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Home , Grace Bumbry, Shirley Verrett

page 24 A M GRAACE In five decades, ’s career Z I

N Offstage Grandeur Retired mezzo- Grace Bumbry against the G operatic backdrop of Salzburg, Austria, where she lives within view of a famous statue The exact of Wolfgang number of curtain Amadeus Mozart. calls — thirty-two or forty-two? — has blurred with time, but a half century has done nothing to dull the historic impact of the moment when young mezzo-soprano Grace Bumbry broke the color barrier at the 1961 . The self- assured beauty from St. Louis, Missouri, knocked the socks off a throng of tight- jawed Wagnerians, conservative - goers who had huffed that Bumbry’s casting as Venus in the production of

BY SUSAN SELIGSON

PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANDREA ARTZ AT THE FELSENREITSCHULE IN SALZBURG

24-25 Only_r1.indd 24 6/14/10 3:19 PM r has soared, from Wagner to Scott Joplin

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24-25 Only_r1.indd 25 6/14/10 3:19 PM grace bumbry in January 1968 in her dressing room at the , , London, where she sang the role of Amneris in Verdi’s Aïda. /HARRIS AP PHOTO/STAFF

Tannhäuser was a cultural outrage. Now seventy-three, Bumbry of syphilis in 1917, never saw a But her role as the goddess of (CFA’55) was celebrated in Decem- full production of , love thrilled , the ber with a Kennedy Center Honor, which wasn’t performed until 1972, composer’s grandson, who declared along with , in Atlanta. Racism undoubtedly that Wagner “would have been , , played a role in the long, crushing delighted. He wrote for vocal color, and . This spring, efforts of America’s undisputed not skin color.” she was lured out of retirement king of ragtime to make his mark Bumbry and her audience have to perform the role of the mother as a composer for the lyrical enjoyed one of the richest operatic in a production of Scott Joplin’s stage. The opera won Joplin a careers of the twentieth century. Treemonisha at the Théâtre du posthumous Pulitzer Prize. In her heyday she belonged to that Châtelet in Paris, the city where In five decades on the stage, rare opera breed — the mezzo- she made her debut fifty years ago. Bumbry mastered a wide range soprano superstar, taking her place She sang Amneris in Verdi’s Aïda, of mezzo, and later soprano, in the firmament because of her at the Grand Opera, a year before roles, from Puccini to Wagner riveting stage presence as Bayreuth. to Verdi, from a steamy WEB EXTRA well as her versatile voice. Bumbry could not pass up the and a vibrant Dalila to Adalgisa, Watch a video “Her big break was chance to be a part of the Joplin Gioconda, , Elvira, Leonora, of mezzo- soprano singing Venus at Bayreuth,” opera, a century after it was com- , Eboli, and Medea. “Her Grace Bumbry says Richard Dyer, who posed, heading an all-black cast Carmen wasn’t particularly French, teaching a retired recently after thirty- from the United States and Africa. but it was spectacularly sung,” says master class three years as classical In Treemonisha, set in 1884, an Dyer. “To me her great roles were for BU’s Opera Institute music critic for the Boston adopted daughter of an Arkansas Verdi roles — Aïda and Don Carlo.” students Globe. “That was the holiest plantation manager tries to wrench In 1985, Bumbry overcame a at bu.edu/ of holies, playing a major her people free from ignorance long reluctance and sang Bess, bostonia. Wagner role.” and superstition. Joplin, who died with Simon Estes, a College of Fine

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24-28_Bumbry.indd 26 6/17/10 4:20 PM grace bumbry with fellow 2009 Kennedy Center honorees: (from left) Robert De Niro, Bruce Springsteen, Mel Brooks, and Dave Brubeck.

Arts professor, singing Porgy, in a performance honoring the golden anniversary of the Gershwin classic. “Miss Bumbry floated and sustained several nice high pianissimos … and in general caught the Gershwin vocal style with more success than might have been expected from a certified diva,” wrote Donal Henahan in . As her career and her renown soared, the unfailingly glamorous Bumbry, who drove an orange

Lamborghini, remained at her WOLF AP PHOTO/KEVIN

At seventeen Bumbry won a local radio competition with a rendition of “O don fatale” from Don Carlo.

career. She sings at church every she set the aspiring performers core the middle-class daughter Sunday from her seat in the con- at ease. To a baby-faced tenor of a railroad freight handler and gregation. “I always loved Salzburg singing an aria from Mozart’s Cosi a homemaker. A serious student when I sang here in the summers fan tutte: “You sing so well, you who sang in the church choir, at of the sixties and seventies,” says don’t want any blemish,” Bumbry seventeen she won a local radio Bumbry, who became a Messianic said with a faintly German accent, competition with a rendition of Jew ten years ago. the Missouri lilt lost to years of “O don fatale” from Don Carlo. A former honorary UNESCO singing lieder and conversing in the The honor was bittersweet; the ambassador, Bumbry is known for languages of Europe. “Can we go prize included admission to a other off-stage roles, including back to that G sharp?” segregated local conservatory founder of the Grace Bumbry Black “Brighter As, brighter As!” she that would provide the promising Musical Heritage Ensemble, which chirped to another young man, and black teenager only with private she created in the 1990s to promote went on to stop a soprano in mid- lessons. At that time racism was Negro spirituals and gospel music fermata, warning, “You’re going to still endemic in the classical music as concert fare. Currently dormant, tire yourself!” world. Mezzo-soprano Shirley the choir reflected her conviction, Describing the experience as Verrett, whose career paralleled as she told the New York Times, a bit of a tease, she says her time Bumbry’s in many ways, tells in a that “the spiritual is the American with each student was far too 2003 memoir of being invited to classic, as Brahms and Beethoven brief and “unfair to teacher and sing with the are the European classic.” student alike.” She’d like more time in the early sixties, only to have Bumbry has a fondness for both with these young voices, time to the invitation withdrawn when the Boston and BU, and she returns understand their breathing, their orchestra board refused to feature a periodically to lecture and teach, as use of vowels, their musicality, and black soloist. she did last January, when she held their cultures, which affect both the a master class for students in BU’s singing and the learning process, OFFSTAGE ROLES Opera Institute. As a succession says Bumbry, who works with many With her nine-year marriage to of formally attired and coiffed international students, from as Swiss tenor Erwin Andreas Jaeckel young men and women took their close as , France, Belgium, nearly forty years in the past, places by the piano accompanists, and Austria to as far away as Korea, Bumbry lives in Salzburg’s Mozart Bumbry sat stage right with an Japan, Russia, and the United Square, where her surroundings alert but sympathetic expression. States. are as timeless and picturesque Although she didn’t mince words “I’d like very much to come as the stage backdrops of her rich and occasionally interrupted, back to Boston to teach,” she says.

