Musicians You Should Know: Leontyne Price

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Basic Facts

Born: February 10, 1927, Laurel, Mississippi
Type of Performer: Vocalist (soprano)
Genre: Opera
Awards:
  1. Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1964
  2. Kennedy Center Honoree, 1980
  3. EMMY Award, 1982
  4. National Medal of Arts, 1985
  5. GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award, 1989
  6. Thirteen GRAMMYs (twenty-five nominations)

About Leontyne Price

Born in 1927 in Laurel, Mississippi, Leontyne Price grew up singing in church. At age 9, her mother took her to see Marian Anderson perform, an experience that encouraged her interest in music. She graduated from the College of Education and Industrial Arts in Ohio in 1948 and decided to pursue a career in music. She studied at Juilliard for four years with Florence Page Kimball before making her stage debut in 1952 on Broadway as St. Cecilia in Virgil Thompson's Four Saints in Three Acts. Immediately after that show's run, she was cast in Porgy and Bess, in which she performed for two years. In 1955, she starred in NBC Opera Theater's broadcast of Tosca, which led to a string of appearances in televised operas. Her live operatic debut came in 1957 at the San Francisco Opera. By 1958, she had become the first African American internationally recognized opera star, performing all over Europe. She had her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1961 and went on to regularly star in productions there, including Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni, and Turandot.  

In the 1970s, Price began giving more recitals, and she became a popular choice for opera recordings. She received thirteen GRAMMYs for these recordings. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 and the National Medal of Arts in 1985. She also received a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. She gave her final performance at the Metropolitan Opera in 1985 in a telecasted staging of Aida, but she continued to give recitals. Her first solo recording, made in 1959, was selected by the Library of Congress in 2012 for its National Recording Registry. In 2017, at age 90, she appeared in the documentary "Opera House," which tells the story of how the Metropolitan Opera House was built in 1966.

Listen

"O Patria Mia," from Aida, Price's Metropolitan farewell, 1985


"Libera Me," from Verdi's Requiem, with La Scala Orchestra and Chorus


"Summertime," with David Garvey, piano


Further Reading

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