See how it looked in 1955

Historic Metropolitan First

By Mary Hornaday

New York

Another bar to Negro artists has been dramatically lowered and an “impossible” high school dream fulfilled with Marian Anderson’s debut at the Metropolitan Opera.

The dark-skinned contralto, whose career has been marked by a struggle against racial discrimination, was given a wild ovation for her first role as Ulrica, the Negro astrologer in Verdi’s “Masked Ball” Jan. 7. It was the first time a Negro had sung with the Metropolitan since America’s oldest lyric theater was opened in 1883.

Though many people of her own race came from all over the United States to hear Miss Anderson’s initial role and there was many a wet eye during the tremendous demonstration that followed her second act appearance, the Metropolitan took the new era in its stable stride.

Rudolf Bing, general manager of the opera company, insisted that in the future Negroes would be hired only if they are right for a role. At the time he hired Miss Anderson, he declared: “I wouldn’t hire anyone because he is a Negro and I wouldn’t refuse to hire anyone because he is a Negro either.”
Critics also took the momentous occasion in their stride. Olin Downes of the New York Times wrote: “At first, no doubt under the special tensions of the occasion, including the newness of the dimensions and vibrancies of the Metropolitan stage, she wavered a little in pitch. There was accompanying evidence of vacillation and unevenness of breath support in these measures. But before the air was finished the singer had demonstrated the same musicianship and instinct for dramatic communication that she had long since demonstrated on the concert stage.”

Paul Henry Lang, in the New York Herald Tribune, gave Miss Anderson only one paragraph in his review of the opera, commenting: “It was a pleasure to see Marian Anderson, the distinguished Negro contralto, on our great operatic stage; an honor—and a privilege for us—long overdue. Hers, too, is a very difficult role which calls for an ample voice and good control of the widely separated vocal regions, both of which she supplied freely. Miss Anderson, who was acclaimed with frenetic applause, is to be commended especially for the excellent part she took in the complicated ensembles. These call for a great deal of experience which, of necessity, she could not have had. But a great artist always prevails.”

Though her attitude on “opening night” was one of modesty and restraint, Miss Anderson, according to her friends, has taken on a new spontaneity and gaiety since Mr. Bing proposed her new role to her manager, S. Hurok, on the opening night of the Old Vic performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” here last fall. “Whereas she used to weigh carefully every word she said, now she just bubbles,” one friend said.

Among those in the audience as Miss Anderson made her debut were her elderly mother, Mrs. Anna Anderson, for whom this must have been a great moment. Two Negro porters of the Opera House bought tickets for the performance and took their places with the audience—typical of the interest shown by her race.

Miss Anderson’s next performance will be in her hometown of Philadelphia where as a child she sang in the Union Baptist Choir and a fund was raised through a church concert that enabled her to take singing lessons under an Italian instructor. Her rise to fame began in 1925 when she won first prize in a competition with 300 others at New York’s Lewisohn Stadium and her biggest triumph over the race problem occurred in 1939 when, after being refused permission by the Daughters of the American Revolution to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington she sang instead from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a gathering of 75,000 on Easter Sunday.

Miss Anderson’s first recognition was in Europe, though since 1935 she has been acclaimed as a great artist in the United States and has even sung to nonsegregated audiences in the South.

Excerpts from the opera in which Miss Anderson made her debut have been made by RCA Victor including the second scene of Act I containing Ulrica’s aria with which she opened her performance. All principals in the performance, including Zinka Milanov, Roberta Peters, and Leonard Warren are heard in the recording with the exception of Richard Tucker, who is under contract to Columbia Records.