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24-28_Bumbry.indd 27 6/17/10 4:21 PM “I think I could be of enormous roles, beginning in 1963 with Lady most comparisons, so music critics help. I got the impression from the at Basel. Some critics were on high alert when the pair students that they were almost felt her reach exceeded her grasp. shared the stage at Carnegie Hall starving for information; it said to “She and both made at an eightieth birthday tribute me that there’s something I have the move up to soprano, but Shirley to in 1982. The that they aren’t able to get. It has to really was a soprano and Grace concert reportedly took years to do with being a performer on the wasn’t,” says Dyer. “I saw her as arrange, and with their overlapping stage. It’s one thing to be a teacher, Medea at the City Opera and she careers and shared migration from but you have to have been on the was very striking in it, but as a so- mezzo to soprano roles, much was stage to really know what to expect. prano her high notes didn’t have made of the singers’ professional “Both teacher and student have the color and richness of the rest rivalry and reluctance to perform a lot of homework to do if you want of her voice. All her high notes together. But those who attended, to perform well,” she says, adding, sounded the same, whereas the including Dyer, say it was an unfor- after a beat or two, “and have a long middle of her voice was a fascin- gettable afternoon. “No smiles, career.” ating kaleidoscope of colors, and no gracious gestures or protesta- Bumbry’s own two-year stint she could do whatever she wanted.” tions to the contrary could hide the electricity of this rivalry,” wrote Bernard Holland in the New York “From my first performance I knew what Times. “If this, indeed, was the I was about, what is good, what is bad.” grand and extravagant exercise in operatic arm-wrestling it seemed to as a student here was followed Many critics agreed, and al- be, then there was only one winner: by study at Northwestern Univer- though some were less than kind the audience.” sity under famed soprano Lotte about her embrace of soprano Although well attended, the Lehmann, whom she thought of leads, her character and comport- Châtelet production of Treemo- as a second mother. “Lehmann ment drew nothing but respect. nisha received lukewarm reviews, did not teach voice,” Bumbry “I admire that she sought out mostly for the score, summed up told the Washington Post. “She opportunities to do things that by critic Jorg von Uthmann as taught interpretation of opera broke the mold,” says Dyer. “She’s “somewhere between an opera and and lieder.” As Bumbry’s teacher clearly inquisitive and adventurous. a Broadway show, but not really at Northwestern and later at the She had personal glamour and used at ease on either end.” But von Music Academy of the West in it very well.” Uthmann went on to describe the Santa Barbara, Lehmann instilled a Bumbry always weathered performance of Bumbry as “good reverence for the recital literature, criticism calmly, even with detach- by any standards,” and for her age, specifically lieder. Woven around ment. “I didn’t give a lot of cre- “nothing short of extraordinary.” Bumbry’s opera appearances were dence to what critics have said, Her fellow singers respectfully a succession of lieder recitals and because most of them had no idea insisted that she come out last for recordings released by the Angel how the singing voice really works,” curtain calls. and Deutsche Grammophon labels. she says. “I never pooh-poohed Bumbry herself found the “Performing lieder was comple- them; if there was something they production exhilarating. “It was mentary” to her opera career, said that was negative, I did learn just one of those productions when Bumbry says. “In opera you get from it if possible. But from my first everyone, even the performers, left away with a lot of things you can’t performance I knew what I was the theater in a happy spirit,” she get away with on the recital stage. about, what is good, what is bad, says. “That’s unusual.” For me it was rewarding to go from whether they agreed or not. You With Treemonisha behind one to the other.” Dyer believes learn something each time you sing. her, Bumbry has returned to her that ultimately Bumbry will be You go away with the realization teaching schedule. She usually has remembered, particularly among that you don’t know everything, around fifteen students. Many are her German audience, as a first- and there’s no reason that should already established performers — rate lieder and concert singer. change through your career. This to baritones and even a thing of singers being afraid of bass or two — who return to her TAKING IT HIGHER critics — it’s ridiculous. You have to to prepare for an audition or a After a succession of debuts at have strong convictions and know competition. the world’s great opera houses, that what the composer has asked As for her own wide-ranging from the Royal Opera House in for — that is number one.” career, Bumbry says: “I made Covent Garden and to the She remains close friends with mistakes … but too few to mention.” and the Met, American soprano , The famous voice erupts in a benev- Bumbry began taking on soprano but it was Verrett who drew the olent, throaty laugh. p

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