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Leontyne Price ~
Aida highlights
vinyl LP front cover
photo by Styrous®
A week ago was the birthday of
Leontyne Price; she was born Mary Violet Leontyne Price and raised in
Laurel,
Mississippi on February 10, 1927.
She took her first steps onto the grand operatic stage in
San Francisco on September 20, 1957, singing Madame Lidoine in the U.S. premiere of the
Francis Poulenc opera,
Dialogues des Carmélites.
It is one of the flukes of my life that I saw her preform at the beginning of her career a few weeks later; she sang her first
Aida, by
Puccini, stepping in for Italian soprano
Antonietta Stella who was suffering from
appendicitis. The opera was performed at the
Greek Theater in
Berkeley,
California,
in October, 1957; I saw that performance. It was my very first live
opera. During the second act, scene two, there were real elephants
during the
Triumpal March. WOW! How can you top that?
The
second scene in act one has to be one of the most sensational moments
in opera. It takes place in the Temple of Vulcane. It begins quiet,
dreamy, almost spooky then builds to one of the most dramatic crescendos
in opera. The second scene in act two includes the
Triumpal March. It is mind-blowing. There are links to both on YouTube below and it is a trip to watch them in full screen.
Aida put the "Grand" in
Grand Opera!
As well as Price,
bass Giorgio Tozzi and
spinto tenor Jon Vickers, performers in the 1959 production I saw, are also on the
vinyl LP I have; it's the reason I bought it.
Leontyne Price
was around 30 years old at the time of the concert, in the bloom of her
physical beauty with a voice that was stunning. She was the ideal
Aida and there has
never been one more perfect nor more dazzling.
Sunday, October 11, 1959
Leontyne Price was the first
African American to become a leading artist at the
Metropolitan Opera. In the late 1960s, she cut back her operatic performances in favor
of recitals and concerts. She became a
popular artist in the orchestral and performing arts series in the major
American cities and large universities. In the early 1970s, she also
returned to
Europe, for opera performances in
Hamburg and
Covent Garden in
London,
England, and gave her first recitals in
Hamburg,
Vienna,
Paris,
and the
Salzburg Festival. At the latter she became a favorite
recitalist, appearing in 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, and 1984.
Leontyne Price,
Cab Calloway &
William Warfield,
Porgy and Bess program - 1953
recordings
Most of Leontyne Price's commercial recordings were issued by
RCA Victor Red Seal and include three complete recordings of
Il trovatore by
Verdi, two of
La forza del destino also by
Verdi, two of
Aida, two of the
Verdi Requiem, two of
Tosca by
Puccini, and one each of the
Verdi operas:
Ernani and
Un ballo in maschera, the
Mozart operas
Cosí fan tutte and
Don Giovanni (as Donna Elvira), the
Puccini operas
Il tabarro and
Madama Butterfly,
Carmen by
Bizet and (her final complete opera recording)
Ariadne auf Naxos by
Strauss. She also recorded a disc of highlights from
Porgy and Bess, by
Gershwin, singing the music of all three female leads. It was conducted by
Skitch Henderson and featured
William Warfield as Porgy.
She recorded five
Prima Donna albums of operatic arias
generally of roles that she never performed on stage. She also recorded
two albums of
Richard Strauss arias, recitals of French and German
art songs, two albums of
Spirituals, and a crossover disc,
Right as the Rain, with
André Previn. Her recordings of
Hermit Songs, scenes from
Antony and Cleopatra and
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, all by
Samuel Barber, were reissued on CD as
Leontyne Price Sings Barber. Her most popular operatic aria collection is her first, the self-titled
Leontyne Price,
sometimes referred to as the "Blue Album" because of its light blue
cover. It has been reissued on CD, and also on SACD. In 1971, RCA
released a
spiritual album
I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, Price singing with the
Rust College Choir
(
Mississippi). In 1996, for her 70th birthday,
RCA Victor issued a
limited-edition 11-CD boxed collection of her recordings, with an
accompanying book, entitled
The Essential Leontyne Price.
Archival recordings of live performances have also appeared.
