From The Opera House (2018) via YouTube
February 10, 1927 – Leontyne Price :
“I am here and you will know that I am the best and you will hear me.”
Opera is so gay. And, for someone who is not big on opera, I am still gay and I have have seen a bunch of opera productions, many in the very best opera houses on the planet, and I even own a few opera CDs, albeit mostly greatest hits aria collections. But, I am more Aretha Franklin than Leontyne Price. I am not an Opera Queen; you know those men (and women) who are regularly in the standing-room section at every opera and are especially passionate about their favorite divas. I know a bunch of them; I’m sure you do also.
Leontyne Price is the first Black opera singer to become famous around the planet, and a diva recognized even by civilians. She didn’t start out to be an opera singer, but she changed how people thought about opera much to the world’s benefit.
When she was a kid, Price attended a recital by African-American contralto Marian Anderson who inspired Price to focus on singing recitals only, forgoing doing opera. But, gay composer Virgil Thomson saw her perform when she was at Julliard, and in 1952, Price made her Broadway debut as St. Cecilia in the revival of Thomson’s and Gertrude Stein‘s opera Four Saints In Three Acts. Three weeks after closing, Price was chosen for the lead role in a production of George Gershwin‘s Porgy And Bess which toured Europe.
During her tour with the show, she married William Warfield, who portrayed Porgy. This production’s original cast also featured Cab Calloway as “Sportin’ Life”, a role that Gershwin had composed with him in mind. The role of Clara was played by young Maya Angelou. Porgy was the first role for Warfield after his appearance as Joe, singing Ol’ Man River in the 1951 MGM film version of Show Boat.
Price with Calloway and Warfield in Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess (1953), PBS via YouTube
After a tour of Europe financed by the United States State Department, the production came to Broadway in March 1953. It later toured North America.
In 1955, Price starred in an NBC production of Giacomo Puccini‘s Tosca. The camera loved Price and she starred in a string of televised operas.
At the San Francisco Opera House in 1957, Price played Madame Lidoine in my favorite opera, Francis Poulenc‘s Dialogues des Carmélites. Her moving performance brought her the full attention of opera companies around the globe. Within a year, Price was wowing European audiences at famous venues such as Covent Garden in London and La Scala in Milan. She was a worldwide sensation.
Price made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1961 as Leonora in Il Trovatore, a performance greeted with a 42-minute ovation that to this day maintains its record as one of the longest in the Met’s history. It brought her the beginning of her residency as one of the Met’s principal sopranos. She flourished, starring in such roles such as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Minnie in La Fanciulla del West and, most notably, as Cleopatra in gay composer Samuel Barber‘s disastrous Antony And Cleopatra which opened the new Met at Lincoln Center.
Price became a leading interpreter of roles of Verdi, Puccini, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Her voice ranged from A flat below Middle C to the E above High C. She said she sang high Fs “in the shower.”
In Aida, Metropolitan Opera, via YouTube
For the next quarter century, Price sang in 201 Met performances, in 16 different roles, in 21 seasons, at the house and on tour. In her ambitious first season alone, she sang five roles: the II Trovatore, Aida, Turandot, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly. The next season, she added La Fanciulla del West and Tosca. The next season she added six more roles.
She proved herself best suited to the Verdi roles, with their portrayals of noble grief and supplication. These works, plus Verdi’s Requiem became her core repertoire.
Price’s fame and her stature as the first African-American singer to gain international reputation in opera, allowed her to be selective with her roles throughout the 1970s. She finally was able to choose to perform in productions less frequently and focus on her recitals.
Price gave her farewell performance as Aida at the Met in 1985, which was telecast and was hailed as the most successful operatic performance in the Met’s history.
In September 1964, 37-year-old Price was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor (until the 45th president ruined it for everyone), by Lyndon B. Johnson. Nearly 20 years later, she became a National Medal of Arts Recipient.
Price’s recordings have earned her many honors and awards, including 20 Grammy Awards. Price rose to stardom as a woman of color during a time of segregation in America and in a profession where the odds of succeeding were not in her favor because the paths to opportunities in the world of opera were limited.
Via YouTube
Her voice transcends all barriers of race, class and expectation. It is not just her singing that had audiences transfixed; Price commanded the stage with a stoic, unfaltering stance. For the queens, Price is a queen of fierce fortitude, and an ultimate Fashion Icon, known for her extraordinary flowing gowns, turbans and those beautiful full lips and flawless dark skin. Price is an artist who, during a divisive time in our country’s history, sang recitals in venues small and large, and toured with the Met in the segregated South when the company had to boycott opening night receptions that were for ”whites-only”. She is elegant and earthy and always her diva self.
