
and on to Samuel Barber. In 1957 she had also sung Madame Lidoine in
Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, her debut at San Francisco
Opera, a role for which she obviously had an affinity to judge by her
later recording of Lidoine's moving aria. But it is in Verdi that she is
most acutely remembered. Besides Aida, she revelled in the challenges
of both Leonoras, each of which she recorded more than once, Elvira (Ernani) and Amelia (Un ballo in maschera). Besides opera, she was a valued recitalist. Samuel Barber wrote
extensively for her (she described him as a 'delicious, wonderful
friend'), including the role of Cleopatra in his Shakespearian opera.
She sang many other songs by American composers, hymns and - of course -
spirituals. She offered, with varying success, French and German aria
and song. In all there was sincerity of purpose, a dignity of expression
that were their own justification. In concert she sang Beethoven's Missa solemnis, Bruckner's Te Deum
and - above all - the Verdi Requiem, which she performed with
unrivalled command in the KarajanILa Scala video (now on DVD) of 1967.
Technical matters that bother more fallible sopranos are as nothing to
her as she fulfils all of Verdi's exacting demands while the terrors of
the 'Libera me' find Price invoking eternity with special convincing
force. At the same time, those moments where Verdi requires the voice
ethereal, Price fines down her large instrument without any loss of
quality. That voice itself is rich and refulgent and she rightly referred to
it as 'her best friend'. As such she refused to exploit it beyond its
natural capabilities, which she considered those of a lyric soprano,
though others including myself, would judge that it came into the lirico-spinto category. In a measured tribute in Opera, Max Loppert wrote that Price's voice 'commanded a true, sterling legato;
dusky warmth, roundness and richness of timbre characterised by a
gloriously personal fast-vibrato colouring; and the art of floating,
caressing and sustaining lustrous high notes and phrases, of swelling up
to a climactic top note (eg the C of 'O patria mia') and then fining
the tone down...' It would be impertinent to attempt to better that
comprehensive characterisation of the Price voice. How does it fare on disc? By and large the earlier Price the better.
For instance, there are four extant souvenirs of the diva's Trovatore
Leonora. Of these the one recorded live at the 1962 Salzburg Festival,
with a cast of opera legends, conducted by Karajan, is the one to go
for, catching the voice itself at its pristine best and the
characterisation, caught live, at its most vital. The 1969 studio
version under Mehta is next best, the 1977 Karajan remake on EMI (now
Warner) to be avoided. Similarly, as the other Leonora - di Vargas from Forza - the
early version with Schippers is more assured, more involving than the
1976 set with Levine, although here the difference in her voice is not
that great but the supporting cast in 1969 is superior. With Aida,
the Decca set of 1961 enshrines one of Price's most desirable readings,
tone and expression in perfect accord, the phrases long and the
technical hurdles of 'O patria mia' gloriously jumped, although it has
to be said that the 1970 RCA set under Leinsdorf runs the earlier
performance close. Her single Elvira (Ernani) and Amelia (Ballo) are further evidence of her Verdian abilities, the latter certainly a Price essential. She loved singing Mozart and her Fiordiligi in Leinsdorf's version of Così (1967)
shows why. A somewhat grand reading, it has the compensating virtues of
bold, assertive singing and a technical command few equal today. For
many, though, it is Price's Carmen that shows the singer at her best;
her smoky allure and the occasional touches of wit are certainly
admirable, but to my taste the approach, especially with Karajan laying a
heavy hand on the score, is a mite stodgy. For the rest, among complete operas, Tosca this time with
Karajan - in 1962 at his concentrated best - is worth having, the
heroine here every inch a prima donna. By 1970 the characterisation had
become less interesting. Mehta obviously failed to fire his diva as
Karajan had done. Butterfly is not quite Price's métier, but as Liù she
must have been very special to judge from her refined, shapely versions
of both the character's arias. Her account of Helena's glorious solo
encapsulates her virtues in Strauss. For opera, you could try RCA's four-CD 'The Prima Donna Collection',
which ranges from Dido's Lament (very grand) to Elizabeth I's Soliloquy
and Prayer from Gloriana. As a whole it encompasses excerpts
from roles she never sang on stage or recorded complete. Countess
Almaviva, Louise, Desdemona, Micaëla, Santuzza, Norma, Gilda, Adriana
among others all appear before us clad in the armour of Price's
full-throated tone, their solos phrased with absolute certainty. There are also unlikely things here that may surprise those who know
only her Verdi and indicate her wish to be eclectic and out of the
ordinary. Even when the manner may be wrong, as with Weber's Agathe and
Rezia and Wagner's Isolde, that vocal security is always a consolation
indeed. Her Lady Macbeth is commanding in just the right way and the
high D flat at the end is securer than in most performances. Rusalka's
Song to the Moon is properly radiant if not wholly idiomatic. Letting
her hair down as Offenbach's Périchole and Johann Strauss's Rosalinde
may not come naturally, but you catch a sense of fun even if the actual
vocalisation is a shade heavy. Within certain emotional limitations, she is a most persuasive
interpreter. In any case her place as one of the 20th-century's most
glorious voices and as an artist who could touch the heart, especially
in her own language as Bess and in Italian as Aida, is assured. This article originally appeared in the February 2002 issue of
Gramophone. To find out more about subscribing to Gramophone, visit: gramophone.co.uk/subscribe
Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) is an Americansoprano. Born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi,[1] she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was the first African American to become a leading performer, or prima donna, at the Metropolitan Opera, and one of the most popular American classical singers of her generation.[2][3][4] After her farewell opera performance at the Met in 1985, a televised performance of Aida, one critic described Price's voice as "vibrant," "soaring" and "a Price beyond pearls."[5]Time
magazine called her voice "Rich, supple and shining, it was in its
prime capable of effortless soaring from a smoky mezzo to the pure
soprano gold of a perfectly spun high C."[4]
Leontyne Price was born in Laurel, Mississippi.[8]
Her father James worked in a lumber mill and her mother Katie was a
midwife who sang in the church choir. They had waited 13 years for a
child, and Leontyne became the focus of intense pride and love. Given a
toy piano at the age of three, she began piano lessons with a local
teacher. When she was in kindergarten, her parents traded in the family
phonograph as the down payment on an upright piano. At 14, she was taken
on a school trip to hear Marian Anderson sing in Jackson, an experience she later said was inspirational. In her 2011 autobiography, My Life, as I See It, Dionne Warwick notes that Price is her maternal cousin.[9]
Price in 1951
In her teen years, Leontyne accompanied the "second choir" at St.
