BCR Leading Ladies: Marian Anderson, First Black Singer to Perform at the Metropolitan Opera House
MARIAN ANDERSON was born in 1897 in Philadelphia. She began her professional singing career while still in high school as a way to earn money to help support her family. Prior to that, Anderson was a member of her church choir from the age of 6, and a self-taught pianist (her parents bought a piano but couldn’t afford lessons). She became so popular as a singer in churches that she started earning money performing for different congregations, and sang at the National Baptist Convention in 1919.
Although she had been performing professionally for several years, Anderson was denied admission to music school in 1921 because she was African American. Instead, Anderson, a contralto, started private vocal training with coach Guiseppe Boghetti, the third of her formal singing coaches, and her career started to skyrocket as she performed in black communities around the country. In 1924, she made her first recording, and in 1925, she beat out 300+ contestants to perform at Lewissohn Stadium, accompanied by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Other performances included a 1928 solo show at Carnegie Hall, a 1930 performance in London’s Wigmore Hall, and literally hundreds of other shows. Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, Marian Anderson trained and toured in Europe, but she continued to face discrimination in the US because of her race. One notable example is the 1939 refusal by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) to let Anderson perform at Constitution Hall. Then- First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her DAR membership in protest against the group’s action, and Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes arranged for Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in a live television broadcast seen by 75,000 people.
Marian Anderson received numerous awards throughout her long career, including the National Medal of Arts (1986) and the American Medal of Freedom (1963). In 1980, the US Treasury also created a gold commemorative medal with her image on it.
In January of 1955, Marian Anderson became the first black singer to be a regular company member at the New York Metropolitan Opera, playing Ulrica in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Machera. She was 58 at the time. Although she lived well into her 90s, Anderson stopped performing in 1965. She died in 1993.
You can hear a recording of Marian Anderson’s performance of “Lord, I Can’t Stay Away” at the Marian Anderson Historical Society website.
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(photo from the Library of Congress)
Tags: women in business, black history month, black women leaders, marian anderson, first african american to sing at the metropolitan opera house, new york metropolitan opera, first black singer, biz chicks rule, leading ladies, business advice for women, kristen king
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