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In the
post-World War II era, several generations of American singers
emerged prominently on U.S. and international opera stages.
As never before, African American women were among those numbers,
having been inspired by the success of greats like Dorothy
Maynor, Camilla Williams, and Marian Anderson. Among those
in the post-Anderson era were names like Leontyne Price, Grace
Bumbry, and Shirley Verrett.
Shirley
Verrett emerged as an international opera singer by the mid-1960s
as a highly sought-after Carmen, but performed over forty
roles in her long career. Throughout this career, Miss Verrett
performed both major female roles in the same opera (in different
productions) including Aida and Amneris, Norma and Adalgisa,
and her history-making performance in Berlioz’s epic
Les Troyens where she sang Cassandra and Didon on the same
night at the Metropolitan Opera.
The
Verrett story not only chronicles her celebrated career as
an opera singer and recitalist, but it deals forthrightly
with many delicate topics. Among them are issues such as religion
vs. art; family vs. career (e.g. her forty year bi-racial
marriage); African American artists in the predominantly European
and European American world of opera; various health challenges;
the impact of aging on singers and their psyches, and why
African American men have been less successful than women
on the concert and opera stage.
Above
all, it is a human story told with uncommon honesty and deep
self-reflection. It is a work which will not only appeal to
specialists and Verrett fans (including the most comprehensive
discography of her recordings and film appearances), but to
a wider audience. There is a brief synopsis of each opera
role Shirley Verrett performed to assist the non-specialist
in understanding the context in which she speaks.
All
in all, this autobiography of Shirley Verrett reflects the
trials and triumphs of an important American artist’s
long career. Verrett colleagues, the late Luciano Pavarotti
and
Placido
Domingo have written forewords, and Maestros Zubin Mehta and
Claudio Abbado have graciously written afterwords for this
book.
Christopher
Brooks
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