Paul's Methodist Church, sang and played for the chorus at the black
high school, and earned extra money by singing for funerals and civic
functions. Meanwhile, she often visited the home of Alexander and
Elizabeth Chisholm, where her aunt worked as a laundress. A wealthy
white family connected to the dominant lumber company in Laurel, the
Chisholms encouraged Leontyne's piano-playing and singing, and sometimes
hired her to entertain guests. During World War II,
Leontyne began working part-time in the Chisholms' household as a maid
and baby-sitter. She was allowed to play the piano and to listen to
music on the radio and record player.
Aiming at first for a teaching career, Price enrolled in the music education program at the all-black Wilberforce College in Wilberforce, Ohio.[8] (The institution's public and private arms split in her junior year and she graduated from the new, public Central State University.) Success in the glee club led to solos, and her teachers began to encourage her to pursue advanced studies in voice. At Wilberforce, Price joined Delta Sigma Theta,
a sorority that would help arrange and support performances early in
her career. After first hearing Leontyne sing at a master class at
nearby Antioch College, the famous bass Paul Robeson
put on a benefit concert for her in Dayton (at which she also sang) at
the end of her senior year. The $1,000 proceeds were earmarked for her
conservatory studies. However, Robeson was becoming a controversial
figure for his left-wing political stands. Although she apparently
accepted the money, she later denied the concert had ever taken place.
After graduation, Mrs. Chisholm began accompanying Leontyne in recitals
and church appearances in and near Laurel, and agreed to defray some of
her future expenses. In fall 1948, Price enrolled at the Juilliard School in New York City.
She auditioned and won a scholarship and was admitted to the studio of
Florence Page Kimball, who would remain her teacher until Miss Kimball's
death in 1973.[10][8] In fall 1950, Leontyne entered the Opera Workshop at the school
and became enthusiastic about opera, singing in workshop performances of
The Magic Flute and Gianni Schicchi. That summer, she enrolled in the opera program at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood and sang Ariadne in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos (second cast). In early 1952, she sang Mistress Ford in Juilliard production of Verdi's Falstaff.[8] It proved her big break. In the audience was Virgil Thomson, who hired her for the revival of his all-black opera, Four Saints in Three Acts. After a two-week Broadway run, Saints (and Price) went to Paris. Meanwhile, she had auditioned and been cast as Bess in the third major production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, directed by Robert Breen, who had also hear her in Falstaff. Bereft returned from France, she sang the opening night of Porgy at the State Fair of Texas on June 9, 1952 to rave reviews. The Breen-Davis production toured Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., and then Europe (Vienna, Berlin, London and Paris), under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department.
Price from Porgy and Bess 1953
On the eve of the European tour, Price married her Porgy, the noted concert singer, bass-baritone William Warfield, at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, with many of the cast in attendance. The couple were legally separated in 1967, and divorced in 1973. They had no children.[11] Price planned on a recital career, following the successful models of Marian Anderson, tenor Roland Hayes, Warfield, and other black concert singers. Amid performances of Porgy, she sang the premiere of Hermit Songs, a song cycle by Samuel Barber, at the Library of Congress. She also premiered new works by Lou Harrison and John La Montaine.
However, Porgy had proved that she had the voice and the
personality, and confirmed her appetite, for the operatic stage, as the
Met itself recognized by inviting her to sing "Summertime" at a "Met Jamboree" fund-raiser on April 6, 1953 at the Ritz Theater on Broadway. Price was therefore the first African American to sing with the Met, if not at the Met. That distinction went to Marian Anderson, who, on January 7, 1955, sang Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.
Emergence
In November 1954, Price made her recital debut at New York's Town Hall with a program that featured the New York premiere of Samuel Barber's cycle Hermit Songs,
with the composer at the piano. Her first recital tour followed on the
Columbia Artists roster. The door to opera opened through the NBC Opera
Theater, under music director Peter Herman Adler. In January 1955,[8] she sang the title role of Puccini's Tosca,
becoming the first African American in a leading role in televised
opera. Price sang in three later NBC Opera broadcasts, as Pamina in The Magic Flute (1956), Madame Lidoine in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites (1957), and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (1960). Although the Tosca
broadcast was shown without incident (her appearance had not been
widely advertised), several NBC affiliates (including some north of the
Mason–Dixon line) canceled the later broadcasts.
In March 1955, she auditioned at Carnegie Hall for the Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, who was touring with the Berlin Philharmonic. Impressed with her singing of "Pace, pace, mio Dio" from Verdi's La forza del destino,
Karajan reportedly leapt to the stage to accompany her himself. Calling
her "an artist of the future," Karajan asked her management and was
given permission to direct her future European career. (She would make
her European debut under his baton in 1958.) Over the next three
seasons, Price crossed the U.S. in recitals with her longtime
accompanist, David Garvey.
She also toured India (1956) and Australia (1957), under the auspices
of the U.S. State Department. On May 3, 1957, a concert performance of Aida at the May Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was her first public performance of what became her signature role.
Her grand opera debut occurred in San Francisco on September 20, 1957, as Madame Lidoine in the U.S. premiere of the Dialogues of the Carmelites. A few weeks later, Price sang her first staged Aida, stepping in for Italian soprano Antonietta Stella, who was suffering appendicitis. After her European debut, as Aida, at the Vienna Staatsoper on May 24, 1958, she made noted debuts at London's Royal Opera House (replacing Anita Cerquetti),[12] and at the Arena di Verona,
both as Aida. In 1958-59, she returned to Vienna to sing Aida and her
first onstage Pamina; repeated her Aida at Covent Garden; gave a
televised recital with Gerald Moore and sang operatic scenes by Richard
Strauss on BBC Radio; and made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, conducted by Karajan.
That summer, she also sang Il trovatore in Verona (with tenor Franco Corelli) and made her first full operatic recording, of Il Trovatore,
for RCA. After hearing one of the Verona performances that Rudolf Bing,
the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, invited Price and
Corelli to make their Met debuts in 1960-61.
