by Rich Watson
New York’s Metropolitan Opera was founded in 1883. In 1955, its location remained at 39th Street and Broadway. It seated 3625, with 224 standing room places. After a redesign, it held, at one point, the largest proscenium arch in the country.
Among the number of black musicians who have changed the sound of American popular music in the twentieth century, one name rarely mentioned is that of Marian Anderson. The classical music singer consorted with First Ladies, sang at the 1963 March on Washington, and was awarded, among her many honors, the first Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 1955, she added to her achievements by being the first black singer to play New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
Classical music singers in the twentieth century
1955 is remembered as the year rock and roll was born. For the first half of the century, classical, operatic music maintained a presence in America, along with jazz, folk, blues and other, more modern genres, thanks to singers like Enrico Caruso, Maria Callas, and Jeanette MacDonald. This book chronicles them throughout the first half of the century.
Over the past decade, I have met and known a number of choral singers who specialize in what’s known as “early music,” which includes material from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods.
Hearing it performed live is a different experience than your average Rolling Stones concert. It’s usually held in churches, the singers often rely on songbooks, and it’s never clear (at least to me) when to applaud. I may not choose to listen to it on Spotify while traveling, but I have grown to appreciate it.
Within this atmosphere came a black woman from Philadelphia with a voice that drove grown men to tears.
Marian Anderson’s trailblazing career
In her childhood, Anderson sang in her Baptist choir as well as in school. She also took voice lessons. People called her “the baby contralto.” After high school, when she auditioned for a teacher, her rendition of “Deep River” made him cry.
She toured black colleges and churches in the south. In 1924 she sang in New York for the first time, at Town Hall. Four years later she played Carnegie Hall. That led to a European tour during the early thirties.
She was no stranger to racism, however. In 1939, when Washington, DC’s Constitutional Hall refused to book her due to her race, among the protesters included First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Anderson, instead, performed a free Easter Sunday concert outside the Lincoln Memorial.
By 1943, she did play Constitutional Hall, in a wartime benefit concert.
Then came 1955, and her gig uptown.
About the old Metropolitan Opera
New York’s Metropolitan Opera was founded in 1883. In 1955, its location remained at 39th Street and Broadway. It seated 3625, with 224 standing room places. After a redesign, it held, at one point, the largest proscenium arch in the country.
As early as 1908, the Met’s general manager had complained of the building, calling it “too short and too narrow,” with little room backstage, despite its fine acoustics.
There was an effort to preserve the building, but by 1966, the Met moved to a new venue, at Lincoln Center on 66th Street. I went to high school near the current location.
Anderson at the Old Met
January 7, 1955 saw the performance at the Old Met of Giuseppe Verdi’s A Masked Ball, an opera depicting the assassination of the King of Sweden during the late eighteenth century, at the titular ball. It premiered in Rome in 1859. Its US premiere was at the Met’s predecessor, the Academy of Music, two years later.
A 1940 Met performance was recorded. (Here’s one from 2018, in California.)
Anderson played Ulricia, a fortune teller, a role for a contralto voice, the lowest for a woman. She was 58 at the time.
Her appearance in the show was the result of Met general manager Rudolf Bing, an Austrian-British impresario who championed integration. After he came on board in 1950, he hired Janet Collins to be the first black prima ballerina at the Met, in 1951. Also that year, a black baritone, Fred Thomas, won the Met’s “Auditions of the Air,” an American Idol for opera singers.
Bing was in charge when the Met moved to Lincoln Center.
Anderson had performed in recitals at the Met, but never took the stage as a member of a company. As early as 1940, Metropolitan Opera Association President Paul Cravath had suggested, in writing, Anderson and Paul Robeson for appearances at the Met. Another name bandied about was Dorothy Maynor, a peer of Anderson’s.
She later described her trepidation the night of the show:
The curtain rose on the second scene and I was there on stage, mixing the witch’s brew. I trembled, and when the audience applauded and applauded before I could sing a note, I felt myself tightening into a knot.
She had felt she overdid it, but later grew satisfied with her performance.
Anderson in later years
The next year, Anderson’s autobiography became a bestseller. Later, she toured the world as a goodwill ambassador. In 1961, she sang at President Kennedy’s inauguration and became active in the civil rights movement. She retired in 1965 after a final performance, at Carnegie Hall. She died in 1993.
Last year, Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in her hometown of Philadelphia was renamed Marian Anderson Hall.
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Also in 1955:
- Harry Belafonte records “Day-O.” It’s released the next year.
- Charlie Parker dies.
- Capitol releases the Oklahoma! soundtrack. The next year it reaches number one.
- NBC airs the Broadway production of Peter Pan, with Mary Martin.
- The Disney movie Lady and the Tramp features the voice of Peggy Lee. She also sings on the soundtrack.
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Did you see Marian Anderson perform? Leave a comment and let me know!
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