Leontyne Price, born Mary Violet Leontine Price on February 10, 1927, is an American singer. She was the first African-American soprano to gain international recognition. From 1961, she worked closely with the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the first Black singer to have a long-term relationship with the company. She performed regularly at major opera houses around the world, including the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and La Scala. She was especially known for singing the role of Aida in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida.
Price was born in Laurel, Mississippi. She studied music at the College of Education and Industrial Arts in Wilberforce, Ohio. At the start of her education, this institution was part of Wilberforce University. By the time she graduated in June 1948 with a degree in music education, the institution had become its own separate school, later renamed Central State University. She continued her training at the Juilliard School from 1948 to 1952, where she studied with soprano Florence Kimball. Price remained in contact with Kimball until Kimball’s death in 1977.
Price’s first major professional role was in Four Saints in Three Acts by Virgil Thomson. She performed this work on Broadway and in Paris at a music festival in 1952. While in Paris, she studied at the Fontainebleau School. Later that year, she played the role of Bess in Porgy and Bess, a production that toured the United States and Europe. She married her co-star, William Warfield, who played Porgy, before the European tour began in 1952. They divorced in 1973.
The success of Porgy and Bess led to other opportunities for Price, including singing parts of the opera with major orchestras across the United States. She also performed works like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Verdi’s Requiem in concerts. In 1953, she began a long collaboration with composer Samuel Barber, performing the world premiere of his Hermit Songs at the Library of Congress. She later performed the piece multiple times, including at a New York recital and in Rome. Price recorded Hermit Songs for Columbia Masterworks in 1955.
In 1955, Price became the first African American to star in a televised opera. She played the role of Tosca in Puccini’s Tosca for the NBC Opera Theatre. This event was seen as an important step in allowing Black singers to perform on opera stages. Her success led to a contract with the San Francisco Opera, where she made her debut in 1957. With the help of her manager, André Mertens, she built a relationship with conductor Herbert von Karajan, which helped launch her international career. In the 1958–1959 season, she gained international fame for her performances as Aida in Vienna, Verona, and London. She also performed Aida at La Scala in 1960.
Price made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera (Met) in 1961, singing the role of Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore. She continued to perform at the Met for 20 years, becoming one of the most celebrated singers of her time. She starred in Antony and Cleopatra by Samuel Barber for its world premiere at the newly built Metropolitan Opera House in 1966. Her final opera performance at the Met was in Aida in 1985.
Price described her voice as a lyric soprano. However, some critics called her a dramatic soprano or a spinto soprano, a type of voice between lyric and dramatic. Scholars in vocal pedagogy often use her voice as an example of the spinto soprano classification.
Price’s performances were known for their musical depth, though her acting was sometimes less prominent. She performed roles in operas by Mozart, Puccini, Handel, and Monteverdi. Her greatest successes were in Verdi’s operas, including Aida, Il trovatore, La forza del destino, and Un ballo in maschera. Recordings of her performances in these works, as well as in operas by Mozart and Puccini, remain widely available.
After retiring from opera, Price continued to perform in recitals and concerts until 1998. She later returned for special events, such as a memorial concert at Carnegie Hall in 2001 for victims of the 9/11 attacks. She received many honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 and 13 Grammy Awards.
Life and career
Mary Violet Leontine Price was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on February 10, 1927. Her parents chose the middle name Leontine, which came from the name Leon. Leon was the name of her father’s best friend. Her mother suggested using a version of the name that was more suitable for a girl. Her brother and only sibling, George, was born in 1929. He later became a brigadier general in the United States Army and lived until 2024, when he was 95 years old.
Price’s father, James Anthony Price, worked in the timber industry and was employed at 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 helped deliver hundreds of babies in Laurel and nearby areas. Both of her parents were deeply religious, and her grandparents on both sides were Methodist ministers.
Singer Dionne Warwick has said that she is a cousin of Price on her mother’s side.