On May 21, 1960, Price made her debut at the Teatro alla Scala in
Milan, again as Aida, becoming the first African American to sing a
leading role in Italy's greatest opera house. (In 1958, Mattiwilda Dobbs had sung Elvira, the secondary soprano role in Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri.)
Metropolitan Opera
Rudolf Bing had invited Price to sing a pair of performances as Aida in 1958, but she turned down the offer on the advice of Peter Herman Adler,
director of NBC Opera, among others. In his autobiography, William
Warfield quotes Adler as saying, "Leontyne is to be a great artist. When
she makes her debut at the Met, she must do it as a lady, not a slave."
On January 27, 1961, Price and Corelli made a triumphant joint debut in Il trovatore. The final ovation lasted at least 35 minutes, one of the longest in Met history.[8] (Price said her friends or family had timed it at 42 minutes, and that was the number used in her publicity.)
In his review, The New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg
wrote that Price's "voice, warm and luscious, has enough volume to fill
the house with ease, and she has a good technique to back up the voice
itself. She even took the trills as written, and nothing in the part as
Verdi wrote it gave her the least bit of trouble. She moves well and is a
competent actress. But no soprano makes a career of acting. Voice is what counts, and voice is what Miss Price has." The reviewers were less enthusiastic about Corelli, who told Bing
the next morning that he would never sing with Price again. But this
outburst was soon forgotten. Price and Corelli sang together often over
the next dozen years, at the Met, in Vienna, and in Salzburg.
In her first season at the Met, Price sang four other roles: Aïda, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Liu in Turandot. In recognition of this extraordinary run, Time
magazine put her on its cover in March. That fall, she was named
"Musician of the Year" by American music critics and put on the cover of
"Musical America."
In September 1961, Price opened the Met season as Minnie in La fanciulla del West. A musicians' strike had threatened to abort the season, but President Kennedy sent Secretary of LaborArthur Goldberg to mediate a settlement. During the second Fanciulla
performance, she had her first serious vocal crisis. In the middle of
the second act, she grew hoarse and then lost her singing voice,
shouting her lines to the end of the act. The standby, soprano Dorothy Kirsten,
was called and sang the third act. The newspapers reported that Price
was suffering a virus infection. After several weeks off, she returned
and repeated the Fanciulla and then, after a Butterfly in
December, canceled appearances and left for a several-month respite in
Rome. The official word was that she had never fully recovered from the
earlier virus. Price herself later said she was suffering from nervous
exhaustion.
In April, she returned to the Met to give her first staged performances of Tosca, and then joined the tour that spring in Tosca, Butterfly, and two performances of Fanciulla, including the first performance with an African American in a leading role on tour in the South (Dallas).
Other African Americans had preceded Price in leading roles at
the Met. However, Price was the first African American to build a star
career on both sides of the Atlantic, the first to sing on the Met tour,
the first to last more than five seasons, and the first to earn the
Met's top fee. In 1964, according to the Met archives, Leontyne Price
received $2,750 per performance, on a par with Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi. (Only Birgit Nilsson, who was unique in singing Italian and Wagnerian roles, earned the Met's highest fee, $3,000 a performance.)
Over the next five seasons, Price added seven more roles at the Met: (in chronological order) Elvira in Verdi's Ernani, Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Cleopatra in Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, and Leonora in La forza del destino.
Her voice and temperament were especially well suited to Verdi's
"middle period" heroines, noble ladies with high, glowing vocal lines
and postures of dignified suffering and prayerful supplication. She was
also the leading exponent of the plaintive soprano part in Verdi's Requiem.
Antony and Cleopatra
The next milestone in her career was September 16, 1966, when she sang Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra by American composer Samuel Barber, a new opera commissioned to open the Met's new house at Lincoln Center.
The composer had written the role especially for Price, often visiting
her house in Greenwich Village to test the music, including the soaring
leaps into the upper register in Cleopatra's two arias.[13] In the performances, Price's singing was highly praised,
especially in the powerful death scene, but the opera as a whole was
considered a failure by many critics. Director Franco Zeffirelli
was blamed for burying the music under heavy costumes, huge scenery,
scores of supernumeraries, and several camels. Bing acknowledged it was a
mistake to launch nine new productions in the first season (three in
the first week). Adding to the challenge, the opera house's new
high-tech stage equipment and lighting had not been tested or fully
mastered. (In the rehearsals for "Antony and Cleopatra," the expensive
stage turntable broke down and, at the dress rehearsal, Price was
trapped briefly inside a pyramid.) The pressured last week before the
opening night, and excerpts of Price's singing, were chronicled by
director Robert Drew for a Bell Telephone Hour
TV documentary aired that fall. Price said the experience was
traumatic and affected her attitude toward the Met, where she began to
appear less often.
The opera was never revived at the Met. However, with the help of Gian Carlo Menotti, Barber reworked the score for successful productions at the Juilliard School and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston,
where it received praise. Barber also prepared a concert suite of
Cleopatra's arias for Price, which was premiered in Washington in 1968
and recorded for RCA.
Late opera career
In
the late 1960s, Price cut back her operatic performances in favor of
recitals and concerts. She was tired, stressed by the racial and
political tensions in the country, frustrated with the number (and
quality) of the new productions mounted for her by the Met. Perhaps she
also felt the need to rework her vocal technique as she reached middle
age. Over the next two decades, she became a mainstay in orchestral and
recital series in the major American cities and large universities. In
1970, she returned to Europe for opera performances in Hamburg and
London's Covent Garden, and gave recitals in Hamburg, Vienna, Paris, and
the Salzburg Festival. At the latter she was a favorite, appearing in
recitals in 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, and 1984.
She continued to sing at the Met and San Francisco Opera, but
limited herself to three to five performances, sometimes a year or more
apart, and she undertook only three new roles after 1970. They were:
Giorgetta in Puccini's Il tabarro (San Francisco only); Puccini's Manon Lescaut (San Francisco and New York); and Ariadne in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos (San Francisco and New York).
