Where have all the opera divas gone?

Speak the word diva and a host of images springs to mind.

Originally, it meant opera's "divine one," a mortal goddess on whom the muse had smiled, blessed with a voice fit for the temples of heaven. If lately the word's definition has strayed far from its original meaning - as stars of pop video armed with urban angst and street moxie lay claim to the title - opera fans recognize the true divas as stars of the world's most exalted form of the vocal arts.

True diva worshippers recall a time in America when Black women claimed a fair share of fan adulation, beginning with Marian Anderson, who brooked racial barriers to become the Metropolitan Opera's first African American star. Ten years ago (in an era that featured the peaking careers of Leona Mitchell, Barbara Hendricks, Roberta Alexander and Florence Quivar), Jessye Norman reigned as the supreme diva, while Kathleen Battle, who possesses a smaller but no less affecting voice, made a strong case for equal rank.

Before then, in the 1960s and '70s Leontyne Price led the list of America's divas of choice, leaving her White colleagues (Marilyn Home, Roberta Peters, Beverly Sills and others) to spar for the remaining affections of America's opera-going public. And in Price's company were a bevy of great Black artists - grand divas all -including Shirley Verrett, Grace Bumbry, Martina Arroyo, Camilla Williams, Mattiwilda Dobbs and Reri Grist.

But genius does not last forever, and as voices aged, fortunes shifted, and careers slipped quietly into the twilight of occasional concerts and master classes. Opera lovers wondered what new Black artists would assume the mantle of international diva for the new century.

Enter Denyce Graves, who in 1995 stepped across the Metropolitan Opera's stage and into the hearts of nearly every fan of Carmen, Bizet's beloved masterpiece, leading, it seemed, a new procession of divas of color. Graves had all the requisites - a powerful, sublime instrument, a charismatic presence and personality, and a candid intelligence that informed her work with character and depth. In Graves, audiences saw not only a new artist but a rare one - a singer-dramatist who dissolved into the role, acting with the sure-footed steps of a veteran thespian, while allowing her voice to shine from the fullness of her heroine's heart.

But after Graves' celebrated entrance, the procession lagged and a sizable gap formed between the leader and the rest of the pack.

Where earlier Black divas shared the spotlight with others, today Graves stands alone at the zenith. To be sure, there are other worthy, talented artists making music around the globe Harolyn Blackwell, Nicole Heaston, Marquita Lister, Indra Thomas and Tichina Vaughn - to name a few. But none have, like Graves, ventured beyond opera's insular community to the lofty realm of "household name."

Given American opera's historically rieh bounty of Black singers, why is there only one true Black superstar of opera today?

The reasons are as complex as any opera plot. Some argue that recent times have produced few true stars of any race; among opera's non-Black singers, only Renee Fleming matches Graves' popularity. Low sales of classical music recordings in general, the end of the analog vinyl-to-CD transition boom and the natural ebb and flow of talent from one generation to the next are offered as explanations for a paucity of the kind of stars that the opera world has come to expect.

But when it comes to the Black diva, questions of race plague her past, harkening back to Andersen's historic rebuff by the Daughters of the American Revolution (who in 1939 refused to permit her to use Washington's Constitution Hall because she was Black). So do explanations of the diva's shrinking presence apply equally and fairly to both White and Black artists?

Certainly, the business of opera is largely driven by star-based marketing and recordings that can deliver a diva's dulcet tones to the most remote outposts. Recordings and media attention are the life blood of modern opera's star system, as proved by Battle and Norman, whose combined recording legacy contributed much to opera's boom in the middle 1980s to the 1990s. But since then, remarkably few Black artists have been rewarded with the lucrative recording contracts, engagements and media focus that build a base of fans and turn divas into stars.

The exception, Graves, enjoys a career that is by any measure, a success. After a childhood marked by family struggle and near-desperate financial circumstances, successes came in fortuitous waves; a Met debut timed perfectly with a 60 Minutes profile, a televised Christmas performance at Washington's National Cathedral that attracted new fans and an appearance on Oprah in 2001 followed a poignant post-Sept. 11 televised tribute at the National Cathedral. The Michigan Opera, Cincinnati Opera and The Opera Company of Philadelphia have commissioned an opera about a real-life Kentucky slave, written by Toni Morrison and composed by Richard Danielpour, that will star Graves. And in the coming months, on the heels of rave reviews for her latest CD, The Lost Days, where she lends her molten bronze voice to a sultry and nostalgic tribute to Latin music, Graves will conduct a 25-city recital tour. A

But even for Graves, nothing has come easily. The 39-year-old mezzo soprano understood early that talent alone would not ensure a great career. With her husband, guitarist David Perry, who plays a major role in her personal management, Graves has launched her own enterprise, Carmen Proauctions, and installed a recording studio in her Virginia home. Characteristically self-motivated and driven, Graves decided, "We weren't going to sit around and wait for somebody to do everything for us."

