Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson (1897?-1993), American contralto, noted for her singing of lieder (German art songs), operatic arias, and spirituals, and for the beauty of her voice. Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini said that she had “a voice heard once in a hundred years.” In 1955 Anderson became the first African American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

Anderson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and sang in the Union Baptist Church junior choir there when she was six years old. In her second year in high school she attracted the attention of John Thomas Butler, a distinguished black actor, who sent her to voice teacher Mary S. Patterson for serious vocal training. Shortly thereafter the Philadelphia Choral Society arranged for her to study with Agnes Reifsnyder, a leading contralto. She was later instructed by Giuseppi Boghetti, who expanded her repertory and worked with her on technique.

In 1925, as the prize for winning a competition, Anderson appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium. Despite her triumph in this performance, she experienced difficulty afterward in securing singing engagements because of her race. She consequently went to Europe, where she established her reputation as a leading contralto through a concert tour in the early 1930s. While in Helsinki, Finland, in 1933 she sang for Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, who later dedicated the song “Solitude” to her.

Anderson began a successful American tour in 1935 with a concert at Town Hall in New York City. The following year she sang at the White House. In 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to permit her to sing in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., Harold Ickes, secretary of the interior, arranged for her to sing from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. More than 75,000 people gathered to hear her. Her 1955 debut at the Metropolitan Opera House as Ulrica in Giuseppi Verdi's A Masked Ball was the first performance of a black soloist with the Metropolitan Opera.

In 1957 Anderson made a singing tour of East Asia sponsored by the United Nations and in 1958 she was named an alternate delegate to the United Nations by President Dwight Eisenhower. For the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and a Congressional gold medal in 1978. Following a series of farewell concerts, she retired from singing in 1965. In 1991 Anderson received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Her autobiography, entitled My Lord, What a Morning, appeared in 1956.