Early life and family Mary Violet Leontine Price was born in
Laurel, Mississippi, on February 10, 1927. Her parents gave her the middle name Leontine after the name Leon, a name chosen by her parents to honor her father's best friend whose name was Leon. Her mother proposed this feminized version of the name. Her brother and only sibling, George, was born in 1929. He grew up to become a brigadier general in the
United States Army, and lived until 2024 when he died at the age of 95. Price's father, James Anthony Price, worked in the timber industry and was employed in the sawmills in Laurel. He also worked as a part-time carpenter. Her mother, Katherine Viola Price (née Baker), was a
licensed practical nurse and midwife who delivered hundreds of babies in Laurel and the surrounding region. Her parents were both deeply religious, and her grandparents on both sides of the family were
Methodist ministers. Singer
Dionne Warwick has said that she is a cousin of Price on her maternal side. When Price was born during
racial segregation in the United States that impacted her childhood, and the enforcement of
Jim Crow laws was a reality of everyday life in Mississippi. At that time black Americans were unable to share spaces like schools, churches, restaurants, restrooms, and theaters with white Americans. She lived with her family in the south side of Laurel which was where all of the town's black residents lived. The Price family home was situated in the middle class section of Laurel's black community. She attended all-black schools throughout her childhood; including Sandy Gavin Elementary School. The family's church, Saint Paul's Methodist Church, was an all-black church. Her mother was a talented amateur singer who sang as a soloist in Saint Paul's
church choir, and Leontyne grew up singing alongside her mother in this choral group. Her father played a
tuba in the church band.
Childhood education and early music experiences Price showed a natural affinity for music at an early age and began piano lessons at the age of three and a half with the local pianist Hattie McInnis. McInnis was one of the few African American music teachers that had studied under composer
Carl Orff; a man known for developing the
Orff Schulwerk approach to music education. Initially, she played on a toy piano, but by the time she was five, her parents traded in the family
phonograph as the down payment on an
upright piano. She studied with McInnis for more than twelve years; taking both piano and voice lessons with her. Her piano skills were further honed at Saint Paul's Methodist Church where she played regularly for
Sunday school and at church services. Leontyne's aunt, Evelina Greer, lived with her family and was employed as a maid in the home of Alexander and Elizabeth Chisholm; a wealthy white family living in the north part of Laurel. Elizabeth Chisholm (née Wisner) was the daughter of a wealthy lumber magnate, and Greer had worked for the Wisner family prior to her marriage to Alexander Chisholm, a successful banker. In a 1955 interview, Elizabeth Chisholm said that Greer had taken care of her when she was a little girl and had worked for her family for forty-five years. From an early age, Leontyne and her brother would often accompany their aunt when she went to work at the Chisholm home. The Chisholm family had children of about the same age as Leontyne and her brother, and the Price and Chisholm children became close friends. In particular, Leontyne and George were close with the Chisholms' older daughters, Jean and Margaret Ann (aka Peggy), and Leontyne referred to herself as their "chocolate sister". Their parents also became friends with the Chisholms, and the Prices considered the Chisholms their "other family". Price maintained a friendship with Peggy Chisholm, with Price describing her as her best friend in a 1981 interview. Mrs. Chisholm was a trained pianist, and encouraged Leontyne's piano-playing and singing, often inviting her to sing at house parties. The Chisholm family gave Leontyne access to their
phonograph and record collection which is how she experienced listening to opera for the first time. Aged nine, she was taken on a school trip to hear
Marian Anderson sing a recital in
Jackson. The experience was her first significant exposure to live
classical music, and she later recalled: "The whole aura of the occasion had a tremendous effect on me, particularly the singer's dignity and, of course, her voice." Price enrolled in Wilberforce University as a
music education major where her primary instrument was initially the piano. who was also Price's roommate at Wilberforce. In 1946 she was the soloist in
Théodore Dubois's
Les Sept paroles du Christ (
The Seven Last Words of Christ) with the Wilberforce University Choir conducted by Charles Henri Woode. I In December 1947 Price was one of the soloists in
George Frideric Handel's
Messiah in a joint presentation of the oratorio by the choirs of Wilberforce and
Antioch College which was conducted by Antioch music professor Walter Franklin Anderson (1915-2003). In a 1981 interview with
Opera News editor Robert M. Jacobsen, Price recalled the irony that she, who became a famous soprano, was the contralto soloist in this production while Allen, who became a famous mezzo-soprano, was the soprano soloist in the oratorio. In 1948 she starred in Wilberforce's production of
Millard Lampell's ballad opera
The Lonesome Train which they toured to Delaware for performances at a folk festival held on the campus of
Wilmington College. In Spring 1947, while a junior in the music department at Wilberforce, Price won first prize in the
Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity inter-collegiate music competition held on the campus of the
University of Cincinnati. Her repertoire at this competition included the soprano aria "
Vissi d'arte" from
Tosca. She, and the competition's other two winners, performed in concert at
Comiskey Park, home of the
Chicago White Sox, as part of the festival on July 25, 1947 in front of a crowd of 20,000 people. At this time she was billed as a
mezzo-soprano.
Juilliard School and other training Paying for Juilliard: A community rallies Price decided she wanted to pursue further studies in singing at the
Juilliard School while an undergraduate student in Wilberforce. She was prompted to do so by Mrs. Anna M. Terry, then head of Wilberforce's music department, who advised Price to apply and obtained an application form to Juilliard for her. She did and was accepted. In a 1981 interview, Price stated that she was given a partial and not full time scholarship to Juilliard and that the Chisholms paid for the bulk of her expenses during her first three years at the institution. Yet, the Chisholm family's support of Price was based in genuine friendship, with Margaret Ann Chisholm remaining one of Price's closest longterm friends. Price herself, expressed frustration with the news coverage of the Chisholm family's support with her pointed comments emphasizing that the coverage had overlooked the contributions that her own family had made towards her success, including taking out a mortgage on the family home. Price stated the following in a 1976 interview: The Press has made too much of that legend. I love Miss Chisholm; she was here only last month. Her daughter Margaret Ann and I are best friends. But the Chisholms got exposure because of the racial angle. I guess it makes me angry because it denies the sacrifices my parents made for me. In a 2012 interview, Price criticized the press coverage of her relationship with the Chisholms as being mischaracterized. She emphasized the importance of the absence of
paternalism in her relationship with the Chisholm family, and described what one historian summarized as the "strangeness of real relationships between Blacks and whites in the American South in the first century after slavery." She also stressed in another interview that she herself contributed to her financial expenses; working multiple jobs while a student at Juilliard. One of these was working as a paid singer at various churches in Manhattan, including
Riverside Church. While studying at Juilliard, Price spent her first school year living in the
Harlem YWCA, which was safe and affordable accommodation open to Black women. She later lived in the
International House of New York where she also worked at the information desk while a Juilliard student.
