In our continuing series on outstanding artists during Black History Month, we are featuring the incomparable Leontyne Price. More than a world-renowned opera singer, Price, who turned 98 on February 10 this year, is to many the pinnacle of soprano singing. She was the first African-American soprano to perform to great acclaim on the international opera stage, performing leading roles in works by Verdi, Puccini, and Richard Strauss for thirty years.
She possessed a remarkable talent in her formative years in Laurel, Mississippi, then at Central State University, a historically Black school in Ohio, and then at the Julliard School in New York City. Her shift from piano and singing to operatic roles started at Julliard, continuing to tour productions of Porgy and Bess including a performance at the State Fair of Texas in 1952. At a time when racism often precluded Black singers from operatic aspirations, Price’s voice was too exceptional to ignore. She achieved U.S. national exposure in the 1955 NBC Opera Theatre broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca. She starred in three additional productions, though some NBC affiliates in the South boycotted broadcasts because of her race. When she auditioned for the influential Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan in 1955, he enthusiastically asked to direct her European opera career. Verdi’s Aida became one of her signature roles, with Price performing at the san Francisco Opera, then Vienna State Opera, and La Scala in Milan. She had her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1961 in Verdi’s Il trovatore, marking the beginning of her 24-year career at that institution.
The career of Price is remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is groundbreaking for artists of color in opera performances. She also performed in genres beyond opera, including concert vocal repertoire with orchestras and regular solo recitals. She was selective in the repertoire that she performed, choosing roles that her unique voice could render to perfection. She also developed a reputation as an artist generous with time and mentoring for developing singers and composers. Price is important for championing newer American music, notably collaborating with Samuel Barber, Lee Hoiby and Ned Rorem. When Samuel Barber’s opera Antony and Cleopatra opened the new Metropolitan Opera House in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1966, Price premiered the role of Cleopatra in the part Barber composed specifically for her.
When Leontyne Price first auditioned for Julliard, her future teacher, the celebrated singer and teacher Florence Page Kimball, assessed her as “exceptionally good material.” Decades and accolades later, the legacy of Price is best summarized by soprano Renee Fleming: “…there is no one greater in history. She is there. She is at the pinnacle. It may be shared by other sopranos…, but I can’t imagine that anyone has ever surpassed her.” See the below clip of Leontyne Price at SMU, made available by the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection at Hamon Arts Library.
This post is the second in a four-part series called Celebrating Black History in the Arts. You may find resources on Leontyne Price, shown below, in the Hamon Arts Library.
- Puccini, Giacomo, Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica, Victorien Sardou, Leontyne Price, Plácido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes, et al. “Tosca.” New York? RCA Red Seal, 1973. Price is Tosca. Placido Domingo is Cavaradossi, and Sherrill Milnes as Scarpia. A standout recording of magnificent voices.
- Met on Demand has several audio and video performances of complete operas including Price’s 1985 farewell performance of Verdi’s Aida.
- Price, Leontyne, Oliviero De Fabritiis, Arturo Basile, William Warfield, Skitch Henderson, Erich Leinsdorf, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, et al. “Leontyne Price, the complete collection of operatic recital albums.” New York: RCA Red Seal, 2011. 14 CD set of recital performances of opera arias and duets captured in performance venues around the world between 1960 – 1982.
- Price, Leontyne, David Garvey, Fritz Reiner, Patricia Clark, Erich Leinsdorf, Thomas Schippers, Leonard De Paur, et al. “Leontyne Price, the Complete Collection of Songs and Spiritual Albums.” New York: RCA Red Seal, 2011. A 12 CD set of performances of spirituals, lieder, songs, and concert vocal works captured between 1954- 1991.
- Dickinson, Peter, and Peter Dickinson. Samuel Barber Remembered: A Centenary Tribute. NED-New edition. Vol. 74. United Kingdom: Boydell & Brewer, 2010. A collection of interviews with and about composer Samuel Barber. Chapter 11 features a 1981 interview with Leontyne Price describing the collaborative relationship performing Barber’s works with Barber at the piano for her Town Hall debut in 1954. Includes discussion of Barber’s 1966 opera Antony and Cleopatra in which Price played Cleopatra. Hamon has print and online access to this book.
- In 1992, Price was the recipient of the Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts. The G. William Jones Film and Video Collection contains footage documenting the celebratory event, as well as excerpts of a master class that Price taught while on campus for the week-long event. The Hamon Arts Library collections contain hundreds of visual recordings of her opera and recital performances, plus documentary footage.
- Photo Credits: Leontyne Price by John Mathew Smith. This image was originally posted to Flickr by John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com at https://flickr.com/photos/36277035@N06/5113082700 (archive). It was reviewed on 14 January 2019 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0. Aida “triumphal scene” stage shot. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Mr Snrub.
