Behind the dazzle of Shirley Verrett’s stardom lies a dramatic and deeply compelling life story that she has told, at last, in I Never Walked Alone: The Autobiography of an American Singer, written with Christopher Brooks (John Wiley & Sons; May 2003; $30). In a career that saw triumph after triumph, the serene and impeccable artist never seemed to hint at the challenges she was encountering.  Ms. Verrett prevailed against racial prejudice in the early days of the civil rights era. She came to terms with a strict fundamentalist upbringing from her beloved parents, one that shunned even opera. She contended with the difficulties of being a wife and a mother while also being a prima donna in the fiercely competitive arena of international opera. She even overcame a debilitating health crisis that eluded diagnosis throughout her prime years as a singer.

Yet Shirley Verrett never lost a sense of who she was or where she came from – a pretty little five-year-old girl whose first public performance was the song "Jesus Loves Me," at the New Orleans Seventh-Day Adventist church her family attended. Her father, a successful builder whose avocation was music (he was church's choir director), then delivered her first review - “You have a very lovely voice, little girl.”

In an operatic career that embraced an uncommonly wide and varied repertoire, Shirley Verrett won enduring acclaim in the world’s greatest opera houses – New York’s Metropolitan Opera, London’s Royal Opera at Covent Garden, Milan’s La Scala, the Paris Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago, to name only a few. Her remarkable voice allowed her to sing both leading roles in Verdi’s Aida (the title role and Amneris) as well as Bellini’s Norma (the title role and Adalgisa). She triumphed in the title roles of Puccini’s Tosca, Cherubini’s Medea, and Bizet’s Carmen, and as Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth, Azucena in Verdi's Il Trovatore, Dalila in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, Princess Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlo, Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio, among many others. In Berlioz’s monumental five-hour epic Les Troyens, Ms. Verrett made operatic history in 1973 in the Metropolitan Opera’s first staging of the work, singing both leading roles (Cassandra and Didon) in the same performances – a feat that was no less than “a landmark in operatic history,” The New Yorker wrote.

The road to that moment was daunting. Shirley Verrett came of age artistically at the dawn of the civil rights era in the United States. A top prize in the Marian Anderson voice competition and a degree from the Juilliard School of Music seemed to augur early stardom for the singer, and the legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski was among those eager to work with her. But the board of his orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, refused to allow Ms. Verrett to sing in 1959 because she was black. Stokowski persisted, assuring her they would work together, and they did triumphantly a few months later in Philadelphia. The lessons of that experience and others made Ms. Verrett a socially conscious artist, active in the civil rights movement throughout its most turbulent days and a leading figure in the boycott of apartheid in South Africa. The NAACP recognized her efforts with a special achievement award in 1980.

Throughout her long and distinguished career, Ms. Verrett has been acclaimed for her exceptional gifts as a singer and actress, and has won special praise for her unique and varied repertoire.  In addition to the Metropolitan Opera – which bestowed upon her a special honor when the organization presented her with a twenty-fifth anniversary watch two years before she reached that career milestone – Ms. Verrett was equally beloved at the Paris Opera, where she starred in a series of operas staged especially for her, including Rossini's Mosé, Cherubini's Médéé, Verdi's Macbeth, and Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride and Alceste.  In 1990, she opened the Bastille Opera in a widely hailed production of Les Troyens that commemorated the bicentennial of the French Revolution's Bastille Day.

At Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, where she was a favorite for many years, Ms. Verrett opened the 1975 season appearing as Lady Macbeth in Giorgio Strehler’s acclaimed production of Verdi’s Macbeth, with Claudio Abbado conducting – one of her greatest triumphs and one which firmly established her as a leading dramatic soprano.  Other highlights of her Italian career include her memorable portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Maggio Musicale in Florence and in the title roles of Cherubini's Medea at the Teatro Comunale in Florence and Puccini’s Tosca at the Arena di Verona.