Her standing as a national figure was such that she was
frequently called on as a soloist for state occasions. In January 1973,
she sang "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" and "Onward, Christian Soldiers" at the state funeral of PresidentLyndon B. Johnson,
at whose 1965 inauguration she had sung. A favorite singer of President
Jimmy Carter, she was invited to sing on official visits by Pope John
Paul II and at the dinner after the signing of the Camp David Peace
Accords.
In October 1973, she returned to the Met to sing Madama Butterfly
for the first time in a decade (and the last time in her career). In
1976, she appeared in a long-delayed new Met production of Aida, with James McCracken as Radames and Marilyn Horne as Amneris, directed by John Dexter. The following year, she renewed her partnership with Karajan in her only American performance of the soprano solo in Brahms' Requiem, with the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. In 1977 returned to Europe for her final opera performances there, in Il trovatore
at the Salzburg Easter Festival and Vienna's Staatsoper, again under
Karajan. The latter marked the first performances for both artists at
the Staatsoper since 1964, when Karajan had quit as its director, and
Price, a leading Viennese star, had refused to return without him.
In 1977, Price sang her final new role, and her first Strauss heroine, Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos,
in San Francisco, to positive reviews. When she sang the role at the
Met in 1979, she was suffering from a viral infection and canceled all
but the first and last of eight scheduled performances. Reviewing her
first performance, the New York Times critic John Rockwell was not complimentary.[14]
Price, 1981
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter invited her to sing a nationally televised recital at the White House. In fall 1981, she had a late career triumph as Aida in San Francisco, when she stepped in for soprano Margaret Price
on short notice. (Leontyne Price had not sung the role since 1976.)
Columnist Herbert Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that she
had insisted on being paid $1 more than the tenor, Luciano Pavarotti.
That would have made her, for the moment, the highest-paid opera singer
in the world. The opera house denied the payment arrangement. In 1982,
Price returned to the Met in Il Trovatore, and sang a televised
concert of duets and arias with Marilyn Horne. In 1983, she hosted two
televised performances of "In Performance from the White House," hosted
by President and Mrs. Reagan.
Although she had expected her Met "Trovatore"s to be her
(unannounced) final opera performances, Leontyne Price was persuaded to
return to the Met for a run of "Forza"s in 1984 and a final series of
"Aidas" in 1984-1985. Her performances of both operas were her first
broadcasts in the "Live from the Met' series on PBS that had begun in
1977. Shortly before the last "Aida," on January 3, 1985, the broadcast
performance, word leaked to the press that it was her farewell to opera.
(She had planned to announce her decision as part of a biographical
presentation at intermission—but she canceled the film.) Time Magazine described the televised "Aida" as a "vocally stunning performance... that proved she can still capture her peak form."[4]Donal Henahan
of the New York Times wrote that the "57-year-old soprano took an act
or two to warm to her work, but what she delivered in the Nile Scene
turned out to be well worth the wait." In 2007, PBS viewers voted her
singing of the Act III aria, "O patria mia", as the No. 1 "Great Moment"
in 30 years of "Live from the Met" telecasts.[15] The performance ended with 25 minutes of applause.[5] In all, Price sang 201 performances with the Met, in 16 roles, in
the house and on tour, including galas. (She was absent for three
seasons—1970/71, 1977/78, and 1980/81—and sang only in galas in 1972/73,
1979/80, and 1982/83.)
Post-operatic career
Price in 1995
For the next dozen years, she continued to perform concerts and
recitals. Her recital programs, framed by her longtime accompanist David
Garvey, usually combined Handel arias, French mélodies, German Lieder, an aria or two, and a group of American art songs by Barber, Ned Rorem, and Lee Hoiby, and ended with spirituals. She liked to end a sequence of encores with "This Little Light of Mine", which she said was her mother's favorite spiritual.
With time, Price's voice became darker and heavier, but her upper
register held up well and the conviction and joy in her singing always
spilled over the footlights. On November 19, 1997, she gave a recital at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that was her unannounced last.
Before retiring, Price gave several master classes at Juilliard
and other schools. In 1997, at the suggestion of RCA Victor, she wrote a
children's book version of Aida, which became the basis for the hit Broadway musical by Elton John and Tim Rice in 2000.
Price avoided the term African American, preferring to call herself an American, even a "chauvinistic American".[citation needed]
She summed up her philosophy thus: "If you are going to think black,
think positive about it. Don't think down on it, or think it is
something in your way. And this way, when you really do want to stretch
out, and express how beautiful black is, everybody will hear you."[16] On September 30, 2001,[8]
at the age of 74, Price was asked to come out of retirement to sing in a
memorial concert at Carnegie Hall for the victims of the September 11
attacks. With James Levine at the piano, she sang a favorite spiritual, "This Little Light of Mine", followed by an unaccompanied "God Bless America", ending it with a bright, easy B-flat below high C.[17]
Recordings
Most of Leontyne Price's commercial recordings were issued by RCA Victor Red Seal and include three complete recordings of Il trovatore, two of La forza del destino, two of Aida, two of Verdi's Requiem, two of Tosca, and one each of Ernani, Un ballo in maschera, Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Cosí fan tutte, Don Giovanni (as Donna Elvira), Il tabarro and (her final complete opera recording) Ariadne auf Naxos. She also recorded a disc of highlights from Porgy and Bess, singing the music of all three female leads. It was conducted by Skitch Henderson and featured William Warfield as Porgy.
She recorded five Prima Donna albums of operatic arias
generally of roles that she never performed on stage. She also recorded
two albums of Richard Strauss arias, recitals of French and German art
songs, two albums of Spirituals, and a crossover disc, Right as the Rain, with André Previn. Her recordings of Barber's Hermit Songs, scenes from Antony and Cleopatra, and "Knoxville: Summer of 1915", were reissued on CD as Leontyne Price Sings Barber. Her most popular operatic aria collection is her first, the self-titled Leontyne Price,
sometimes referred to as the "Blue Album" because of its light blue
cover. It has been reissued on CD and SACD. In 1996, for her 70th
birthday, RCA Victor issued a limited-edition 11-CD boxed collection of
her recordings, with an accompanying book, entitled The Essential Leontyne Price.