William Schuman was the president of the Juilliard School while Price was a student, and his tenure was marked by support of students performing newly composed music; an attitude markedly different from his predecessor. He also introduced and implemented a new pedagogy of teaching
music theory at Juilliard during that period called "Literature and Materials". Price was introduced to composer
Samuel Barber at Juilliard by Florence Kimball, and the two ultimately became frequent collaborators. Price's interest in opera blossomed at Juilliard after attending performances of Puccini's
Turandot by the
New York City Opera and
Salome by R. Strauss at the
Metropolitan Opera. She attended the latter opera in the standing room only section of the Met during her second year of study at the school. The performance by
Ljuba Welitsch in the title role solidified a strong interest in the art form within Price. In the fall of 1950 she became a member of the Juilliard Opera Workshop She was also heard in August 1951 concerts at Tanglewood performing lieder by
Hugo Wolf and excerpts from
Aida. She returned to the BMC in 1954 to perform the title role in a pre-professional production of
Salome. She also was the soprano soloist in Beethoven's
Symphony No. 9 with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra under
Charles Munch at Tanglewood; with Price stating it was one of her earliest performances of the symphony which ultimately became a "calling card" for her with orchestras around the world.
Howard Taubman in
The New York Times was also complimentary, stating "Miss Price has a rich, well-placed dramatic voice, and she knows how to use it." Price was awarded a
Fulbright Scholarship during her final year at Juilliard, and initially planned on studying in Europe with these scholarship funds after completing her Juilliard studies in the spring of 1952. However, performance opportunities changed her plans, and she abandoned her fellowship.
Early career Four Saints in Three Acts and Porgy and Bess Casting in Porgy and Bess and Four Saints in Three Acts Price's performance in the 1952 Juilliard production of
Falstaff drew positive attention not only from critics, but also producers who were in the midst of casting up-coming productions. Producers
Blevins Davis and Robert Breen watched a performance and decided to cast Price in the role of Bess in their up-coming revival of
George Gershwin's
Porgy and Bess. Some sources also claim that composer
Virgil Thomson saw Price perform in
Falstaff and based on this cast her in the 1952
Broadway revival of his all-black cast opera,
Four Saints in Three Acts, which featured a libretto by
Gertrude Stein. However, letters between composers
Nicolas Nabokov and Thomson draw into question the truthfulness of this narrative in regards to the latter opera. Nabokov was director of the 1952 Paris music festival "Masterpieces of the 20th Century" which was presented under the auspices of the
Congress for Cultural Freedom. An August 1951 conversation between Nabokov and Thomson led to the planning of a revival of
Four Saints in Three Acts at this Paris music festival with Nabokov and Thomson selecting the creative team behind the revival in consultation with one another. The decision was made to put the production together in New York with a limited engagement there before taking it to France. Its unclear how Nabokov first became aware of Price, but in three separate letters to Thomson he made pleas for the composer to cast Price in the opera. In one of these letters he mentions that Price sings better than what she did in an audition for Thomson which indicates that the composer had hesitations about casting Price. Nabokov also made financial arguments in these pleas, going so far as to secure a scholarship for Price to study at the
Fontainebleau School in Paris so that they would not have to pay for her board in France, and mentioning that patrons in Mississippi had agreed to pay for her travel expenses to and from Paris. Ultimately Nabokov succeeded in winning over Thomson, and Price made her professional stage debut in
Four Saints in Three Acts in 1952 while she was still a Juilliard student. In March 1952
The Afro-American reported that Mr. and Mrs. Chisholm were the benefactors supporting Price on her trip to France, and that she would be studying at Fontainebleau while in Paris after her final year of studies at Juilliard.
Professional debut in Four Saints in Three Acts, Porgy and Bess tour, and Price's marriage to Warfield Four Saints in Three Acts opened in New York at the
Broadway Theatre on 53rd Street on April 16, 1952 with Price in the role of Saint Cecelia. Some sources, but not all, consider it her professional opera debut. Price arrived very late in the rehearsal process due to her obligations in Paris, and only was able to attend two rehearsals before performing the part on this opening date with conductor
Alexander Smallens leading the musical forces. Davis and Breen structured the
Porgy and Bess tour purposefully to challenge segregation in the American South by refusing to allow their performances to be played before segregated audiences. However, cast members did experience challenges on the southern portion of the tour; with some being denied hotel rooms or the ability to eat in restaurants due to racial segregation. Price toured in
Porgy and Bess for two years with she and
Urylee Leonardos alternating performances in the role of Bess. The production was given the backing of the
U.S. State Department which supported an international tour of the production in an effort to fight anti-American propaganda in Europe by the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. From Dallas the tour first went to the
Civic Opera House in Chicago, the
Nixon Theater in Pittsburgh, and the
National Theatre in Washington, D.C. United States President
Harry S. Truman attended a performance at the latter theatre. Just prior to beginning the European portion of the tour, Price married her co-star in the production, the bass-baritone
William Warfield, who portrayed Porgy. Some sources claim Warfield and Price met for the first time during rehearsals of
Porgy and Bess and quickly formed a romantic attachment. This narrative, however, does not match the account given in Richard Steins's 1993 biography on Price, which states they met when Davis and Breen brought Warfield with them to see Price perform in the Juilliard production of
Falstaff. According to Stein, Warfield began dating Price soon after this and would pick her up at her residence at the International House of New York where she lived during her senior year at Juilliard prior to the
Porgy and Bess tour. Price and Warfield were married on August 31, 1952, at the
Abyssinian Baptist Church in
Harlem, with the cast of
Porgy and Bess in attendance. In addition to the cast, the state department arranged for American reporters to join the cast on portions of the tour, and traveled with its own professional photographer who routinely sent photos to the press. Among the media representatives who joined the cast on parts of the tour were
Truman Capote for
The New Yorker and the publisher of
The New York Times,
Arthur Hays Sulzberger, along with his wife
Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger. The well coordinated media and diplomatic campaign of the U.S. State Department also required the
Porgy and Bess cast to attend and perform at embassy events in every city along the tour. Due to her talent and her ability to conduct herself with both ladylike poise and strength, Price was used by U.S. State Department to project an image of anti-racism on the global stage. Additionally, the legend of the Chisholm family's support for Price was co-opted by Anthony Carlisle, a writer for the U.S. State Department, to tell a story of happy race relations in the American South to counter communist narratives and anti-imperial messaging from the Soviet Union during the
Cold War. Carlisle consciously worked to curate a "good black diva" image of Price in the press during this tour which followed her into her later career. The European portion of the tour opened on September 7, 1952, at the
Vienna State Opera; a performance which marked the first time
Porgy and Bess was performed in Europe. It then headed to the
Titania-Palast to open the 1952 Berlin Festival. Although many Black newspapers criticized the export of
Porgy and Bess as presenting a false and demeaning picture of Black life, the Breen production showed off a new generation of highly trained Black singers, and affirmed that Americans could revive a musical masterpiece, while recognizing its outdated stereotypes. Many East Berliners crossed to West Berlin to see the show, to the degree that the State Department ordered that East German currency be accepted at face value instead of the current exchange rate. From Berlin, the production moved on to London where it opened at the
Stoll Theatre in the
West End on October 9, 1952. It ran at the Stoli for a total of 140 performances; closing on February 7, 1953. During the show's West End run, Warfield left the show in December 1952 in order to fulfill concert tour engagements in the United States with Price remaining in the London production. Warfield's inability to adjust a busy recital and concert schedule led to a long separation from his wife, with Price singing Bess for another year without him. Warfield said the period of physical separation put a strain on their young marriage. The couple was legally separated in 1967, and divorced in 1973. They had no children.