"Denyce had a story," says Perry, noting the press' attention to her childhood days of struggle in a fatherless household in Washington, D.C. "And as talented as Denyce is, there was a space made for her. This role, Carmen, allowed her to jump significant hurdles and put her in the opera houses of the world. If it wasn't for Carmen, we'd be out there struggling like everybody else."

Vocally and visually, Graves and Carmen were a perfect match. But while Graves benefited from fortunate timing (emerging when opera was looking for a new Carmen to replace aging favorites) - her impressive list of recordings does not include the role that helped make her famous.

While the number of opera companies in America has more than doubled since the '70s, opera recordings only account for about one percent of the $14.6 billion American recording industry. Thus, Americans are enjoying a night at the opera more than ever in history (according to the National Endowment for the Arts' latest figures, 5.1 percent of opera audiences are African American), but not necessarily pining for the voices of their favorite stars to resonate in their living rooms.

Graves sees name recognition in opera as a dying phenomenon, and recalls an incident while singing Carmen at Covent Garden in London opposite veteran tenor Placido Domingo. When both artists greeted fans afterwards, the throng shouted "Placido!" to the tenor and hailed Graves with shouts of "Carmen!"

Graves understood that something had changed; years ago, London fans would never have been stumped to name the diva. "I decided I would do more solo work, to build up a fan base, so that audiences would come to see me - not just to see Carmen," she says.

What has made the difference in the popularity of the diva? Some see a change in today's opera, as productions such as Baz Luhrmann's glitzy La Boheme on Broadway (complete with high-tech amplification and neon sets) promote the director and his "concept" as the stars. While such productions are designed to bring newer fans to opera, many say they also succeed in redefining the form, shifting the focus away from the voice itself.

And while stealing the diva's thunder, such concepts present a unique challenge for the African American artist who may not necessarily fit a director's vision for "realistic" casting - a vision that often doesn't extend to fit the traditional amply endowed opera diva's build or non-European skin color. Talented soprano Indra Thomas, who has sung "High Priestess" from Aida at the Metropolitan and on a New Year's Eve conceit broadcast on PBS from Lincoln Center, has been praised for her exceptional voice, but notes she may not have the ideal "look" for some opera directors. "It's not good if you are big, and if a Black face does not fit into the image, it doesn't matter if you can sing rings around someone else," says Thomas.

"Opera is going in a different direction; style over substance," says Nicole Heaston, a lyric soprano featured in a 2001 PBS telecast of La Boheme from the New York City Opera and one of the few Black women singers younger than 40 to have sung with the Metropolitan Opera. "There is a preference for small, pretty White girls, who may not necessarily have the pipes. People think that audiences want to see models singing opera. There are so many singers being pushed aside in favor of this cookie-cutter mode instead of someone who might be the next Leontyne."

The "cookie-cutter mode" is nakedly apparent in the recording industry (a new CD from Sony features two doe-eyed blonde ingenues singing arias with a pop beat under the group name OperaBabes). And a preference for glitzy production values over vocal quality lead one to wonder how artists like Price and Arroyo would have fared in the current environment. "I think there'll be a backlash there always is," says Harolyn Blackwell, who bridges the gap between Heaston's generation and Battle's, and whose shimmering, bell-like coloratura has been heard at nearly every major opera house in the world. Blackwell has observed changes in opera since her Met debut in 1987, and now like many of her colleagues (including the lush-toned soprano Marvis Martin) focuses mostly on recitals.

"It comes down to this, as beautiful as a set can be, it is not able to do what the human voice can do. The voice can move people like no other instrument on the planet. Once we get back to that realization, things will change."

Soprano Marquita Lister grew up, like Graves, in Washington, D.C., and recalls the years of Price, Arroyo and company, a time when "African Americans were in fashion." While Lister counts engagements at La Scala (Milan), Deutsche Opera (Berlin) and the New York City Opera among her credits, she has yet to record a full-length opera and is probably the best known of younger Black divas never to have sung at the Metropolitan Opera. Like many artists, Lister finds encouragement in the reception she receives in Europe. But even there, race is not always escapable. "There they say, 'You are not like the rest of them,' because I'm light skinned...and that makes me easier to hire, because they don't have to work so hard to make me look White."