In addition, sunce her retirement in 1997, several archival recordings of live performances have been released on CDs. Deutsche Grammophon issued Salzburg performances of "Missa Solemnis" (1959) and Il trovatore
(1962), both conducted by Karajan. In 2002, RCA released a shelved tape
of her 1965 Carnegie Hall recital debut in its "Rediscovered" series.
In 2005, Bridge Records brought out the complete 1953 Library of
Congress recital with Barber, with the Hermit Songs, Henri Sauguet's "La Voyante", and songs by Poulenc. In August 2008, a tape of a 1952 Berlin performance of the Breen-Davis Porgy and Bess
was found in the Berlin radio archives and released on CD. It offers
the earliest recorded glimpse of Price's voice and style. In 2011, Sony
Classics brought out on disc her Met broadcasts of Il trovatore (1961) and Tosca (1962), both with Corelli. They were followed in 2012 by anErnani (1962) with Carlo Bergonzi.
In The Grand Tradition, a 1974 history of operatic recording, the British critic J.B. Steane
writes that "one might conclude from recordings that [Price] is the
best interpreter of Verdi of the century." For the Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya,
a 1963 Price performance of Tosca at the Vienna State Opera "left me
with the strongest impression I have ever gotten from opera." In his
1983 autobiography, Plácido Domingo writes, "The power and sensuousness of Leontyne's voice were phenomenal—the most beautiful Verdi soprano I have ever heard."
From left to right, NEA Chairman Dana Gioia honors the first class of National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honorees in 2008: Price, Carlisle Floyd, Richard Gaddes.
In an interview, Price once recalled that Maria Callas had told her,
during a meeting with the older diva in Paris, "I hear a lot of love in
your voice." The sopranos Renée Fleming, Kiri Te Kanawa, Jessye Norman, Leona Mitchell, Barbara Bonney, Sondra Radvanovsky, the mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, bass-baritone José van Dam, and the countertenor David Daniels, have talked about Price as an early inspiration. Miles Davis, in Miles: The Autobiography, wrote: "Man, I love her as an artist. I love the way she sings Tosca. I wore out her recording of that, wore out two sets. Now, I might not do Tosca,
but I loved the way Leontyne did it. I used to wonder how she would
have sounded if she had sung jazz. She should be an inspiration for
every musician, black or white. I know she is to me."[18]
She has also had her critics. In his book The American Opera Singer, Peter G. Davis
wrote that Price had "a fabulous vocal gift that went largely
unfulfilled," criticizing her reluctance to try new roles, her Tosca for
its lack of a "working chest register", and her late Aidas for a
"swooping" vocal line. Others criticized her lack of flexibility in coloratura,
and her occasional mannerisms, including scooping or swooping up to
high notes, gospel-style. Karajan took her to task for these during
rehearsals for the 1977 Il trovatore, as Price herself related in an interview in Diva, by Helena Matheopoulos. In later recordings and appearances, she sang with a cleaner line. Her acting, too, drew different responses over a long career. As
Bess, she was praised for her dramatic fire and sensuality, and tapes of
the early NBC Opera appearances show her an appealing presence on
camera. In her early Met years, she was often praised for her dramatic
as well as vocal skill. In March 2007, on BBC Music Magazine's
list of the "20 All-time Best Sopranos" based on a poll of 21 British
music critics and BBC presenters, Leontyne Price was ranked fourth,
after, in order, Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, and Victoria de los Ángeles.[19]
Books
Sir Rudolf Bing, 5,000 Nights at the Opera: The Memoirs of Sir Rudolf Bing (Doubleday, 1972).
Peter G. Davis, The American Opera Singer: The Lives and Adventures of America's Great Singers in Opera and Concert from 1825 to the Present (Anchor, 1999).
Plácido Domingo, My First Forty Years (Alfred A. Knopf, 1983).
Peter G. Davis, The American Opera Singer (Doubleday, 1997).
Barbara B. Heyman, Samuel Barber, The Composer and His Music (Oxford University Press, 1992).
Helena Matheopolous, Diva: Sopranos and Mezzo-sopranos Discuss Their Art (Northeastern University Press, 1992).
A classic meeting with Leontyne Price, from Gramophone in August 1971
by Alan Blyth
Leontyne Price (photo: Sony/Dave Hecht)
At the impressionable age of nine, Leontyne Price
was taken to hear a recital by Marian Anderson at Jackson, Mississippi.
Although she had taken piano lessons earlier, this was, she says, her
first real experience of classical music. 'The whole aura of the
occasion had a tremendous effect on me, particularly the singer's
dignity and, of course, her voice'. But at this time Price had no
thought of becoming a singer herself, although music was already filling
her life. Her mother – 'a divine creature' – was a soloist in the local
Methodist church choir and her father played the tuba in the church
band. The young Leontyne played the piano at community functions,
studied the instrument at high school, had intended to become a music
teacher. When she got to college, where she was to study for a teacher's
degree, she began singing in the glee club, but she still didn't
realise the potential of her voice. That was only recognised when she had won a scholarship to the
Juilliard School in New York where she eked out her limited financial
resources – 'my parents came from a humble background' – by working at
the International House for home and foreign students – 'a United
Nations kind of place'. She received every kind of encouragement from
the authorities. 'In fact, everyone realised I had a voice except me'. Just about this time she caught, as she puts it, 'a dose of the operatic monster' by going to hear Welitsch in Salome at
the Met – 'the first opera I'd ever seen' – and she was exhilarated by
the experience. She began studying in the Juilliard opera department and
she was soon singing major roles in its productions, among them
Mistress Ford in Falstaff; which really set her on the road to fame. The
composer Virgil Thomson heard her and offered her a part in a revival
he was preparing of his opera, Four Saints in Three Acts. That
was in 1952 and the impact of her performance was such that she was
immediately offered the role of Bess in Gershwin's opera. 'I thought it
was worth leaving the Juilliard to try my wings in this production but I
had no idea it would run for so long – nearly two years – and also take
me all over Europe. In 1954, I decided I must leave the show and have a
go at becoming a concert artist, my real ambition at that time. I
suppose I aspired to be in opera but with the then limited outlook for
blacks I thought it would be a waste of time to bother with it. Then I
saw Callas in Puritani, Butterfly and Norma.