When Price was born, racial segregation was still in place in the United States. Jim Crow laws required Black and white people to use separate spaces, such as schools, churches, restaurants, restrooms, and theaters. Price lived with her family on the south side of Laurel, where most Black residents lived. The Price family home was in the middle-class section of Laurel’s Black community. She attended all-Black schools, including Sandy Gavin Elementary School. The family’s church, Saint Paul’s Methodist Church, was also an all-Black church. Her mother was a talented singer who performed as a soloist in the church choir. Leontyne grew up singing with her mother in this group. Her father played the tuba in the church band.
Price showed a natural talent for music early in life. She began piano lessons at the age of three and a half with Hattie McInnis, a local pianist. McInnis had studied under Carl Orff, a composer who created a special way of teaching music. At first, Price practiced on a toy piano, but by age five, her parents used their family phonograph as a down payment to buy an upright piano. She studied with McInnis for more than twelve years, taking both piano and voice lessons. She also played the piano regularly at Saint Paul’s Methodist Church for Sunday school and church services.
Leontyne’s aunt, Evelina Greer, lived with her family and worked as a maid for the wealthy white Chisholm family in Laurel. The Chisholm family had children around the same age as Leontyne and her brother, George. The Price and Chisholm children became close friends. Leontyne and George were especially close to the Chisholms’ older daughters, Jean and Margaret Ann (Peggy). Leontyne called Peggy her “chocolate sister.” The families became close friends, and the Prices considered the Chisholms their “other family.” Price remained friends with Peggy, whom she called her best friend in a 1981 interview. Peggy died in New York in 1991.
Mrs. Chisholm was a trained pianist who encouraged Leontyne’s musical talents. She often invited Leontyne to sing at house parties. The Chisholm family also gave Leontyne access to their phonograph and record collection, which was how she first heard opera. At age nine, she attended a school trip to hear Marian Anderson sing a recital in Jackson. This experience was her first exposure to live classical music. She later said that the singer’s dignity and voice had a strong impact on her. Many people believe this event inspired Price to pursue a career in music.
As a teenager, Price attended Oak Park Vocational High School (OPVHS), where she graduated in 1944 as the second-highest student in her class. At OPVHS, she was a cheerleader and a drum majorette in the school band. She also sang in school choirs, played piano for the school choir, and performed as a soloist at school events. During her high school years, she earned extra money by singing at funerals and civic events. She gave her first solo recital at Sandy Gavin School Auditorium on December 17, 1943, where she sang and played classical piano music.
Price received her undergraduate education in Wilberforce, Ohio, at the College of Education and Industrial Arts, which was part of Wilberforce University, a historically Black institution. Some sources incorrectly say she enrolled at Central State University in 1944, but that school did not exist until 1947 and was not called Central State University until 1951.
Price attended Wilberforce University on a full four-year scholarship. She changed the spelling of her name to Leontyne while studying there. In June 1947, the College of Education and Industrial Arts separated from Wilberforce University to become its own institution, now known as Central State University. Price graduated from the State College of Education and Industrial Arts at Wilberforce on June 3, 1948.
At Wilberforce University, Price studied music education as a major, with the piano as her primary instrument. Some sources say she changed her major to vocal performance, but Price stated in a 1981 interview that she earned a degree in music education because her family wanted her to have a backup plan if performing did not work out. However, she later focused on voice and trained as a mezzo-soprano. She made this change after filling in for a sick singer in a glee club concert, where she received positive feedback. Before this, she had only performed as an accompanist at the university. Price said this moment was when she “discovered her voice.” Her music professors and classmates encouraged her to switch to vocal music.
In her junior year, Price decided to pursue a singing career. A visiting pianist at Wilberforce influenced her decision to leave teaching and focus on singing. The pianist also convinced her she was a soprano after she performed with him. Some sources say she studied singing with Catherine Van Buren at Wilberforce, but newspapers covering her vocal competitions mention she studied with Clarice Estell at the university.