Porgy and Bess began its run at the Théâtre de l'Empire in Paris on February 16, 1953. After returning to the United States, the production played on Broadway at the
Ziegfeld Theatre where it opened with a matinée performance reserved for an invited audience on March 9, 1953. It officially opened to the public the following day, and ran at the Ziegfeld Theatre for a total of 305 performances; closing on November 28, 1953. Price and her husband bought a home in
Greenwich Village which they moved into during the New York run of
Porgy and Bess. A
Federal era home, it once belonged to Vice President of the United States
Aaron Burr. The production then moved to the
Taft Theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio where began its Ohio run on February 1, 1954. Price sang Bess for its first night of performance at the
Music Hall in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 22, 1954 with LeVern Hutcherson as Porgy, and also opened the production's run in a return engagement at the Chicago Civic Opera on March 2, 1954 with Scott once again as Porgy. At this point in the tour, Price was alternating performances of Bess with fellow sopranos Irene Williams and Elizabeth Foster. She was still with the production when it played at the Lyceum Theatre in Minneapolis in March 1954, but left the tour for a brief period the following month to represent the United States at the International Conference of Contemporary Music in Rome. At that festival she notably performed
Lou Harrison's "Air" from his 1952 opera
Rapunzel with a chamber orchestra led by
Carlos Surinach. It was performed as part of a composition competition which won Harrison third prize at the festival; an award presented to him by
Igor Stravinsky. By the end of April 1954 Price was back in the
Porgy and Bess production; appearing as Bess at the Cass Theatre in Detroit. She continued in the production for performances at the
Hanna Theatre in Cleveland in May 1954, and the
Curran Theatre in San Francisco the following June. After this, the Davis and Breen production of
Porgy and Bess went on hiatus, only to resume for a second international tour that commenced in September 1954. Price was Bess for the opening of this second tour which began at the
Venice Festival of Contemporary Music on September 21, 1954; a performance which marked the opera's first performance in Italy. This three month long tour was paid for by the
Eisenhower administration's Emergency Fund for International Affairs and included further performances in Egypt, Israel, Yugoslavia, Greece, Morocco, and Spain.
Impact of Porgy and Bess Price credited her experience performing in
Porgy and Bess over an extended run with teaching her the art of "pacing" within a performance, and developing her into a seasoned stage performer that was a "training ground" for her opera career. Price and her husband performed excerpts from
Porgy and Bess with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra under conductor
Leonard Bernstein in August 1953. The following year they performed excerpts from the opera with the
New York Philharmonic at
Lewisohn Stadium. She performed that music again for annual "Gershwin night" concerts at the Lewisohn Stadium in 1955 and 1956. Warfield and Price also performed music from
Porgy and Bess with the
Philadelphia Orchestra under
Erich Leinsdorf in January 1955; on
The Voice of Firestone television program in July 1955; and at the
Hollywood Bowl with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic led by
Andre Kostelanetz. The latter performance was recorded live for national radio broadcast on
NBC Radio. By 1956, Price was refusing further offers to sing the music of
Porgy and Bess, and stated that she would no longer include the work in her repertoire. However, she did perform excerpts from the work once more with her husband, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the
Roger Wagner Chorale at the Hollywood Bowl in 1957 on the occasion of their 5th Wedding Anniversary.
Samuel Goldwyn offered Price the part of Bess in the
1959 film version of the opera, but she responded "No body, no voice." She did, however, ultimately record portions of the opera with Warfield in 1963 for
RCA Victor; a recording which one writer stated in 1999 "set the standard of performance by which this opera is still measured.
