Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price is an American singer who was the first African-American soprano to receive international acclaim. From 1961 she began a long association with the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the first black singer to maintain a sustained relationship with the company. She regularly appeared at the world's major opera houses, including the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and La Scala. She was particularly renowned for her performances of the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida.
Born in Laurel, Mississippi, Price studied music at the College of Education and Industrial Arts in Wilberforce, Ohio which at the beginning of her education was a department inside Wilberforce University. By the time she graduated in June 1948 with a degree in music education the department had split from Wilberforce and become its own separate institution, the State College of Education and Industrial Arts at Wilberforce. She pursued further studies at the Juilliard School from 1948 until 1952, where she was trained as a soprano by Florence Kimball. Price developed a close relationship with Kimball and continued to study with her until Kimball's death in 1977.
Price's first significant professional engagement was in Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts which she performed both on Broadway and in Paris at a music festival held by the Congress for Cultural Freedom in 1952. While performing in Paris she continued her education through studies at the Fontainebleau School. Later that same year she starred as Bess in the third revival of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, a production which she remained with through the end of 1954 for performances throughout the United States, and on two tours to Europe. She married her co-star, bass-baritone William Warfield who portrayed Porgy, just prior to beginning the first European portion of the tour in 1952. They later divorced in 1973.
The success of the stage production of Porgy and Bess led to other opportunities for Price, including frequently singing excerpts from that opera with major orchestras across the United States. Other opportunities evolved from these on the concert and recital stage, with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Verdi's Requiem in particular becoming works which she performed frequently on the concert stage. She began a long association with composer Samuel Barber in 1953 when she performed the world premiere of his Hermit Songs with the composer as her accompanist at the Library of Congress; it was the first of many works by Barber which she premiered during her career. They later repeated performances of the piece multiple times, including in 1954 for Price's lauded New York recital debut at Town Hall and in Rome at the International Society for Contemporary Music's Twentieth Century Music Conference. Price also sang Hermit Songs with Barber for her first professional recording for Columbia Masterworks in 1955.
In 1955 Price became the first African American to star in a televised opera when she portrayed the title role in Puccini's Tosca with the NBC Opera Theatre. This event was widely viewed as a significant moment in breaking the color barrier for black opera singers who were historically barred from appearing on the opera stage. The success of this performance led to her first contract with an American opera company, the San Francisco Opera, and she made her debut with this organization in 1957 as Madame Lidoine in the United States première, in English, of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites. With the aid of her manager, André Mertens, Price developed a relationship with conductor Herbert von Karajan which launched her international career through many appearances at the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival among other venues. In the 1958–1959 season she became an internationally lauded artist when she triumphed as Aida for performances in Vienna, Verona, and London. She also had a major success in this role at La Scala in 1960.
Price made a successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1961, as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore. Continuing her career there, she starred in a multitude of operas for 20 years, securing her place among the leading performers of the century. One of these works was Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, which she starred in for its world premiere for the grand opening of the newly built Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center on September 16, 1966. She made her farewell opera performance at the Met in 1985 in Aida.
In interviews, Price referred to her own voice as that of a lyric soprano. However, critical assessment of her voice has not uniformly agreed. Some writers have referred to her as a lyric soprano and others as a dramatic soprano. Still others have designated her voice as a spinto or "lirico spinto" soprano, a type of voice that inhabits the space in-between a lyric and dramatic soprano. The designation of Price's voice as a spinto soprano has also been embraced by academics in the field of vocal pedagogy, with several books discussing voice classification using Price's voice as the prime example of the spinto soprano voice type.
Price's musical interpretations were subtle and often overshadowed her acting. She was noted for her roles in operas by Mozart and Puccini, as well as playing Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare and Poppea in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. However, the "middle period" operas of Verdi remain her greatest triumph: Aida, the Leonoras of Il trovatore and La forza del destino, as well as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera. Her performances in these works, as well as Mozart and Puccini's operas, survive in her [|many recordings].
After her retirement from opera, Price continued to appear in recitals and orchestral concerts until 1998. After that, she would come out of retirement to sing at special events, including a memorial concert at Carnegie Hall, in 2001 for victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Among her [|many honors and awards] are the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, in addition to her 13 Grammy Awards.
Life and career
Early life and family
Mary Violet Leontine Price was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on February 10, 1927. Her parents gave her the middle name Leontine after the name Leon, a name chosen by her parents to honor her father's best friend whose name was Leon. Her mother proposed this feminized version of the name. Her brother and only sibling, George, was born in 1929. He grew up to become a brigadier general in the United States Army, and lived until 2024 when he died at the age of 95.Price's father, James Anthony Price, worked in the timber industry and was employed in the sawmills in Laurel. He also worked as a part-time carpenter. Her mother, Katherine Viola Price, was a licensed practical nurse and midwife who delivered hundreds of babies in Laurel and the surrounding region. Her parents were both deeply religious, and her grandparents on both sides of the family were Methodist ministers.
Singer Dionne Warwick has said that she is a cousin of Price on her maternal side.
When Price was born during racial segregation in the United States that impacted her childhood, and the enforcement of Jim Crow laws was a reality of everyday life in Mississippi. At that time black Americans were unable to share spaces like schools, churches, restaurants, restrooms, and theaters with white Americans. She lived with her family in the south side of Laurel which was where all of the town's black residents lived. The Price family home was situated in the middle class section of Laurel's black community. She attended all-black schools throughout her childhood; including Sandy Gavin Elementary School. The family's church, Saint Paul's Methodist Church, was an all-black church. Her mother was a talented amateur singer who sang as a soloist in Saint Paul's church choir, and Leontyne grew up singing alongside her mother in this choral group. Her father played a tuba in the church band.
Childhood education and early music experiences
Price showed a natural affinity for music at an early age and began piano lessons at the age of three and a half with the local pianist Hattie McInnis. McInnis was one of the few African American music teachers that had studied under composer Carl Orff; a man known for developing the Orff Schulwerk approach to music education. Initially, she played on a toy piano, but by the time she was five, her parents traded in the family phonograph as the down payment on an upright piano. She studied with McInnis for more than twelve years; taking both piano and voice lessons with her. Her piano skills were further honed at Saint Paul's Methodist Church where she played regularly for Sunday school and at church services.Leontyne's aunt, Evelina Greer, lived with her family and was employed as a maid in the home of Alexander and Elizabeth Chisholm; a wealthy white family living in the north part of Laurel. Elizabeth Chisholm was the daughter of a wealthy lumber magnate, and Greer had worked for the Wisner family prior to her marriage to Alexander Chisholm, a successful banker. In a 1955 interview, Elizabeth Chisholm said that Greer had taken care of her when she was a little girl and had worked for her family for forty-five years. From an early age, Leontyne and her brother would often accompany their aunt when she went to work at the Chisholm home. The Chisholm family had children of about the same age as Leontyne and her brother, and the Price and Chisholm children became close friends. In particular, Leontyne and George were close with the Chisholm's older daughters, Jean and Margaret Ann, and Leontyne referred to herself as their "chocolate sister". Their parents also became friends with the Chisholms, and the Price's considered the Chisholms their "other family". Price maintained a friendship with Peggy Chisholm with Price describing her as her best friend in a 1981 interview. Peggy died in New York in 1991.
Mrs. Chisholm was a trained pianist, and encouraged Leontyne's piano-playing and singing, often inviting her to sing at house parties. The Chisholm family gave Leontyne access to their phonograph and record collection which is how she experienced listening to opera for the first time. Aged nine, she was taken on a school trip to hear Marian Anderson sing a recital in Jackson. The experience was her first significant exposure to live classical music, and she later recalled: "The whole aura of the occasion had a tremendous effect on me, particularly the singer's dignity and, of course, her voice." Multiple commentators asserted that this event galvanized Price's interest in a musical career.
As a teenager, Price attended Oak Park Vocational High School where she graduated in 1944 as salutatorian of her class. At OPVHS she was a cheerleader and a drum majorette in the school's band. She also sang in school choral groups, played piano for the school choir, and performed as a soloist at school events. During her high school years she earned extra money by singing for funerals and civic functions, and was a popular performer at civic and church events within Laurel's black community. She gave her first solo recital at Sandy Gavin School Auditorium on December 17, 1943 during which she sang and played classical piano music.