At Wilberforce, Price was a member of the Delta Sig…
Awards and honors
Leontyne Price has received many important awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, the Spingarn Medal in 1965, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1980, the National Medal of Arts in 1985, the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement in 1986, many honorary degrees, and 13 Grammy Awards for performances of operas and songs. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award, more than any other classical singer. In October 2008, she was one of the first people to receive the Opera Honors from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2019, she was given an honorary doctorate degree from Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
In 1961, San Francisco mayor George Christopher announced that April 16 would be called "Leontyne Price Day" in the city. On December 14, 1969, Price attended the dedication of the Leontyne Price Library at Rust College in Mississippi, her home state. The library was named after her to honor her achievements and because she helped raise money to build it by giving a concert. Later, Price recorded an album of spirituals with the Rust College Choir called Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free (1971, RCA). The money from the album was used to fund scholarships at Rust College. Her mother was a graduate of Rust College.
Recordings
In 1955, Price made her first professional recording with Columbia Records for its "Modern American Music Series." She performed Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs with Barber playing the piano. Other recordings of Price and Barber performing this work together have also been released on disc. These include the earlier world premiere performance at the Library of Congress in October 1953, which was released by RCA in 1994 and later on the 2004 album Barber Historic Performances 1938-53.
In 1958, Price signed a recording contract with RCA Victor Red Seal. This contract was offered to her after RCA’s director, Alan Kayes, heard her perform in her debut at the San Francisco Opera in 1957. Most of her recordings were made with RCA. Many of her RCA records have also been re-released by BMG Records. Her first recording as a contract singer with RCA was a 1959 album of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, performed with conductor Charles Munch, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the chorus of the New England Conservatory. That same year, RCA released her debut solo album, A Program Of Song, which featured German lieder and French art songs performed with her longtime accompanist, David Garvey. This album won the 1961 Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist, the first of many wins by Price. She was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist that year but lost to Bob Newhart, a non-musician who won for his work as a spoken word artist and comedian.
Price was nominated for 25 Grammy Awards during her career and won 13 times. Her 1961 Grammy-winning self-titled album, Leontyne Price (also known as Operatic Arias and often called "the blue album"), was dedicated to the music of Verdi and Puccini. She later won another Grammy for her 1973 album Puccini Heroines, and her 1975 album with tenor Plácido Domingo, Verdi & Puccini Duets, was nominated for a Grammy.
From 1964 through 1968 (honoring the years 1963–1967), Price won five consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. This was a record at the time, later matched by Henry Mancini. The record was eventually broken by Bill Cosby, who won six consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album in 1970. Albums in this winning streak included Great Scenes From Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1964 Grammy Awards) with her husband, William Warfield, singing Porgy; El Amor Brujo / Les Nuits d'été (1965 Grammy Awards) with Price performing with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Salome: Dance of the Seven Veils / Interlude and Final Scene; The Egyptian Helen: Awakening Scene (1966 Grammy Awards) performed with Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Leontyne Price, Prima Donna: Great Soprano Arias from Purcell to Barber (1967 Grammy Awards); and Leontyne Price, Prima Donna / Volume 2: Great Soprano Arias from Handel to Puccini (1968 Grammy Awards).
The latter two albums were the first in a series of five "Prima Donna" albums, recorded from 1965 to 1979. A box set of these works, Leontyne Price: A Prima Donna Collection, was first released on tape in 1983 and later on CD in 1992. The New York Times described the reception of the Prima Donna collection as "critically hailed" in its assessment of Price’s recording career. The collection includes 47 opera arias across five discs. Opera historian Clyde T. McCants stated that "the Prima Donna Collection is by all accounts the most comprehensive demonstration of the art of the soprano that has ever been committed to disc by a single artist."