She became my great idol and I said to myself that I'd go out of my mind
if I couldn't get into this business. From then on I knew I would have
to concentrate on the theatre.' Her debut was in Poulenc's Les Dialogues des Carmelites in
1957 at San Francisco as Madame Lidoine. 'This meant, I felt, that I was
at last in grand opera. I sang in the same work on TV, as well as in Toscaand The Magic Flute at
about the same time. Then I appeared in Chicago in various roles. But
my major break came when I went to Europe and sang Aida at Covent Garden
and the Vienna State Opera, there beginning my association with
Karajan. I gained a wealth of experience and knowledge working with him
that has held me in good stead ever since. Indeed I'm still doing things
today that I then learned. I think at that time – when I made my Royal
Opera and La Scala debuts – I was so young and naïve that I wasn't
really nervous. 'I suppose it was my success at La Scala that led to my engagement by
the Met. When I finally sang there I went out of my head with joy
because here I was really being accepted at home. Then there was another
– and most important – point. I don't know how to put it without
somehow sounding conceited but I was, of course, the first black diva in
the history of the house. And I give the credit to Rudolf Bing [the
Met's general manager]. Because of his foresight he opened the door for
black singers. Mind you, once I'd put my foot in the door, I was
determined to keep it there. Another great occasion for me was when I
opened the new Met in 1966 – a most difficult responsibility and a
tremendous challenge. But I always think that if you're properly
prepared no other considerations really matter.' She was signed up by RCA in 1957 and since then has made a host of
records. She doesn't find recording cold at all. 'It's a different
medium, of course, and you undoubtedly miss certain things. In the
theatre you're just part of the mise-en-scène: you're helped by
the lighting, sets, costumes, your colleagues. So much is done for you.
On disc, you have to portray the whole character by voice alone.
Through the microphone you have to convey the aura of the work – its
poetic and histrionic qualities, and so provoke the imagination of your
unseen audience. It's certainly a great challenge.' Did she have any favourites among her discs? 'No, I think I like all
of them. It's terrible but you know I just love the sound of my own
voice. Sometimes I simply move myself to tears. I suppose I must be my
own best fan. I don't care if that sounds immodest – l feel that all
singers must enjoy the sound they make if they're to have others enjoy
it too.' She still has roles she would like to add to her live and recorded
repertory. 'I'd love to sing Desdemona on stage. Of course, the
production would have to be handled very carefully by a great director.
Then I'd love to sing the Countess in Figaro and Elisabetta inDon Carlos.
I suppose Elisabeth is a bit bland and pallid as a character. She is
very sweet and is usually lost in the frantic femininity of Eboli –
which I resent and would like to put right'. In fact Elisabetta's great
scena is included on her next recital record along with Leonore's
'Abscheulicher' and Desdemona's Willow Song and Ave Maria, and Ariadne's
'Es gibt ein Reich'. I asked about some of the early Verdi roles. 'Well, Lady Macbeth and
Abigaille are a bit steely for me. Your voice is liable to get stabbed
to death by those sort of parts. Mine is predominantly a juicy, lyric
soprano and I don't really want to move in the direction of adramatica.
No, I don't see the point of my singing Norma either. Why should I
tackle a part unless I think I can do it superbly? I wouldn't mind
having a go at Ariadne, which I sang once at Tanglewood, or even the
Marschallin, which is of course a marvellous role'. Price does not neglect her concert-giving. 'I usually offer a mixed
programme – some classical airs, romantic songs – usually Schumann and
Strauss – a few operatic arias and finally an American group and some
spirituals. Occasionally I include a Rachmaninov group sung in the
original Russian'. She is in the lucky position these days of doing more or less what
she wants to do. 'For me, the the "rat race" is over. You're bound to
have pressures in the early stage of a career, like learning roles at
extremely short notice and getting on and off jets at frequent
intervals. Now I'm taking it much more easily, resting in between
appearances. Needless to say, you keep your voice much fresher that way
and your career is bound to last longer'. She makes nearly all her records here now. Last summer she was busy with Aida (Domingo,
Bumbry, Milnes, conductor Leinsdorf) and she returns this summer to
make another set. Luckily for us and her she loves London. 'You have so
many fantastic orchestras and they maintain extraordinarily high
standards. Then there's so much to see – especially when, like me,
you're a fiend for learning English history. I wish I could have been
alive during the time of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. I love to read a
page of history and than go and see where it actually happened. It's a
marvellous exercise in fantasy and imagination – a superb experience'. Her home is in Greenwich Village, New York where she likes to
entertain and cook and, like most busy artists, she prefers to holiday
there than go travelling. She does not have much of a social life
otherwise, 'When you're working you must be disciplined, but I do go out
to the theatre and ballet – but emphatically not the opera.' Her main interest back home is the encouragement of black artists and
students. 'I often give benefit concerts for colleges in Mississippi,
and I would like to get myself more involved with youth groups. I know
from my own experience the situation of poor students and anything I can
do to help them I shall do. They must be given their first chance'. One
singer she has encouraged is a young black soprano called Joyce Mathis,
who has already taken the small part of the Priestess in Aida under Price's aegis. 'I'm sure you are going to hear a lot more of her'. This article was originally published in the August 1971 issue of Gramophone.
Soprano Adrienne Danrich
was in the 8th grade the very first time she heard Leontyne Price's
voice. She was watching television and a commercial for the United Negro
College Fund came on, starring Ms. Price. At the time, Danrich was
singing pop, rhythm, and blues in her father's band. She hadn't grown up
listening to classical music, and she'd never heard an opera singer
before, but something in her changed when she saw that commercial. "When
I saw Ms. Price for the first time — an African American woman, so beautiful, so regal, so poised —
singing in a way that touched my very soul, it was a moment when I
realized the possibilities of who I could become, what I could be
interested in, how I could live my life inside of music without being a
pop singer or a blues singer." That day, Danrich began to discover her
own operatic voice. Born in Laurel, Mississippi in 1927, Leontyne Price grew up in the
segregated South under the Jim Crow laws. At the age of three, she was
given a toy piano and began taking lessons with a local teacher. When
she was in kindergarten, Price's parents used the family phonograph as a
down payment on a real upright piano so that their young daughter could
continue her musical development. And just as it was for Danrich, there
was a pivotal moment when Price's musical ambitions suddenly shifted.
