ºPARA ƒPAR@ ` wTEXT ` iPrice, Leontyne1927╨opera singerBorn in Laurel, Mississippi, on February 10, 1927, Mary Violet Leontyne Price attended local schools there. She sang in her church choir as a girl, but it was not until she graduated from the College of Education and Industrial Arts (now Central State College) in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1948 that she finally determined to seek a career as a singer. A scholarship, together with financial aid provided by a friend in Laurel, enabled her to study for four years at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, where she worked under the former concert singer Florence Page Kimball, who remained her coach in later years. Her debut took place in April 1952 in a Broadway revival of Virgil Thomson╒s and Gertrude Stein╒s Four Saints in Three Acts. Her performance in that production, which subsequently traveled to Paris, led to Ira Gershwin╒s choosing her to sing Bess in his revival of Porgy and Bess, which played in New York City from 1952 to 1954 and then toured the United States and Europe. In October 1953 she was Samuel Barber╒s choice to sing the premiere performance of his Hermit Songs at a Library of Congress concert. The year 1955 saw her triumphant performance of the title role in the National Broadcasting Company╒s television production of Tosca,and she sang leading roles in other operas on television in the next few years. Price╒s operatic stage debut, however, did not take place until September 1957, when she appeared in the American premiere of Poulenc╒s Dialogues of the Carmelites at the San Francisco Opera. She continued in San Francisco until 1960, appearing in such works as Aòda, Thaòs, and The Wise Maidens. By that time she was one of the most popular lyric sopranos in the country and had also made successful appearances in Vienna in 1959 and at Milan╒s La Scala in May 1960, where her performance in Aòda was warmly received. Despite this great success╤she was the first African-American singer to achieve an international reputation in opera╤her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York was deferred until January 1961, when she appeared there in the difficult role of Leonora in Il Trovatore. After a brilliant performance she became one of the Met╒s leading regular sopranos. Later roles there included those in Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni, Turandot, Un Ballo in Maschera, and Ernani. In September 1966 she sang in the world premiere of Barber╒s Antony and Cleopatra, a performance that inaugurated the Met╒s new house in Lincoln Center. Her performance in La Forza del Destino in 1967 was greeted as a triumph. She also sang frequently in Chicago, San Francisco, Milan, London, Salzburg, Rome, Vienna, and elsewhere. In the 1970s Price reduced her operatic work somewhat to devote more time to recitals, but she scored another great success in her first performance of Ariadne auf Naxos in San Francisco in October 1977. She was one of the most frequently recorded opera singers, and she was the recipient of over 20 Grammy awards from the American Society of Recording Arts and Sciences. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and she received the Spingam Medal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1965, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1980, the National Medal of the Arts in 1985, and a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recorded Arts and Sciences in 1989. She gave her farewell performance of Aida at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1985, but continued to give recitals, which she described as her first love. She published a book, Aida, based on Verdi's opera, in 1990. ÷styl ` 2 ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ $ !I µ !I ▐ ⌠ !I ≈ !I !I ƒ !I ¡ !I e !I q !I !I !I l 5¬ m !I ⌡ !I !I t !I x !I z !I !I à !I ò !I \ !I ` !I y !I à !I !I !I !I !I ! !I ) !I + !I ? !I E !I K !I ï !I ƒ !I √ !I
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