« On the changing ethos at Goldman Sachs (they showed up to this meeting) | Main | Will Profiling Make our Skies Safer?: A Governance Perspective on New TSA Guidelines »
Marian Anderson in Opera, Civil Liberties, and the end of another Decade
By Kaufmann | December 31, 2009 No Comments »
Seventy years ago, the famous American singer Marian Anderson was barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Constitution Hall in Washignton, DC, because of her race. As a result, Eleanor Roosevelt, then the US First Lady, resigned as a Board member from the DAR…
Instead, Anderson went on to perform an historic concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, attended by 75,000 people. She was also invited to sing in the White House. Eventually, the DAR changed its racist policy, and many years later Marian Anderson sang at the Constitution Hall.
As Marian Anderson and other African-American singers became more prominent (in Europe as well, where Marian faced less discrimination), it became increasingly difficult for the Metropolitan Opera to keep black singers off their their august stage was awkward. And the founding of the New York City Opera in the mid-40s, which had a fresh mandate to employ African-American, applied competitive pressure on the Met.
So fifty five years ago, on January 7th, 1955, Marian Anderson became the first African-American singer to perform at the Met. For her it was the first time she sang in a full opera. She sang Ulrica in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball). While it is not the protagonist role, Ulrica is one of the key characters in that opera and features beautiful and challenging music. She was paid the highest fee by the Met at the time, namely US $1,000 per performance. Tickets for her Met debut were sold out right after they went on sale.
The press came from as far away as the West Indies to witness history in the making, and the audience included Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Truman, and the Duchess of Windsor. She was already 57 years old when she first performed opera at the Met. Her performance brought down the house. The greatest music conductor of his generation, Arturo Toscanini, had commented that hers was a voice that “comes once in a century”.
Art and civil rights often intersect in history. Other stories abound. In this blog space, for instance, I have written about Verdi’s commitment to human rights (and him being a blogger of sorts…).
As 2009 comes to an end, I felt it was important to write about this, even if with a soft voice relating it to opera as New Year is upon us. It was difficult, however, to end the year looking the other way in terms of what still transpires nowadays in terms of human rights violations. Events that have recently taken place in Iran, China, Russia and Guinea, just to name a few, are powerful reminders that as we enter yet another decade in the 21st century, human rights challenges are still so vast.
In fact, the evidence in our hands suggests little progress on average around the world on civil liberties, press freedoms and human rights over the past decade. To the contrary, many countries have seen a deterioration, while others have stagnated on this front. Let us strive to a better new decade ahead.
Topics: Voice and Human Rights | | Read and Submit Comments