That moment was when she heard Marian Anderson perform in Jackson,
Mississippi. When the famous contralto stepped onto the stage wearing a
white satin dress, Price immediately knew that her future would lead her
to the opera stage. Indeed, Leontyne Price's future led her to major opera stages around
the world. She became the first African American woman to sing a leading
role at La Scala in Milan, and the first to become a leading artist at
the Metropolitan Opera. She sang in San Francisco, Covent Garden, at the
White House, and in nationally televised performances. Over the course
of her 30-year career, she won numerous awards and honors, including 19
Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts, and the Presidential Medal of
Freedom. However, it's not her many distinctions that define Leontyne
Price's career; it's her voice (which Danrich describes as being "like a creamy river of caramel that has a slight edge to it") and her legacy of inspiring the generations of singers who've followed her. Price is also admired for her expressive power, and her ability to
fully embody a role. She was particularly sought after for her portrayal
of Verdi's Aida, and her interpretation of this role continues
to be ranked among the very best. When Adrienne Danrich imagines the
world of opera without Leontyne Price, she compares it to dry toast.
"It’s unfathomable to have a musical world without Ms. Price. She is
opera. We would be so poor as a nation without Ms. Price being in
music." Danrich says that so many other singers agree, and that Price
has earned a nickname among them: Mama. "She is the mother of how to be
graceful. She’s the mother of how to be at the top of your game but also
not to make anyone else feel that they’re lower than you. Ms. Price is a
'diva' in the most positive, take-action meaning of the word." Adrienne Danrich has looked to Leontyne Price's example to inspire
her both personally and professionally, and she wants to share Price's
legacy with other aspiring singers who may face challenges as they build
their careers: "Do not allow other people to define your greatness.
People will try to find whatever reason they can to put limitations upon
you. Don’t you tell yourself no. Tell yourself yes. Reach for space,
and if you only reach the atmosphere, you’re higher than you were
before. Embrace your greatness. Embrace it, love it, strive for better,
and help your colleagues do the same." Adrienne Danrich has written and performed a special program honoring
both Leontyne Price and Marian Anderson. It's called "This Little Light
of Mine," and you can watch it below.
"I'm not an angry person," Leontyne Price says, "but I do have a lot of truths to tell." Price, the most important operatic prima donna America has produced since Rosa Ponselle in the 1930s, is talking about her autobiography, on which she works whenever a busy career allows her a little time.
The assigned subject for this interview was a new children's book, "Aida as Told by Leontyne Price," but the conversation keeps drifting to her next book, and the eventful life in which it is rooted. "When I map out some of the things I have learned," she continues, "I think they will be much more helpful {for young singers} than any vocal lesson I could ever give."
The book (publication date uncertain) might be titled "How to Beat the Odds." Price has been doing that for most of her life. Born in 1927 into a poor but proud and hard-working family, she reached the highest ranks of operatic stardom with top billing in such companies as the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna Staatsoper and La Scala, several invitations to sing at the White House, the coveted Kennedy Center Honors (of which she was one of the youngest recipients) and honorary degrees and citations too numerous to count.
It helped that she had a dramatic soprano voice of extraordinary power, clarity and tonal richness -- the kind of voice that is needed and seldom available for the big Verdi roles in "Aida," "Il trovatore," "La forza del destino," "Ernani" and "Un ballo in maschera," as well as some Richard Strauss roles and Donna Anna in Mozart's "Don Giovanni."
Aida, like Bess in "Porgy and Bess," is part of the birthright of African American sopranos. In most of the other roles, Price broke through the color barrier in some of the world's greatest opera houses, paving the way for the present, when non-traditional casting is the rule almost everywhere.
Price's acquaintance with Aida dates back almost as far as she can remember. "I first encountered her in the library when I was a child," she says. "I think 'Aida' is the first opera I ever heard of as an opera, and she has always been very special to me. Now, with the help of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, I have been able to give a very personal, treasured gift from myself to me with great love and affection. The feeling that I have for the role has just, in the vernacular, blown my mind." The book's illustrations, by Leo and Diane Dillon, in which Aida looks remarkably like Leontyne Price, are "beyond my wildest dreams," she says. "It's a source of great happiness to me. I wanted to share the story of this black princess who has such dignity and courage, who loves her father the king so deeply and struggles with such strength."
In building one of the century's most solid and well-managed artistic careers, Price had to struggle against what she calls the "three whammies: I'm from Mississippi, I'm Afro American, I'm an artist who aspires to perform in the most grandiose of the creative art forms. This is a little daring, but it didn't seem daring to me because of the way my parents taught us. You only know how daring it was after it's done. Then you can say, 'Whew! I climbed that mountain? Are you serious?' I am so proud to have been something of a barrier-breaker and a pioneer."
With her parents' advice and example and the special clarity of vision that comes from growing up poor, Price says, "I understood the system very early. You must know who you are. As an artist, particularly as an Afro American artist born in Mississippi, you must learn to say no when something is not right for you. But the system works in every walk of life, and what does it matter if there are lots of great costumes; I'm still James Anthony and Catherine Baker Price's daughter. I'm an oak, and you will not make a willow out of an oak... .
"Once your talent becomes negotiable, you are treated like a commodity, and you should keep control of that commodity; you have to realize that being wined and dined has no meaning if you don't sing well that night. That's why I don't have an entourage; I do not waste my time socially. I will always be invited socially as long as I sing well; the phone rings when you win, not when you lose. It's very basic. I look on it as a business. The buck stops with you as soon as you get to center stage. If you don't deliver, forget it."
What Leontyne Price has these days, instead of an entourage, is her brother George, a brigadier general retired from the U.S. Army who shares with her the special Price heritage and mystique. "He was very much involved in establishing the Vietnam Memorial, and with veterans," she says, "but aside from that and his own family he has focused on managing my career since my original manager retired six years ago. He gives me the feeling I used to have when I was a child on Saturday nights when I could see my father coming home from the sawmill. You could see him from the back porch in our house, first his head, then his overalls as he came over the hill.
