Grace Bumbry, 1st Black Singer At Bayreuth, Dies At 86

NEW YORK – Grace Bumbry, a groundbreaking mezzo-soprano who became the first Black vocalist to perform at Germany’s Bayreuth Festival after a career spanning more than three decades on the world’s most prestigious stages, has died. She was 86 years old.

According to her publicist, David Lee Brewer, Bumbry died on Sunday at Evangelisches Krankenhaus in Vienna.

On October 20, she suffered a stroke while flying from Vienna to New York for her induction into Opera America’s Opera Hall of Fame. She was hit by the airliner 15 minutes before landing, was treated at NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens, and flew back to Vienna on December 8. Brewer said Monday that she had been in and out of institutions since then.

Bumbry was born in St. Louis on January 4, 1937. Her father, Benjamin, worked as a railway porter, and her mother, Melzia Walker, was a schoolteacher.

She sang in the choir at Ville’s Sumner High School and won a talent contest sponsored by radio station KMOX, which included a scholarship to the St. Louis Institute of Music, but she was denied admittance because of her race. She appeared on CBS’s “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts,” then went on to attend Boston University College of Fine Arts and Northwestern University, where she met soprano Lotte Lehmann, who became her instructor and mentor at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California.

Bumbry, who was largely recognized as a mezzo but also sang some soprano roles, was inspired when her mother took her to hear Marian Anderson, the American contralto who became the first Black singer at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1955. Bumbry was a member of an acclaimed age of Black opera singers that included Leontyne Price, Shirley Verrett, George Shirley, Reri Grist, and Martina Arroyo.

Bumbry was one of the Met National Council Auditions winners in 1958. She made her Paris Opéra debut the following year as Amneris in “Aida.”

Bumbry was largely recognized as a mezzo but also sang some soprano roles.

The next year, Wieland Wagner, the composer’s grandson, cast her as Venus in a new production of “Tannhäuser” at the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. Bumbry’s inclusion in a production that included stars Wolfgang Windgassen, Victoria de los Angeles, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau prompted 200 letters of criticism to the festival.

“I remember being discriminated against in the United States, so why should it be different in Germany?” In 2021, Bumbry told St. Louis Magazine. “I knew I needed to get up there and show them what I’m all about.” When we were in high school, our teachers — and, of course, my parents — taught us that we are all the same. You are not superior to anyone, nor are you inferior to anyone. You must always provide your best effort.”

Her Bayreuth debut on July 23, 1961, received largely excellent reviews.

“A very large voice, though a little lackluster in color.” “It’s a voice that hasn’t’s-et,’ as the teachers say,” Harold C. Schonberg wrote in The New York Times. “She is a singer with a bright future.”

As a result of the publicity, Bumbry was invited to sing at a White House state banquet the following February by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Debuts followed at Carnegie Hall in November 1962, the Royal Opera House in London in 1963, and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1964.

Bumbry’s final full opera at the Met was on November 3, 1986, at Amneris in Verdi’s “Aida,”

On October 7, 1965, she made her Met debut as Princess Eboli in Verdi’s “Don Carlo,” the first of 216 appearances with the company.

“Her assurance, self-possession, and character projection are the kind from which a substantial career can be made,” said Irving Kolodin in the Saturday Review.

Bumbry’s final full opera at the Met was on November 3, 1986, at Amneris in Verdi’s “Aida,” though she returned a decade later for the James Levine 25th anniversary gala to sing “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix (Softly awakens my heart)” from Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila.”

In 1989, she performed in the first completely staged performance of work at Paris’ Bastille Opéra, in Berlioz’s “Les Troyens (The Trojans).” She was honored at the Kennedy Centre Honours in 2009.

Bumbry’s marriage to Polish tenor Erwin Jaeckel, which began in 1963, ended in divorce in 1972. Charles and Benjamin Bumbry were his brothers.

According to Brewer, tributes are being prepared for Vienna and New York.

SOURCE – (AP)