Ms. Verrett performed regularly with the world's greatest orchestras and conductors, including Igor Stravinsky, Josef Krips, Eugene Ormandy, Thomas Schippers, Sir Georg Solti, Leopold Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Fiedler, James Levine, Erich Leinsdorf, Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado, Sir Colin Davis, Julius Rudel, Bruno Bartoletti, Riccardo Chailly, Georges Prêtré, Carlo Maria Guilini, Lorin Maazel, Raymond Leppard, Bernard Haitink, Nicola Rescigno, Rafael Kubelik, Herbert von Karajan, Carlo Felice Cilario, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Sarah Caldwell, Eve Queler and Seiji Ozawa.

Shirley Verrett also sang and recorded with nearly all the renowned singers of her day, including Leontyne Price, Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Montserrat Caballé, Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills, James McCracken, José Carreras, Jon Vickers, Alfredo Kraus, Marilyn Horne, Grace Bumbry, George Shirley, Sherrill Milnes and Simon Estes, among many others.  In the midst of a busy operatic schedule, Ms. Verrett appeared in recitals in major musical capitals of the world, including London (Covent Garden), New York (Carnegie Hall), Paris (Théâtre des Champs Elysees), as well as significant tours throughout the United States and Europe every season.

In addition to numerous filmed operatic performances and documentaries on Shirley Verrett, the singer's voice was featured in the 1999 Academy Award-winning film, Life is Beautiful.  She was also featured in the film Maggio Musicale, and appeared several times in the Live from Lincoln Center series in both opera and recital.

Born in New Orleans and raised in Southern California, Shirley Verrett graduated from the Juilliard School of Music in New York.  She has won many honors and awards, among them the Marian Anderson Award, the Achievement Award of the Women's Division of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and Essence Magazine's recognition as an African American Woman of Distinction; as well as fellowships from numerous foundations including Ford, John Hay Whitney, Martha Baird Rockefeller; the Naumburg Award; and the Sullivan Award.  She has received honorary doctorates from Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, Northeastern University in Boston, and her alma mater, Juilliard School of Music, in 2002. In 1970, she was decorated with the French Government's highly coveted Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and in 1984 was recognized with the more prestigious Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. She was recently named as a board member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Having always had a love for Broadway, Shirley Verrett performed the role of Nettie Fowler in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City during the 1994-95 season.  This acclaimed production, under the direction of Nicholas Hynter, won five Tony Awards and garnered Ms. Verrett a nomination for the Outer Critics Circle Award.  She was also an honoree of the Drama League. In 1999 she appeared in an Off-Broadway revival of the turn of the century musical comedy, In Dahomey  at the New Federal Theatre in New York. Shirley Verrett joined the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Music as Professor of Voice in September 1996. In 1999, she was appointed the James Earl Jones Distinguished Professor at the University of Michigan. For the last several summers, she has also taught at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy.

Shirley Verrett has lent her name and her energies to numerous charitable and humanitarian activities throughout her career.  As a life member of the NAACP, she gave a benefit recital at Carnegie Hall and donated the proceeds to the organization's general fund.  In 1989, she and Plácido Domingo sang a major benefit concert for UNESCO in Paris to aid refugee children in Latin America, Asia and Africa.  In this country, she has regularly sung benefit concerts to raise funds for AIDS research.

Ms. Verrett has also served on two White House commissions to preserve American Antiquity under the Carter and Reagan administrations.  She served on the National Endowment for the Arts and on the board of the Harlem's Boy's Choir.  In 1993 she participated in the "First Ladies of Song" a benefit to raise money for an Eleanor Roosevelt statue, featuring Hillary Rodham Clinton as the keynote speaker.

Beyond the world of opera, Shirley Verrett finds her greatest joy in her life with her husband of 40 years, the Yale-educated artist/writer Louis LoMonaco, their daughter Francesca and two grandchildren. In addition to the publication of her autobiography, Ms. Verrett is working on the creation of the Shirley Verrett Foundation, dedicated to the support of young vocalist of all ethnicities.