"He had gone and gotten his check; we were lucky if it was $35 a week, and then he'd go to the store. In his arms he always had these two big bags, and when we could see him coming over the railroad tracks there was this feeling that everything was going to be all right; happiness was in the two bags that man was carrying across the railroad tracks, and when he came into the house it was total joy. He just fixed everything, and that's what my brother has done. It's like being with my father again, who was my very first hero. He takes care of me with tender loving care. I totally trust him."
There was another major change in Leontyne Price's life six years ago when her brother became her manager: She retired from the operatic stage at the height of her career. Not from singing and not really from the operatic world; she is gradually negotiating her transformation from performer to teacher. She interrupts her concert and recital schedule occasionally to give master classes at her alma mater, the Juilliard School, and when she stops singing in public, she plans to "become a mother hen" and take some young singers under her wing -- full time.
Price talks about her personal life reluctantly and briefly. Of her marriage to baritone William Warfield, who sang Porgy to her Bess in the 1950s, she says simply, "That didn't work." Otherwise, she says, "I find I don't have a bit of nostalgia for all those things they list that you have to give up -- like personal life and blah, blah, blah. I'm a mother hen when it comes to my brother's children; they admire my singing, but they are very moved by my spaghetti sauce as well as my performances. I think that I can enjoy the present because I have a feeling that I will be happy in the future, and my own mother-henning comes in my master classes with young artists. I'm very tough, but I tend to empathize and get the best out of them, and some of them are doing extremely well, I must say. Fortunately, I'm still very active, still performing well, and mixing my activities so that when it comes time to shift gears I will be ready for the next adventure. Then I will start a very private technical approach to the youngsters I choose, and then I will really be disgustingly mother-hennish because I will be, as my teacher was to me, on call to them 24 hours a day."
As for her retirement from opera, she relates it to the old show business axiom: "Always leave them wanting more." She also relates it to what she calls "making the whole life a work of art ... and having fun while you do it."
"Do I sit around crying that I'm not in opera any more?" she asks rhetorically. "No!" she answers with an operatic flair. "I left my operatic career at a time of my own choosing; it did not leave me. It is totally different. I chose to leave an area of my life, an area of my career, on the crest of the wave. No one can ever say they discarded me; I don't want to live with that, and it's in no one's control but mine. A career needs tender loving care. I want to leave only memories that are totally positive.
"I truly believe I left a standard that possibly may be inspirational; at least, I have been told that by younger artists -- of all hues, I'm proud to say. That makes me feel really terrific. It's my duty to inspire my own, but when I have a galaxy of youngsters of every color who sit out in the auditorium with their scores and say I inspire them, it just turns me on. It also makes me proud to know that I can still meet my own standards, which are the most critical of all. You can do that in opera, but you are not in control of the whole operation; you have to fit into a whole, grandiose setting.
"I didn't want to take the chance of one bad vibration. If you do stay too long, no one will remember any of the standing ovations you brought in. People tend to remember anything negative; they zoom in on it and it's there."
Meanwhile, six years after closing her career at the Metropolitan Opera, she still has to postpone her mother-hen phase into the indefinite future. "I am so busy," she says, "on the concert and recital stage. I have been busier in the last six seasons than I was before. If you are involved in opera and have committed a great deal of your time to important opera houses, you cannot do anything else. Initially, I was trained to be a recitalist, and I am happy to be so deeply involved in it again. ... The luxury of my success these days is to be able to do exactly what I wish to do when I wish to do it. Why not? At the same time, it promotes my vocal longevity, because I'm always eager to perform; I'm not struggling to perform; I'm enjoying the fruits of my own pioneering."
In opera, singers accept roles that are offered to them and that they have prepared very carefully in advance, and they sing the music written for that role and nothing else. A recital singer can choose from an enormous array of composers, languages and styles and present them in all sorts of mixtures. This choice, like the choice to leave opera while audiences were still clamoring for more, embodies one of the messages Price wants to give to young singers in her teaching and her autobiography: "Take control of your own destiny." Another is to aim high; hold yourself to tough standards and let your ambition soar.
Underlying everything else, she has what she calls "a very pristine belief in God -- untampered with ... as fresh as it was when I was in Sunday school in Laurel, Mississippi. I don't intellectualize about it; I know it's there -- I am part of a plan, and I go with it."
Looking back, Price believes that "overachievement must have been in the blood anyway" with the kind of training and attitude she received from her parents. "My parents told my brother and me that there is nothing that you cannot achieve if you aim high enough," she recalls. "I don't remember them ever asserting that being me, being black, being Afro American, was anything but positive. ... It was always approached as aiming high -- climbing a mountain with your head held high, because you can't climb a mountain looking down; you're bound to fall. Some of that is my message to the kids -- not just my own, but to every young artist, to every youngster, period. If that gets through, it will make me very happy.
"I know that's what my brother and my sister-in-law are telling their kids. I have a beautiful young niece who is a speech therapist and a wonderful mother, and three young nephews who are all captains in the Army. It's passed on."
THE
MUSIC OF LEONTYNE PRICE: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF
RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS
WITH LEONTYNE PRICE:
Kofi Natambu, editor of and contributor to Sound Projections, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He has written extensively about music as a critic and historian for many publications, including the Black Scholar, Downbeat, Solid Ground: A New World Journal, Detroit Metro Times, KONCH, the Panopticon Review,Black Renaissance Noire, the Village Voice, the City Sun (NYC), the Poetry Project Newsletter (NYC), and the African American Review. He is the author of a biography Malcolm X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: The Melody Never Stops (Past Tents Press) and Intervals (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of Solid Ground: A New World Journal, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology Nostalgia for the Present (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) is an American soprano. Born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi,[1] she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was the first African American to become a leading performer, or prima donna, at the Metropolitan Opera, and one of the most popular American classical singers of her generation.[2][3][4]
Leontyne Price, being interviewed this year. She steals the show in the new documentary “The Opera House,” about the building of the “New Met” at Lincoln Center. RogerPhenix/Metropolitan Opera_by_Jack_Mitchell.jpg)
You may hear Leontyne Price performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor K. 626 with Herbert von Karajan conduicting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Fritz Wunderlich, Eberhhard Wachter, Hilde Rossel-Majdan, Walter Berry in 1960 Here on archive.org_by_Jack_Mitchell.jpg)