Early recitals, concert performances, and other public events When Price left the production of
Porgy and Bess in 1954 she did so with the intent of focusing on her work as a concert and oratorio singer. While she loved opera and had interest in an opera career, at that time she believed that racial prejudice would make it impossible for her to have a career on the opera stage. and André Mertens, her talent manager at Columbia, was able to keep her busy on the concert and recital stage. Sponsored by Boyd Campbell, a wealthy businessman in Jackson, the concert was attended by many prominent citizens of that city. The review in
The Clarion-Ledger was glowing, with the critic stating "it was the best voice heard in the Capitol City in many years". As with many of her early recitals, Price was accompanied by Mrs. Chisholm at the piano. Another one of Price's early recitals that received press attention was a 1950 recital she gave with Mrs. Chisholm at
Sweet Briar College in Virginia. Mrs. Chisholm also performed with Price in 1950 recitals she gave in
Meridian, Mississippi and
Mobile, Alabama. In April 1953 she performed in a concert dedicated to composer
Henri Sauguet that was presented at the
Museum of Modern Art under the auspices of the
International Society for Contemporary Music in which she performed his
song cycle La Voyante with a small orchestra. In October 1953, she sang in a recital at the
Library of Congress with Barber at the piano. The program included the world premiere of his song cycle
Hermit Songs. She and Barber performed this song cycle again at the Twentieth Century Music Conference in Rome, Italy on April 14, 1954 at the
Conservatorio Santa Cecilia, the
South Mountain Music Festival in Massachusetts in July 1954, and for her first recital appearance in New York at
The Town Hall on November 14, 1954. It was also one of the first works she recorded for
Columbia Records; appearing on Columbia's five disc "Modern American Music Series" in 1955 which featured mainly performers from American conservatories like the Juilliard School. She received international press coverage for her performance of the cycle in Rome, with
Wayland Young of London's
The Observer stating the following in his review: "The voice had it: song cycles by Prokoviev, Britten, and Barber were all true songs, a spontaneous combustion of music round the words. The last, Barber's "Hermit Songs", brought the house down. They were sung by that very great soprano, the negress Leontyne Price, who can fill the hall with her voice or lay it privately in your lap as she likes." In November 1953 Price and Warfield performed scenes from the third act of
Aida on the television program
The Kate Smith Hour with Price in the title role and Warfield as Amonasro. On January 27, 1954 the couple gave a joint recital at the
Academy of Music in Philadelphia; the first of only a few times the married duo performed in a recital format together. In February 1954 she returned to Wilberforce to perform a recital at her alma mater, now known as Central State College. It was presented in conjunction with a guest lecture given by
George Schuyler. She returned to Central State the following year for a second recital, at which time the university awarded her the National Alumni Merit Award for outstanding achievement in music. On December 3, 1954 Price was the soprano soloist in the world premiere of Barber's
Prayers of Kierkegaard which she performed with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and the Cecilia Society Chorus under conductor
Charles Munch at
Symphony Hall in Boston. The work was repeated later that month at
Carnegie Hall. Unusually, some press covered the work's dress rehearsal which was given with Price as vocalist on December 1, 1954 at Symphony Hall as part of the national conference of the
National Council of Churches. The audience, made up NCC members and approximately 600 students from seminaries in New England, heard the work after listening to a lecture delivered by Assistant
United States Secretary of Labor J. Ernest Wilkins Sr. who spoke on the need for church leaders to be at the forefront of
desegregation by ending discrimination in the church. Price later reprised the work with the BSO at both the Tanglewood Music Festival in July 1955 and for an August 1955 televised performance of the work which was aired by
NBC. In March 1955 Price had an important personal triumph when she became the first black singer to perform in her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi in a theatre containing a "mixed audience" which consisted of approximately 2,000 black and 1,000 white Laurel citizens. That same month she performed for the first time on the stage of the
Metropolitan Opera House (but not in an opera or for the Met) with the choir of the
Tuskegee Institute at an event raising funds for the
United Negro College Fund. This event's guest speaker was
United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. On March 27, 1955 she sang a recital broadcast nationally on the
CBS Radio program
The Music Room. In April 1955 Price sang at a concert sponsored by the
American Composers Forum on the campus of
Columbia University in which she performed
John La Montaine's song cycle
Songs of the Rose of Sharon with the composer as her accompanist. She later performed the work in its first presentation in New York with an orchestra in December 1957; singing the piece with the
National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) led by conductor
Howard Mitchell at
Carnegie Hall. She repeated the work again with the NSO on tour to Boston in January 1959. On April 25, 1955 Price performed the United States premiere of Wilhelm Killmayer's
Lorca-Romanzen at the
Art Institute of Chicago with members of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by conductor
George Schick. On June 2, 1955, she and her husband gave a joint benefit concert at the
Carter Barron Amphitheatre in Washington D.C. to raise funds for the
National Council of Negro Women. In February 1956, in recognition of National Negro History Week (a precursor of
Black History Month), Price was selected as the guest speaker and singer for a national broadcast on
NBC Radio. It was presented in conjunction with the
National Association of Negro Musicians with that organization having representing members perform with the
NBC Symphony Orchestra and Price on the broadcast. The following month she began a concert tour of India that was co-sponsored by the
American National Theater and Academy and the U.S. State Department. That tour, along with a few earlier appearances in North America, marked the beginning of her long collaboration with pianist
David Garvey which lasted until Garvey's death in 1995. In 1957 she and Garvey gave recital tours in first Canada and then Australia. In May 1956 Price and her husband joined fellow African-American singers
Luther Saxon and
Carol Brice as soloists in
Robert Nathaniel Dett's oratorio
The Ordering of Moses for performances at the
Cincinnati May Festival with the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In July 1956 she sang a concert of opera arias by Mozart, Verdi, and Handel with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic under
Igor Markevitch, and in August 1956 she gave a recital at the
Redlands Bowl with
Yaltah Menuhin as her accompanist. In December 1956 she made her first appearance at the
San Francisco Opera House as the soprano soloist in Bach's
Christmas Oratorio which she sang with the
San Francisco Symphony and conductor
Enrique Jordá. In January 1957 Price gave a recital at
Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. with critics particularly praising her performance of
Benjamin Britten's song cycle
On This Island. In February 1957 she was the soprano soloist in Verdi's
Requiem with the
Philadelphia Orchestra and the
Rutgers University Choir under conductor
Eugene Ormandy for performances at Philadelphia's Academy of Music and Carnegie Hall in New York. Her fellow soloists were
Nan Merriman,
Richard Tucker, and
Giorgio Tozzi. This group later recorded the work for radio broadcast on CBS Radio in April 1957. That same month she gave a recital at
Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center in Chicago. On May 21, 1957 she gave her first performance in Australia singing the Mozart aria "
Ach, ich fühl's" with the
Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Price sang the role of
St Marguerite in Honegger's
Joan of Arc at the Stake with the
New York Philharmonic (NYP) under conductor
Leonard Bernstein. It was recorded live for national radio broadcast on the NBC
Blue Network on April 27, 1958. Price reunited with Bernstein on November 30, 1958 when she performed as the soprano soloist in Beethoven's
Symphony No. 9 with the NYP and the chorus of
Westminster Choir College. Her fellow soloists included
Maureen Forrester,
Léopold Simoneau, and
Norman Scott. Sponsored by the
Ford Motor Company, the performance was filmed for broadcast on
CBS television. She had earlier performed this same work with the
Montreal Symphony Orchestra, conductor
Igor Markevitch, and singers
Nell Rankin,
Richard Verreau, and
Jan Rubeš in April 1958. She also performed
Symphony No. 9 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the chorus of the
New England Conservatory, and conductor Charles Munch on December 20, 1958; a concert which was recorded for radio broadcast and which aired nationally on February 8, 1959. In August 1958 Price returned to the Hollywood Bowl to sing a concert of opera arias and duets with
Irene Dalis, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LAP), and conductor
Wilfred Pelletier. Later that same month was heard with the LAP and the
Roger Wagner Chorale in the
Symphony No. 9 with Ormandy leading the orchestra. On October 31, 1958 she joined with her husband and singers
Martha Lipton and
Davis Cunningham to perform as the soloists in Handel's
Messiah with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Ormandy, and the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir at Philadelphia's Academy of Music. It was performed to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Handel's death, and was later repeated at
Carnegie Hall in New York in November 1958. The following month she gave a recital at
Orchestra Hall in Chicago with
Chicago Tribune critic Seymour Raven stating, "Again and again, Miss Price sent a soaring voice out for conquest and brought back trophies, never grabbing but simply taking serenely and surely." On February 1, 1959 Price gave a recital at the recently built
SF Masonic Auditorium. It was one of several recitals she performed with David Garvey on a West Coast tour of California and Oregon in early 1959. The tour also included concerts at the
Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on March 7, 1959, and stops in Canada where the duo performed at the
Owen Sound Collegiate and Vocational Institute and the
Eaton Auditorium in Toronto. On April 4, 1959 she performed a benefit concert at the
DAR Constitution Hall to raise funds for the Medico Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia; an organization which is devoted to health causes affecting the black community in Washington D.C. On December 14, 1959 Price performed Barber's
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the NYP led by
Thomas Schippers. It was recorded live for radio broadcast. She had previously performed the work with the NYP for multiple concerts at
Carnegie Hall in November 1959.
