On January 7, 1955, sixty years ago today, American contralto Marian Anderson sang the role of Ulrica in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She was the first African-American ever to walk onto that stage, and her debut was shamefully overdue. Anderson was 58 at the time.
Here is the aria Re dell' abisso, affretati from that production:
Marian Anderson was born in South Philadelphia on February 27, 1897. Her family attended the Union Baptist Church, and her aunt, seeing her talent, started her singing in the youth choir at the age of six. At 14 she moved to the adult choir, where she often sang solos or duets with her aunt.
Her family could not afford formal music lessons, nor to send her to high school. The church, believing in her talent, started the "Marian Anderson's Future Fund," which allowed her to take singing lessons and to attend high school, from which she graduated in 1921.
She had been performing at local events for money since childhood. From The American Experience:
She continued to give concerts while she attended the South Philadelphia High School for Girls, and her teacher, Dr. Lucy Langdon Wilson, arranged for the famed Italian voice master, Giuseppe Boghetti, to hear her. He remembers this first meeting as occurring "at the end of a long hard day, when I was weary of singing and singers, and when a tall calm girl poured out ‘Deep River' in the twilight and made me cry." While Philadelphia conservatories turned Marian away with the refusal, "We don't take colored," she quickly acquired influential fans who would aid her career.
Boghetti entered her in a contest, the winner of which would get a solo performance with the New York Philharmonic. Anderson won, and afterwards Boghetti took her to perform in Europe, where she made her debut in at the Paris Opera House. This led to many concerts throughout Europe including command performances before more than one monarch. She then signed for a 15 concert tour in the US, despite her concerns that American audiences might not accept her. Her Town Hall debut in New York was a great success. In 1936 she became the first African-American invited to perform at the White House. The Roosevelts invited her a second time in 1939 to sing for an audience including the King and Queen of England.
In 1939 she was refused permission to perform at Constitution Hall, owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. When this became news, Eleanor Roosevelt famously resigned her membership. This led to her performing on Easter Sunday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before a crowd of 75,000 and thousands more listening on the radio.
With all the triumphs of her career, there were large and small issues due to racism, from the time back in Philly where the conservatories didn't "take colored" to segregated waiting rooms and hotels where she couldn't eat in the formal dining rooms. Her Met performance marked the end of another segregated institution and opened the way for the black singers who have sung there since. Even the DAR invited her to perform in a benefit concert in the 1940's.
This short documentary from 1950 features parts of many notable concerts.
And I'll close with an unusual pair of songs by Brahms, just because I love it: