Todd Duncan, the pioneering opera singer, circa 1930s. Mr. Duncan was the first African-American to perform with a major opera company, the New York City Opera. Other career highlights include being selected by George Gershwin to originate the role of Porgy in “Porgy and Bess” and being the first person to record the now classic song, “Unchained Melody.” Mr. Duncan also held a master’s degree from Columbia University and taught voice at Howard University for over fifty years, well into his nineties. He died in 1998.
Marian Anderson, singing during an Easter Sunday concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939. The concert was broadcast on the radio across the nation and the integrated audience of 75,000 including members of the Supreme Court, Congress, and President Roosevelt’s cabinet. The concert was organized after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Ms. Anderson to sing to an integrated audience at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. solely because of her race. Photo via The Library of Congress.
Opera legend Camilla Williams, photographed here by Carl Van Vechten in 1946, died on January 29, 2012 at her home in Bloomington, Indiana. Ms. Williams’ debut as Cio-Cio-San in Pucci’s Madama Butterfly” with the New York City Opera on May 15, 1946, was thought to make her the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company nine years before Marian Anderson’s historic debut at the more prestigious Metropolitan Opera. Ms. Williams sang at the March on Washington in 1963 and at Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1964. A graduate of Virginia State College, Ms. Williams retired from opera in 1971 and taught college in New York before arriving at Indiana University where she remained until her retirement in 1997.
My aunt Margaret Tynes photographed by Carl Van Vechten on September 29, 1959. She had a phenomenal international career as a singer in opera, jazz and theater for over fifty years. A graduate of North Carolina A&T State University (BA 1939) and Columbia University (MA 1944), she starred as Harry Belafonte’s leading lady off-Broadway in a show he produced called Sing Man, Sing! She also recorded a jazz suite called A Drum is a Woman with Duke Ellington and made several appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1961, she gained international acclaim as Salomé at the Spoleto Festival of the Two Worlds in Italy, where she lived for more than forty years.
Pioneering opera singer Todd Duncan. In 1945, he became the first African American to perform with a major American opera company, the New York City Opera. He sang the role of Tonio in “I Pagliacci.” In 1935, he was selected by George Gershwin to originate the role of Porgy in “Porgy and Bess.” In 1955, he was the first person to record the now classic song, “Unchained Melody.”
Born Robert Todd Duncan in Danville, Kentucky in 1903, he earned a bachelor’s degree at Butler University in 1925, and a master’s at Columbia University Teachers College in 1930. Soon after, he joined the music faculty of Howard University where he taught voice, well into his 90’s, for over fifty years. He died in 1998.
Opera legend Marian Anderson singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday 1939. When the Daughters of the Revolution barred her from singing at Constitution Hall, she sang on the steps of the memorial instead. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from DAR in protest over their “whites only” policy for the hall and for their treatment of Ms. Anderson.
My aunt Margaret Tynes with Harlem Renaissance notable Nora Holt and opera star William Warfield photographed by Carl Van Vechten at a party Ms. Holt held in honor of singers that she championed.
The first African American to earn a master’s degree in music (Chicago Musical College, 1918) Nora Holt was a music critic for two preeminent black newspapers, the Chicago Defender and the New York Amsterdam News. Married five (or more) times, she was also a regular in the gossip columns thanks to her scandalous love life. She died in Los Angeles in 1974.
William Warfield, a baritone, was born in 1920 to a family of sharecroppers in Arkansas. Best known for his roles in Show Boat and Porgy and Bess, he was married for twenty-one years to opera legend Leontyne Price before they divorced in 1973. He spent the remainder of his life as a voice teacher and died in 2002.
Grace Bumbry sings “Habanera” in a film version of Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen.