Michele Crider, a native of Illinois whose repertory matches that of Leontyne Price (Verdi and Puccini heroines, including an Aida at the Met), is, next to Graves, perhaps the most successful recording artist among younger singers. (Her full-length recording of Mefistofele with bass Samuel Ramey, was released in 1996.) Crider remembers auditioning for an opera house in Germany and being told: "'We have a problem; you are Black, and we can't hire you.' But they knew I was Black when they asked me to audition."

"That's the most difficult part of my job," says Crider. "Trying to be accepted for who and what you are."

But more often than not, Black singers, including Crider, find Europe agreeable, with smaller houses that are kinder to the voice and companies that support the developing young singer. Tichina Vaughn, a dramatic mezzo soprano from North Carolina, makes Europe her permanent home, working with the State Opera of Stuttgart, Germany (while her husband, bass-baritone Derrick Lawrence, performs in nearby Frieburg).

Vaughn says the ensemble system at European houses (where singers sign long-term multirole contracts with state-subsidized opera companies) offers more security and stability to the aspiring Black artist. "When I work in the States, in general I feel very Black; I think the consciousness of America is much more racial," says Vaughn. She and Lawrence work infrequently in this country, and they offer their home as lodging for other Black artists making "audition tours" throughout Europe, where jobs are generally easier to come by, especially for Black men. Says Vaughn, joking, "They call our house the German 'Underground Railroad.'"

Opera managers in the States say there is a critical lack of star power in opera (among both Black and White talent); but many bristle at the suggestion that race plays a part in hiring. "I want to emphasize that we do not consider race when casting," says Sarah Billinghurst, the artistic assistant manager of the Metropolitan Opera. "It's a purely artistic decision." And Linda Jackson, the first African American managing director of Connecticut Opera, maintains, "I am not going to admit there is a problem with color-blind casting. Right now there are not a lot of singers of any color that are great."

But could today's talented artists have been greater in another era? Willie Anthony Waters, general and artistic director for Connecticut Opera (and the first African American to hold that position), says there has been no resurgence in "the big voice singing of previous eras," with the exception of Graves and Lister, and suggests that many voice teachers today "don't know how to deal with the big voices, the Leontyne Prices or the (Maria) Callases. Those kinds of voices are harder to train, and some teachers are stripping away some of that natural talent."

Ironically, while Connecticut Opera hires at least two or three African Americans for the seven or eight principal positions per production for their four-opera season, Waters has been accused of not hiring enough African American singers. Says Waters, "If they think I'm going to turn this company into Opera Ebony, they've got another thing coming."

Some argue that today's African American divas are held to an unfair standard of artistry. "There was an expectation that every Black singer had to be Leontyne Price or Grace Bumbry, and if they weren't they were discriminated against," says Robert Wilder Blue, founder of usOperaweb.com, an online magazine devoted to American opera featuring an oral history project of interviews with dozens of African American male and female artists. Based on their responses, Blue (who is White) suspects a double standard for Black and White singers. "During a certain period, you would find any number of very average White singers, and not very many Black singers."

The Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and National Council Auditions help discover and expose the talent of promising young artists, annually offering financial awards and sometimes employment contracts. Graves was a regional winner in the program, and Vaughn and Thomas were national winners. Gayleatha Nichols, director of the Lindemann program and National Council Auditions, sees a new wave of exceptional talent among Black singers in colleges and universities that may portend a profusion of major artists in the near future.

"What encourages me is there is still so much enthusiasm for music, there is so much hope that they can have a career in music," says Nichols. "They are still very much in love with the idea of music and opera and believe that if they pursue careers as artists, they will be encouraged and helped."

Even as styles, trends and practices continue to change the face of opera for better or worse, artists like Marquita Lister are philosophical. "In some ways, I've exceeded my dreams, and in some ways I've not approached them," she says. "I thought by now I would have sung at the Met, would have had a bigger public profile." But when pressed, Lister sees her career in a broader light: "As an African American woman who has worked very hard, I've had a charmed existence. I've had the best training; I have the respect of my colleagues. And I believe when the door is shut, there's always a window open."

Rosalyn Story, a classical violinist in Dallas, Texas, is the author of And So I Sing: African American Divas of Opera and Concert.

Copyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated May/Jun 2003
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