Emergence on the opera stage Challenging prejudice: Racial integration and NBC Opera Theatre Prior to the mid 1940s there were no professional opera companies in the United States that would employ African-Americans due to racial prejudice. That barrier was first broken in 1945 when
Laszlo Halasz, the director of the
New York City Opera (NYCO), hired
Todd Duncan to play Tonio in a production of
Pagliacci. The following year
Camilla Williams became the first black woman to star in a production with a major American opera company when she performed the title heroine in
Madama Butterfly with NYCO. Yet, despite these early trailblazers, opportunities for black opera singers were still highly limited in the 1950s. One black classical singer of the era stated that work for most black classical singers at that time was limited to appearing in concerts and recitals at churches and black colleges and sororities. America's most lauded opera company, the
Metropolitan Opera, did not feature a black singer on the Met stage until
Marian Anderson performed there on January 7, 1955; an event which Price witnessed as an audience member. Davis and Breen's
Porgy and Bess revival provided Price and her black co-stars an unprecedented opportunity which brought them prestige not previously afforded to African American singers on the world stage. Yet, the
Porgy and Bess revival was not attached to an American opera company, and her arrival to an American opera house was not immediate or guaranteed. The
Porgy and Bess production was also dismissed in the minds of some critics as not reaching the level of
high art. In a 1961 article in
The New York Times critic
Allen Hughes acknowledged that
Porgy and Bess "catapulted [Price] to international fame" in 1952 while simultaneously arguing that "Price made her first significant stage appearance in a serious opera in 1957" when she made her debut at the
San Francisco Opera; in essence discrediting her prior work in opera. Price's first appearance in a
grand opera occurred not on the stage, but in the young medium of television. In November 1954 she was hired by music director
Peter Herman Adler and producer Samuel Chotzinoff to perform with the
NBC Opera Theatre in the title role of
Giacomo Puccini's
Tosca. When she performed this role in a broadcast on January 23, 1955 it marked the first appearance by an African American in a leading role in an opera on television. and also marked Price's first professional grand opera performance. Due to the large audience share of individual television networks of the period, the performance was the first time in history that a black woman was seen performing in an opera before a wide audience. It is considered an important moment for "breaking the color barrier in the operatic world". Yet this appearance was also dismissed as not serious work in Hughes's assessment of Price's career in his 1961 profile on her in
The New York Times. Price went on to star in three other NBC Opera broadcasts, as Pamina in Mozart's
The Magic Flute in 1956, as Madame Lidoine in Poulenc's
Dialogues of the Carmelites in 1957, and as Donna Anna in Mozart's
Don Giovanni in 1960. She was also a featured performer on the very first television program,
Entertainment 1955, broadcast from
NBC Color City Studios Burbank on March 27, 1955; a broadcast which marked a historic moment in the history of
color television. Hosted by
Fred Allen, Price appeared in a variety line-up which also included
Bob Hope,
Helen Hayes,
Milton Berle,
Dinah Shore,
Judy Holliday, and
Dennis Day. On this program she sang excerpts from
Tosca with baritone Josh Wheeler who portrayed Scarpia in the NBC Opera production. While broadcast in color, the number of people with television sets in their homes capable of viewing color television was very small, and most individuals viewed the performance in black and white.
San Francisco Opera and early success on the American opera stage The success of the NBC
Tosca opened doors for Price on the opera stage, and with the assistance of Mertens, her talent manager, her career opportunities multiplied in the late 1950s. In October 1956 she performed the role of Cleopatra to
Cesare Siepi's Caesar in a concert version of
George Frideric Handel's
Giulio Cesare with the
American Opera Society (AOS) and conductor
Arnold Gamson at
Town Hall. She performed in concert with the AOS again the following year in the title role of
Claudio Monteverdi's ''
L'incoronazione di Poppea''. On May 3, 1957 she performed the title role in Verdi's
Aida in a concert version of the opera at the
Hill Auditorium on the campus of the
University of Michigan. Performed with the
Philadelphia Orchestra for Ann Arbor's May Festival, it marked the first time Price sang a complete performance of the opera. In October 1957 she appeared as Aida at the SFO, replacing
Antonietta Stella, who had cancelled due to an illness a month prior to the performance. In September 1958, she returned to the SFO as Leonora in Verdi's
Il trovatore, with the Swedish tenor
Jussi Björling as Manrico,
Claramae Turner as Azucena,
Louis Quilico as the Count di Luna, and
Georges Sébastian conducting. She performed with the SFO following month as the Peasant's Daughter in the United States premiere of
Carl Orff's
Die Kluge with
Lorenzo Alvary portraying her father. Other roles Price sang with the San Francisco Opera during her career included Donna Elvira in
Don Giovanni (1959), Cio-Cio-San in
Madama Butterfly (1960 and 1961), Liù in
Turandot (1961),
Tosca (1963), Leonora in
La forza del destino (1963, 1965, and 1979), Donna Anna in
Don Giovanni (1965), Amelia in
Un ballo in maschera (1967), Elvira in
Ernani (1968), Giorgetta in
Il tabarro (1971), and the title roles in
Manon Lescaut (1974) and
Ariadne auf Naxos (1977). She also returned to the SFO many times in
Aida and
Il trovatore, and repeated the role of Madame Lidoine in SFO's 1982 revival of
Dialogues of the Carmelites. Her last appearance at the SFO in a staged opera was as Aida in 1984; although she later sang with the company in a 1988 memorial concert honoring
Kurt Herbert Adler and in a 1992 recital. On October 28, 1959, Price performed for the first time with the
Lyric Opera of Chicago (LOC) as Liu in Puccini's
Turandot in a production staged by
Vladimir Rosing with conductor
Gianandrea Noseda leading the musical forces.