Price’s first studio recording of a full-length opera was made with Decca Records in 1959. This was a recording of Don Giovanni with Cesare Siepi in the title role, Birgit Nilsson as Donna Anna, Cesare Valletti as Don Ottavio, and Price as Donna Elvira. Later that year, RCA released a studio recording of Il trovatore made at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma with conductor Arturo Basile. Price sang Leonora to Richard Tucker’s Manrico and Leonard Warren’s Conte di Luna on this recording. She recorded Il trovatore again for RCA in 1969 with the New Philharmonia Orchestra led by Zubin Mehta, this time with Plácido Domingo as Manrico and Sherrill Milnes as the Conte di Luna. She made one final studio recording of Il trovatore with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, released by EMI Records in 1977. Several live recordings of Il trovatore with Price have also been released on disc, including a February 4, 1961, performance from the Met on Myto Records; a July 3, 1962, performance at the Salzburg Festival on Paragon Records; and a June 5, 1969, performance at the Teatro Colón, among others.
Other complete recordings of operas featuring Price include studio recordings of Aida (1962 and 1970), Tosca (1962 and 1972), Madama Butterfly (1962), La forza del destino (1964 and 1976), Carmen (1964), Un ballo in maschera (1966), Ernani (1967), Cosí fan tutte (1967), and Il tabarro (1971). Her last studio recording of a complete opera role was Ariadne auf Naxos, released in 1977. Many of her live opera performances have also been recorded and released on disc, including several from the Metropolitan Opera by Sony Records. Her farewell performance as Aida at the Metropolitan Opera in 1985
Reception
In The Grand Tradition, a 1974 book about operatic recordings, British critic J. B. Steane wrote that records show Leontyne Price as the best singer of Verdi in the 20th century. He also called her performance of Carmen her most brilliant work. Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya remembered a 1963 performance of Tosca by Price at the Vienna State Opera left her with the strongest impression she had ever experienced from opera. In his 1983 autobiography, Plácido Domingo described Price’s voice as powerful and soft, calling her the most beautiful Verdi soprano he had ever heard.
Price was widely praised for her performances in Verdi’s operas but received mixed reviews for her work in Mozart’s operas. Music historian Clyde T. McCants noted that Price was not naturally suited for Mozart’s music, but she performed in his operas often and worked hard to meet the technical challenges. Her voice, he said, was rich but sometimes too full to fit comfortably around the complex melodies in Mozart’s music.
Many famous singers, including Renée Fleming, Kiri Te Kanawa, Jessye Norman, Leona Mitchell, Barbara Bonney, Sondra Radvanovsky, Janet Baker, Denyce Graves, José van Dam, and David Daniels, described Price as an inspiration. Jazz musician Miles Davis, in his autobiography, said he admired Price’s artistry and especially her performance of Tosca. He said he listened to her recording of the opera so much that it wore out. He also said he wondered how she might have sounded singing jazz and believed she could inspire all musicians, regardless of race.
Some critics had different opinions. In The American Opera Singer, Peter G. Davis wrote that Price had a great voice that was not fully used. He criticized her for avoiding new roles, for singing Tosca without a strong lower voice range, and for singing Aida later in her career with an unstable high note style. Others said she lacked flexibility in fast, difficult singing and sometimes used exaggerated techniques, such as rising to high notes in a style similar to gospel music. In rehearsals for Il trovatore in 1977, conductor Herbert von Karajan criticized these habits, as Price later described in an interview. In later performances, she sang with a smoother, more controlled voice.
Her acting also received varied reactions. As Bess in Porgy and Bess, she was praised for her strong emotions and attractiveness. Early recordings from her time on NBC Opera show she had a pleasing presence on camera. During her early years at the Metropolitan Opera, she was often praised for both her singing and her stage presence.
In March 2007, Leontyne Price was ranked fourth on BBC Music Magazine’s list of the “20 All-time Best Sopranos,” based on a poll of 21 British music critics and BBC presenters. She was placed behind Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, and Victoria de los Ángeles.