She looked like a queen and sang like an archangel. When lyric soprano Leontyne Price walked out onstage it was with a regal, cool bearing that projected she had everything under control. And she did. There was a grandeur and spirituality about her stage presence, an opulent liquid gold gleam to her voice.
Now 97 years old, the legendary opera singer looks back on a spectacular international opera career that included performances in most of the major opera houses of the world. At age 90, she was interviewed for a documentary on the opening of the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.
This documentary “The Opera House” by filmmaker Susan Froemke explores the genesis of The Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. When Metropolitan Opera General Manager Rudolf Bing asked her to sing for the opening in 1966, she said, “I thought I was going to die!” She starred as Cleopatra in the premiere of American composer Samuel Barber’s opera, “Antony and Cleopatra” alongside bass baritone Justino Diaz. She recalled her first impressions of the acoustics in the famed house, when she opened her mouth and sang: “The first note out of my mouth I thought it was going to Staten Island.”
The premiere of Samuel Barber's opera, "Antony and Cleopatra," at Lincoln Center, New York. Michael Schwartz Library, Cleveland State University. (The Cleveland Press Collection)
She remembered, “I really sang like an angel. You just want to kiss yourself, you sound so great.” That high self-regard was justified because of her steely work ethic. She invested unwavering devotion to exquisite preparation for all her performances. For one season at The Metropolitan Opera she had to learn five roles. She recalled, “I was so prepared there was no way they were going to get rid of me then.” She added, in “The Opera House.”
A Happy Childhood and Beyond
Price posing with her family during a 1960 visit to her hometown of Laurel, Miss. Library of Congress. (Public Domain)
Mary Violet Leontyne Price was born In Laurel, Mississippi in 1927 to parents of limited means. Her mother was a midwife and soloist in the church choir, and her father was a sawmill worker who played tuba in the church band. “I think I had one of the happiest childhoods that anybody could think of,” Price recalled in an interview for the “Kennedy Center Honors Legend: Leontyne Price.” The Prices raised a daughter who became an international opera star and a son who became a brigadier general in the Army. When their daughter sang Cleopatra for that opening night at The Metropolitan Opera, then First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson invited them to sit with her for the performance.
Ms. Price began piano lessons around the age of 6. She sang in the church choir and listened to Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the radio. When she was 9, a trip to Jackson, Mississippi to hear the legendary opera singer Marian Anderson inspired her greatly. “The whole aura of the occasion had a tremendous effect on me, particularly the singer’s dignity and, of course, her voice.” Ms. Price said in a Gramophone interview. Her other inspiration, the great soprano Maria Callas, gave her the “opera bug,” Ms. Price said in a National Endowment for the Arts video published in 2010.
She majored in music education at Central State College in Wilberforce, Ohio with the intention of teaching so that she could help pay for her younger brother George’s college education. But after the college president heard her sing, he convinced her to change her major to voice. After graduating cum laude, Ms. Price received a scholarship to attend the Juilliard School of Music where she studied voice with former recitalist Florence Page Kimball. “It was the most important relationship of my life,” Ms. Price said in a New York Times interview with Susan Heller Anderson. In the National Endowment for the Arts 2010 interview, she said it was Anderson who taught her “to sing on [her] interest and not [her] capital. It kept the voice where it should be.”
In 1952, her career began to gain momentum. After hearing Ms. Price sing the role of Alice Ford in a Juilliard student production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Falstaff,” American composer Virgil Thomson asked her to sing in a Broadway revival of his opera “Four Saints in Three Acts.” It played for two weeks on Broadway and one in Paris, after which Ms. Price was cast in a touring production of George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” Rave reviews followed them on the two-year-tour which included New York and Europe. Ms. Price sang the role of Bess, and her future husband, concert artist, bass-baritone William Warfield sang Porgy. Ultimately, the struggle of conflicting performance schedules took its toll, and they later divorced.
(Left) Leontyne Price in 1951. (Right) Price singing "La Voyante of Sanguet" in 1953. Portraits photographed by Carl Van Vechten. Library of Congress. (Public Domain)
A close friend of Ms. Price’s teacher, American composer Samuel Barber asked Kimball if she had a student who would be suited to premiering his “Hermit Songs.” Kimball said that Ms. Price was the one. Ms. Price sang the premiere in a New York City’s Town Hall [Library of Congress] recital in 1953 with Barber at the piano. She later recorded Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915.” Barber wrote the role of Cleopatra specifically for Ms. Price. When he went to her home with new pages of the opera, “The ink was still wet,” she recalled. “It was one of the most precious of my life” was Ms. Price’s description of her instantaneous friendship with Barber in the Kennedy Center Honors interview.
By now, Ms. Price was gaining national recognition. Already known for her enthusiastically received performance in “Porgy and Bess,” she was chosen to sing the title role in NBC Opera Theatre’s television production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca.” In his 1955 New York Times review, Olin Downes described it as “the most dramatic and convincing performance by this organization.” Soon, Columbia Artists offered her a contract to sing for concert performances.
Conductor Herbert von Karajan was responsible for launching Ms. Price’s European career, according to the singer. While in New York City with the Berlin Philharmonic, he dropped in to hear Ms. Price on his lunch break. Overcome with enthusiasm, von Karajan jumped on the stage, moved her accompanist over, and proceeded to accompany her himself. He later conducted her at the Vienna State Opera in Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida” and Verdi’s “Il Trovatore,” among other operas and oratorios.
"The Great Voice Of Leontyne Price," 1971. Internet Archive. (Public Domain)
San Francisco Opera’s production of Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” was Ms. Price’s debut on a major opera stage in 1957. A few weeks later, the lead soprano in “Aida” had a medical emergency, so Ms. Price sang as her replacement. That was the beginning of many, highly acclaimed performances of “Aida,” which Ms. Price considered her signature role. “Something I knew about Aida from the very beginning: that my voice was made to sing this role above all others,” she said in her essay “Aida” for “The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Guide to the World of Opera.”
She debuted as Aida at the Vienna State Opera in 1958 with von Karajan conducting, followed by performances in London and Verona. A couple of years later, Bing was in the Verona audience when Ms. Price sang the role of Leonora in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore.” He went backstage afterward and offered Ms. Price a contract with the Metropolitan Opera. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in “Il Trovatore.”
Opera stars Price and Robert Merrill deliver an aria at topping-out ceremonies for the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, 1964. Library of Congress. (Public Domain)
“Her voice, warm and luscious, has enough volume to fill the house with ease. … Voice is what counts, and voice is what Miss Price has,” wrote Harold Schonberg in a New York Times review. That legendary 1961 performance received a 42-minute standing ovation—one of the longest in Metropolitan Opera history.
Ms. Price said she felt she was born to perform the music of Barber, Verdi, and Richard Strauss. She sang in “Aida” for her farewell Metropolitan Opera performance in 1985, but continued singing in recitals and concerts until 1997. She made many recordings, and her numerous awards include a Presidential Medal of Freedom, Kennedy Center Honors, the National Endowment for Arts Opera Honors,13 Grammys, and two Emmys.
American operatic soprano Leontyne Price at the Shrine Auditorium on February 23, 1989 in Hollywood. (MARK LOUNDY/AFP via Getty Images)
Helena Elling is a singer and freelance writer living in Scottsdale, Arizona.