Birgit Nilsson performed the title role and
Giuseppe Di Stefano portrayed Calaf. The following month she sang the title role in the LOC's first staging of
Jules Massenet's
Thaïs. She returned to the LOC in 1960 to perform the roles of Aida and Cio-Cio-San.
International breakthrough Mertens introduced Price to conductor
Herbert von Karajan in 1955 while he was touring the United States with the
Berlin Philharmonic. Price auditioned for Karajan, and he reportedly said to Price, "You are an artist of the future." Through Karajan she was able to obtain her first engagements in European houses; drawing initial acclaim for her portrayal of Aida. She became a frequent collaborator with Karajan in the late 1950s and 1960s. The 1957-1958 season was a seminal one for Price's career. she portrayed Aida for her European opera debut at the
Vienna State Opera on May 25, 1958 with Karajan conducting. Her Royal Opera debut was widely reported as a triumph with the
Birmingham Post critic stating that Price was "the best all-around Aida heard in decades". She was also celebrated as Aida at the
Arena di Verona Festival where she performed the role in late July and early August 1958 under conductor
Tullio Serafin. Her success there led to Serafin to offer her future engagements at the
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Price said the following in a 1971 interview with
Alan Blyth:"My major break came when I went to Europe and sang Aida at Covent Garden and the Vienna State Opera, there beginning my association with Karajan. I gained a wealth of experience and knowledge working with him that has held me in good stead ever since. Indeed I'm still doing things today that I then learned." In May 1959 Price returned to the Vienna State Opera to sing Aida and her first onstage performance of Pamina in
The Magic Flute. She performed the latter work under conductor
Karl Boehm with
Erich Kunz as Papageno. She then returned to Covent Garden to sing Aida again; this time with
Edward Downes leading the musical forces and
Jon Vickers and
Flaviano Labo alternating as Radamès. In the midst of this production she performed on
BBC Radio with the
BBC Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Peter Herman Adler (but prepared by
Paul Beard) on May 27, 1959; singing a concert of operatic scenes by Richard Strauss. She next gave a recital of American songs with pianist
Gerald Moore which was broadcast on
BBC Television on June 4, 1959. In August 1959 Price returned to Austria to sing her first performance at the
Salzburg Festival; appearing as the soprano soloist in Beethoven's
Missa solemnis with Karjan conducting the
Vienna Philharmonic. Her fellow soloists included
Christa Ludwig,
Nicolai Gedda, and
Nicola Zaccaria. In Vienna, she made her first full opera recording, singing Donna Elvira in Mozart's
Don Giovanni, conducted by
Erich Leinsdorf. It was released by
RCA Records in 1961. She returned to the Salzburg Festival for performances of Mozart's
Requiem (1960), Verdi's Requiem (1962), and
Johann Sebastian Bach's
Mass in B minor (1961). She portrayed Donna Anna in
Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival in 1960 and 1961; She returned to the Vienna Festival in 1963 to portray the title in
Tosca with Karajan conducting. Price recorded a second full opera,
Il trovatore, for RCA in Rome; then returned to Verona to sing
Il trovatore with tenor
Franco Corelli. Rudolf Bing was at one of the performances, and went backstage to invite Price and Corelli to make their Met debuts in the 1960–61 season. In 1963 Price performed Verdi's Requiem with Karajan and the
Berlin Philharmonic and the chorus of the
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde at the
Lucerne Festival.
Metropolitan Opera Met debut Bing had made overtures to Price before, and in 1958 had invited her to sing two Aidas. She turned him down on the advice of Adler and others, who argued that she should wait until she had more repertoire under her belt and could arrive as a true prima donna. Adler also warned against arriving in the racially stereotypical role of Aida, an Ethiopian slave. In his autobiography, Warfield quotes Adler as saying: "Leontyne is to be a great artist. When she makes her debut at the Met, she must do it as a lady, not a slave." Eventually, her first Met contract (signed December 30, 1959) booked her for five of her signature roles in 1961, Leonora in
Il trovatore, Aida, Donna Anna, Liu, and Butterfly. She was the fifth black performer to sing with the company; with Anderson, baritone
Robert McFerrin and sopranos
Mattiwilda Dobbs and
Gloria Davy preceding her. On January 27, 1961, Price and Franco Corelli made a joint debut at the Metropolitan Opera in
Il trovatore. Reviewers were less enthusiastic about Corelli, who was infuriated and told Bing the next day he would never sing with Price again. The outburst was soon forgotten, and Price and Corelli sang together often, at the Met, in Vienna, in Salzburg, and once, for Karajan's version of
Bizet's
Carmen, in the recording studio. In recognition of her extraordinary first season at the Met,
Time magazine put her on its cover, and ran a profile under the headline, "A voice like a banner flying". Price was a box-office hit (her performances in her first two seasons were almost all sold out), and the first to be asked to sing a season opening night, a true sign of prima donna status. She sang Liu in
Turandot at the Met in 1961 with
Birgit Nilsson in the title role and
Franco Corelli as Calaf. When she toured with this production to Philadelphia's
Academy of Music that year it notably marked the end of a long standing Met tradition of bringing opera's to Philadelphia for Tuesday night performances; it being the very last work the Met brought to Philadelphia in that structural format when
Rudolf Bing ended the tradition. The opening in September 1961, in Puccini's
La fanciulla del West, almost didn't happen. That summer, a musicians' strike threatened and Bing, frustrated with the negotiations, canceled the season. Under pressure from the government, Bing and the musicians agreed to allow
Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg to mediate a settlement. For her first night, Price received enthusiastic reviews but during the second she confronted her first vocal crisis. In the middle of the second act, she slowly lost her voice and by the end of the scene she was shouting the words. The standby, soprano
Dorothy Kirsten, was called and finished the performance. The newspapers said that Price was suffering a viral infection, but stress and the unsuitable weight of the role of Minnie played their parts. After several weeks off, Price repeated Puccini's
La fanciulla del West and then, after a
Butterfly in December, which ended with the singer in tears, cleared her schedule and took a respite in Rome. The official word was that she had never fully recovered from the earlier virus. However, Price later said she was suffering from nervous exhaustion, having performed a schedule of history making intensity, without a vacation for several years. In April, now rested and in fine voice, she returned to the Met for her first Toscas and then joined the company's spring tour for the first time in
Tosca,
Butterfly, and
Fanciulla. Recognizing that Price would have to be included on the tour, which would create problems for presenters in the segregated South, Bing declared that the Met would no longer perform to segregated houses, starting in 1962. Price gave the first performance by an African American to sing a leading role with the company in the South, singing
Fanciulla in Dallas. Two years later, she sang Donna Anna in Atlanta, a first in the Deep South. Both performances occurred without incident. Price was soon earning the Met's top fee. By 1964, she was paid was $2,750 per performance, on a par with
Joan Sutherland,
Maria Callas, and
Renata Tebaldi, according to the Met archives.