Deutsche Grammophon released CDs of live Salzburg performances of the
Beethoven Missa Solemnis (1959) and
Il trovatore
(1962), both conducted by
Herbert von Karajan. In 2002, RCA discovered a tape of
her 1965
Carnegie Hall recital debut and released it in its
"Rediscovered" series. In 2005,
Bridge Records released the complete
1953
Library of Congress recital with
Barber, including the
Hermit Songs,
La Voyante by
Henri Sauguet, and songs by
Poulenc. In August 2008, a
tape of a September 1952 Berlin performance of the
Breen-Davis Porgy and Bess
was found in the Berlin radio archives and released on CD—offering the
earliest recorded glimpse of Price's voice and style. In 2011,
Sony Classics brought out on disc her first two Met broadcasts,
Il trovatore (1961) and
Tosca (1962), both with
Franco Corelli, followed in 2012 by a third broadcast,
Ernani (1962) with
Carlo Bergonzi.
photographer unknown
Before retiring, Price gave several master classes at
Juilliard and
other schools. In 1997, at the suggestion of
RCA Victor, she wrote a
children's book version of
Aida, which became the basis for the hit Broadway musical by
Elton John and
Tim Rice in 2000.
British critic
J.B. Steane
writes that "one might conclude from recordings that [Price] is the
best interpreter of Verdi of the century." In an interview, Price once
recalled that
Maria Callas had told her,
during a meeting with the older diva in Paris, "I hear a lot of love in
your voice." The sopranos
Renée Fleming,
Kiri Te Kanawa,
Jessye Norman.
Leona Mitchell,
Barbara Bonney,
Sondra Radvanovsky, the mezzo-soprano
Denyce Graves, bass-baritone
José van Dam, and the countertenor
David Daniels, have talked about Price as an early inspiration.
Miles Davis, in
Miles: The Autobiography, wrote: "Man, I love her as an artist. I love the way she sings
Tosca. I wore out her recording of that, wore out two sets. Now, I might not do
Tosca,
but I loved the way Leontyne did it. I used to wonder how she would
have sounded if she had sung jazz. She should be an inspiration for
every musician, black or white. I know she is to me."
In October 2001, at the age of 74, Price was asked to come out of
retirement to sing in a memorial concert at Carnegie Hall for the
victims of the September 11 attacks. With
James Levine at the piano, she sang a favorite spiritual,
This Little Light of Mine, followed by an unaccompanied
God Bless America, ending it with a bright, easy B below
high C.
Tracklist:
Side 1:
Act I
A1 - Si: Corre Voce; Celeste Aida
A2 - Ritorna Vincitor!
Act III
A3 - Qui Radamès Verrà!; O Patria Mia Ciel!; Mio Padre; Pur Ti Riveggo
Side 2:
B1 - Nel Fiero Anelito
Act IV
B2 - Già I Sacerdoti Adunansi
B3 - La Fatal Pietra
Credits:
Baritone Vocals – Robert Merrill
Bass Vocals – Giorgio Tozzi
Chorus – Rome Opera House Chorus*
Chorus Master – Giuseppe Conca
Composed By – Verdi*
Conductor – Georg Solti
Mezzo-soprano Vocals – Rita Gorr
Orchestra – Rome Opera House Orchestra*
Soprano Vocals – Leontyne Price
Tenor Vocals – Jon Vickers
Notes:
——Cover info——
Includes a 12" book with info and notes in English and the complete libretto in Italian and English.
Selected by the Metropolitan Opera
© by Radio Corporation of America, 1962
Recorded in the Opera House, Rome, Italy
First performed at Cairo, Egypt, December 24, 1871
Italian-English Libretto: Translation © The Decca Record Company, Ltd., London
Performed in Italian
On jacket: LM-2616 is seen on front back and spine.
On labels: LM 2616 (notice: no "-" in code)
Track listings and credits taken from center labels.
Verdi*, Price*, Vickers*, Gorr*, Merrill*, Tozzi*, Rome Opera House Orchestra* And Chorus*, Solti* – Aïda Highlights
Label: RCA Victor Red Seal – LM-2616, RCA Victor Red Seal – LM 2616
Format: Vinyl, LP, Mono
Country: US
Released: 1962
Genre: Classical, Stage & Screen
Style: Opera
Happy Birthday, Diva Divina
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