Birgit Nilsson, who was older and unique in singing both Italian and Wagnerian roles, earned a little more, at $3,000 a performance. Price remained active in Vienna, Milan, and Salzburg. She performed a famous
Il trovatore in Salzburg in 1962, and Tosca, Donna Anna and Aida, in Vienna, most often with Karajan. She was also the soprano soloist in many of Karajan's performances of Verdi's
Requiem. After the first Met season, Price added seven roles to her repertoire over the next five years: Elvira in Verdi's
Ernani, Pamina, Fiordiligi in Mozart's
Così fan tutte, Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's
Eugene Onegin, Amelia in
Un ballo in maschera, Cleopatra in Barber's
Antony and Cleopatra, and Leonora in
La forza del destino.
Antony and Cleopatra In 1959 Samuel Barber was approached by Rudolph Bing to compose a new opera for the first season of the planned
Metropolitan Opera House at
Lincoln Center which had yet to be built. This offer was made after the successful premiere of his opera
Vanessa at the Met in 1958. Barber initially struggled to find a story he wished to adapt for the stage; with potential collaborations with
Tennessee Williams and
James Baldwin among other writers all failing to bare fruit. By 1962 he had determined that Leontyne Price was to be his muse for this new opera, and in speaking with her it was determined that the story should center on a black woman to give Price another role besides Aida which starred a black character. Price also insisted that the story not feature one of white-black violence given the intensity of current events within the
Civil Rights Movement. Ultimately Barber settled on adapting his favorite play by
William Shakespeare,
Antony and Cleopatra, with the role of Cleopatra intended for Price. Bing hired
Franco Zeffirelli to write the libretto, direct the production, and design the sets; a decision Barber learned about second hand in 1964 after he had already started writing his own libretto. Barber spent part of the summer of 1964 in Tuscany, Italy working with Zeffirelli on the libretto to the new opera, and then composed the work primarily at Capricorn, his home just north of New York City. In an interview with critic
Howard Klein he stated that "Cleopatra's part is not easy, but every vowel was placed with Leontyne's voice in mind." To prepare herself to portray Cleopatra, Price severely limited her performances in the year leading up to the 1966 premiere. She read the second century work
Parallel Lives by
Plutarch as well as other histories of Cleopatra. She also studied the Shakespeare play and learned the part of Cleopatra in the original play under the instruction of
Royal Shakespeare Company actress
Irene Worth in order that her own diction and character portrayal in the opera version might more effectively match the characterization in the original. She prepared the singing aspect of the role with her long time teacher Florence Kimball.
Antony and Cleopatra premiered at the grand opening of the Metropolitan Opera House on September 16, 1966 with a cast led by Price as Cleopatra and
Justino Diaz as
Mark Antony. The production featured a large cast of approximately 300 individuals, including 50 dancers which performed choreography by
Alvin Ailey. The principal performers in the cast were all American as was its conductor,
Thomas Schippers. The much hyped event was attended by celebrities as well as many luminaries in the opera world, prominent individuals in American society, and international figures of importance. Some of the members in the audience included
Lady Bird Johnson, President of the Philippines
Ferdinand Marcos, philanthropist
John D. Rockefeller III, Governor of New York
Nelson Rockefeller,
United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, theatre producer and first chairman of the
National Endowment for the Arts Roger L. Stevens,
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr.,
Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney,
John Hay Whitney, United States senator
J. William Fulbright, and cosmetics businesswoman
Estée Lauder to name just a few. The
Dictionary of World Biography described Price's participation in this event as the "highest honor" of her career. While a landmark event for Price and the Met,
Antony and Cleopatra was a troubled milestone. In reviews of the premiere, Price's singing was highly praised, but the opera as a whole received mixed reviews with particular negative attention given to the over complicated set designs of Zeffirelli. It was considered a failure by many, who found the sequence of scenes confusing, the Shakespearean text unintelligible, and Zeffirelli's production suffocatingly elaborate. Zeffirelli buried an essentially intimate score under giant scenery, a movable pyramid and sphinx, innumerable supernumeraries, and two camels.
Late opera career In the late 1960s, Price cut back her operatic performances and devoted more of her schedule to recitals and concerts. She said she was tired, stressed by racial tensions in the U.S., and frustrated with the number and quality of the new productions she'd been given at the Met. Her recitals and concerts (generally programs of arias with orchestra) were highly successful, and, for the next two decades, she was a mainstay in the major orchestral and concert series in the major American cities and universities. In February 1968 Price's father died. On May 8, 1973 she was granted a divorce from her husband William Warfield. The couple had previously separated in 1959. She realized she needed to maintain some visibility in opera as well, and she returned to the Met and the San Francisco Opera, her favorite house, for short runs of three to five performances, sometimes a year or more apart. In October 1973, she returned to the Met to sing a triumphant
Madama Butterfly for the first time in a decade. In 1976, she was at the heart of a long-promised new production of
Aida at the Met, with
James McCracken as Radames and
Marilyn Horne as Amneris, directed by
John Dexter. At the same time, she was cautious – some said too cautious – in choosing new roles, conscious of her need to keep her reputation as a leading prima donna intact. After 1970, she performed only three new roles: Giorgetta in Puccini's
Il tabarro in San Francisco; Puccini's
Manon Lescaut, in San Francisco and New York; and the title role in
Ariadne auf Naxos, also in San Francisco and New York. Of these, only
Ariadne was considered by critics as superlative. She appeared even more rarely in opera in Europe. In the early 1970s, she sang Aida and a single
Forza in Hamburg, and returned to London's Covent Garden in
Trovatore and
Aida. In 1977 she performed Leonora in
Il trovatore at the Vienna State Opera with
Luciano Pavarotti as Manrico and
Christa Ludwig as Azucena. However, she gave well received recitals in Hamburg, Vienna, Paris, and at the Salzburg Festival. At the latter she became a special favorite, appearing there in 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, and 1984. In 1976, after almost a decade, she renewed her partnership with Karajan in a performance of Brahms'
Ein deutsches Requiem with the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. This was followed by a nostalgic revival of their famous 1962
Il trovatore production in Vienna and Salzburg, followed by a recording for EMI, all led by Karajan. That fall, Price sang her first Strauss heroine: Ariadne in
Ariadne auf Naxos The premiere in San Francisco was considered a great success. When she sang the role at the Met in 1979, she was suffering from a viral infection and canceled all but the first and last of eight scheduled performances. Reviewing the first performance, the
New York Times critic
John Rockwell was not complimentary. In the U.S., her beautiful voice, personal dignity, and well known patriotism made her an iconic American, who was called to sing on important national or ceremonial occasions. In January 1973, she sang "
Precious Lord, Take My Hand" and "
Onward, Christian Soldiers" at the
state funeral of President
Lyndon B. Johnson. (She had sung "
America the Beautiful" at his inauguration in January 1965.) In 1980, President Jimmy Carter invited her to sing at the White House for the visit of Pope
John Paul II and at the state dinner after the signing of the
Camp David Peace Accords. In 1978, Carter had invited her to sing a recital from the East Room of the
White House that was nationally televised and won an Emmy. In 1982, she sang "
Battle Hymn of the Republic" before a Joint Meeting of Congress on the 100th anniversary of the birth of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. On July 4, 1983, she sang with the National Philharmonic on the Capitol Mall, and, in fall 1986, Price sang the
national anthem backed by the
Los Angeles Philharmonic on
Orange County Performing Arts Center's opening. Price also sang for Presidents
Reagan,
George H. W. Bush, and
Clinton. Her voice proved resilient as she entered her 50s. In the fall of 1981, she had a late triumph in San Francisco when she stepped in for an ailing
Margaret Price as Aida, a role she had not sung since 1976. The Radames was
Luciano Pavarotti, in his first assumption of the role. Herbert Caen of the
San Francisco Chronicle reported that Price had insisted on being paid $1 more than the tenor. That would have made her, for the moment, the highest-paid opera singer in the world. The opera house denied the arrangement. In 1982, Price returned to the Met as Leonora in
Il trovatore, a role she hadn't sung in the house since 1969. She also sang a televised concert of duets and arias with Marilyn Horne and conductor
James Levine, later released on record by RCA. In 1983, she hosted two televised performances of
In Performance at the White House. with President Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and sang the
Ballo duet with Pavarotti in the 100th anniversary concert of the Metropolitan Opera. She had considered her 1982 Met appearances her unannounced final opera performances, but the Met's James Levine persuaded her to return for several
Forzas in 1984 and a series of
Aidas in 1984–1985. Performances of both operas were broadcast in the
Live from the Met TV series on PBS. These were her first and only appearances in the series and important documents of two of her greatest roles.
Time magazine called her voice "Rich, supple and shining, it was in its prime capable of effortless soaring from a smoky mezzo to the pure soprano gold of a perfectly spun high C." In 21 seasons with the Met, Price gave 201 performances, in 16 roles, in the house and on tour. After her 1961 debut season, she was absent for three seasons—1970–71, 1977–78, and 1980–81; and sang only in galas in 1972–73, 1979–80, and 1982–83.
Later life and post-operatic career For the next dozen years, Price continued to perform concerts and recitals in the U.S. Her recital programs, arranged by her longtime accompanist David Garvey, usually combined Handel arias or
arie antiche,
Lieder by
Schumann and
Joseph Marx, an operatic aria or two, followed by French
mélodies, a group of American art songs by Barber,
Ned Rorem, and
Lee Hoiby, and spirituals. She liked to end her encores with "
This Little Light of Mine", which she said was her mother's favorite spiritual. In 1971 she sang at the funeral of civil rights leader
Whitney Young, and that same year performed in a concert given in memory of Young at
Philharmonic Hall that was organized by the
National Urban League. It featured a eulogy delivered by
Ramsey Clark. Other participants in this event included
Marian Anderson,
Ruby Dee,
Nancy Wilson,
Cannonball Adderley,
Billy Taylor,
Arthur Mitchell, and
Jonelle Allen. In 1991 Price was the host of a Lincoln Center concert "A Salute to American Music" in which she introduced excerpts from a dozen different American operas. This concert was recorded and released on CD. Over time, Price's voice became darker and heavier, but the upper register held up extraordinarily well and her conviction and sheer delight in singing always spilled over the footlights. On November 19, 1997, she sang a recital at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that was her unannounced last. In her later years, Price gave master classes at Juilliard and other schools. In 1997, at the suggestion of RCA Victor, she wrote a children's book version of
Aida, which became the basis for the
hit Broadway musical by
Elton John and
Tim Rice in 2000. Price avoided the term African American, preferring to call herself an American, even a "chauvinistic American". She summed up her philosophy thus: "If you are going to think black, think positive about it. Don't think down on it, or think it is something in your way. And this way, when you really do want to stretch out, and express how beautiful black is, everybody will hear you." On September 30, 2001, at the age of 74, Price came out of retirement to sing in a memorial concert at Avery Fisher Hall for the victims of the
September 11 attacks. She sang
a cappella the spiritual "
This Little Light of Mine" and then "
God Bless America", ending this with a bright, easy high B-flat. In 2017, the age of 90, Price appeared in Susan Froemke's
The Opera House, a documentary about the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center in 1966. ==Awards and honors==