BUMBRY, Grace

(b. 4 January 1937 in St. Louis, Missouri), operatic mezzo-soprano and dramatic soprano who was the first African-American artist to appear at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, debuting in 1961 as Venus in Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser.

The youngest of three children, Bumbry grew up with her brothers in a religious and musical family in St. Louis. Her father Benjamin was a freight handler for the Cotton Belt Route railroad, and her mother, Melzia Walker, was a schoolteacher from Mississippi. Encouraged by her Sumner High School voice teacher, Kenneth Billups, and her church choir director, Sarah Hopes, in 1954 Bumbry entered a teenage talent contest sponsored by local radio station KMOX and won first prize, including a scholarship to the St. Louis Institute of Music. At that time, however, the Institute did not admit African-American students, and Bumbry, with the agreement of her parents and teachers, rejected the offered compromise of segregated private lessons. Supportive KMOX executive Robert Hyland then arranged for Bumbry to appear on the nationally televised Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts program, where in 1954, Bumbry sang "O don fatale" from Verdi's Don Carlos. She won first prize, and her performance brought her several scholarship offers.

Bumbry graduated from Sumner High School in January 1954. She studied briefly at Boston University that year, then transferred to Northwestern University in 1955. Also in 1955 she sang in master classes for the noted German soprano Lotte Lehmann, an opportunity that resulted in more than three years of intensive study at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, with Lehmann, who categorized Bumbry's voice as mezzo-soprano, and coach Armand Tokatyan, who classified it as dramatic soprano. Lehmann persuaded the young singer to focus her career away from the concert stage and toward opera. In 1957 Bumbry received a Marian Anderson Scholarship and the John Hay Whitney Award, and in 1958 she was joint semifinalist with Martina Arroyo in the Metropolitan Auditions of the Air. These awards enabled her to travel abroad to study French art song repertoire with Pierre Bernac, a French baritone and vocal coach known for his interpretation of French song. She graduated from the Music Academy of the West in 1959.

Bumbry inaugurated her professional career in Europe, believing that an African-American classical singer would improve her chance of career success overseas. She was one of several African-American singers of the 1960s who turned to Europe for opportunities unavailable in the United States. In June 1959 she gave her first concert abroad at London's Wigmore Hall, then traveled to Paris for several favorably reviewed concerts. In 1960 she made her international operatic debut as Amneris in Aida at the Paris Opera, where she received a standing ovation for her performance in the "Judgement Scene." She subsequently signed a multiyear contract with the Basel Opera House.

Bumbry's emerging reputation brought her to the attention of Wieland Wagner, grandson of Richard Wagner, who shocked traditionalists by auditioning and selecting her in the spring of 1961 to sing the role of Venus, conventionally a blonde and blue-eyed Nordic archetype, in Tannhäuser at the annual Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. The scandal caused by Wagner's decision to use an African-American singer in what was considered the shrine to the Aryan ideal was reflected in the international press. "Die schwarze Venus" (the Black Venus) became a cause célèbre, and Wagner declared in a newspaper interview, "I shall bring in black, yellow, and brown artists if I feel them appropriate. I require no ideal Nordic specimens. My grandfather wrote for vocal colours, not skin colours." With her radiantly self-assured premiere performance on 23 July 1961, costumed in gold lamé, Bumbry reached true international status. The performance garnered forty-two curtain calls during a thirty-minute ovation, with the loudest outbursts of applause reserved for Bumbry. The European press hailed her as "an authentic goddess with a radiant noble voice." The New York Herald Tribune stated, "The voice is ravishing … she is a dramatic soprano of the first quality."

In August 1961 the impresario Sol Hurok recruited Bumbry to his high-profile stable of performing artists, and she signed a five-year, $250,000 contract for recordings, television appearances, and opera and concert engagements. Hurok arranged to have Bumbry return to Washington, D.C., in February 1962, to sing at a formal state dinner at the White House as the guest of President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy. The audience at the performance included Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Speaker of the House John McCormack, and Chief Justice Earl Warren. At the conclusion of her performance, President Kennedy led Bumbry by the hand from the dais to a standing ovation.

That fall she toured Japan with the Paris Opera, singing the role of Carmen, and in November 1962 began a nine-week tour of the United States, which consisted of a concert debut at Carnegie Hall and twenty-five performances in twenty-one cities. Her performances brought rave reviews. The New York Times hailed her as "A superbly gifted artist …a gorgeous, clear, ringing voice … a regal bearing and a thoroughly winning stage presence."

In 1963 Bumbry debuted at Covent Garden as Princess Eboli in Don Carlos, and the Chicago Lyric Opera featured her in Tannhäuser. On 6 July 1963 she married the Polish-born tenor Erwin Andreas Jaeckel, whom she had met in Basel and who eventually became her manager. The couple had no children. Bumbry returned to the Basel Opera House and acquired a villa in nearby Lugano. She also bought homes in New York and California, furs, and several cars, including a Jaguar and an orange Lamborghini for auto racing, her new hobby. In 1965 she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Princess Eboli in Don Carlos, and the press proclaimed her "an exciting, magnetic, dynamic singer." Bumbry subsequently chose to concentrate on the soprano repertoire; when she and her husband/manager disagreed on this decision, the marriage ended in divorce. In 1970 Bumbry debuted in a soprano role as Saloméin London's Covent Garden. The Financial Times reported, "Miss Bumbry has the compass and the power for the role. The ease and smoothness of her singing … were a constant pleasure." Contributing equally to her Covent Garden success was her "dance of the seven veils," choreographed with Arthur Mitchell of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Bumbry distinguished herself artistically from the earliest days of her career. Not only has she performed many of the great mezzo-soprano roles, but her forays into the soprano operatic repertoire have been applauded. She appeared or recorded with legendary conductors including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Karl Böhm, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, Giuseppe Patané, Wolfgang Sawallisch, and Georg Solti. Her extensive discography includes recordings of opera, lieder, and oratorio on the Phillips, EMI, Decca, RCA, and Sony labels. In the 1990s she founded the Black Musical Heritage Ensemble and was appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. She makes her home in the United States and Switzerland.

Rosalyn M. Story, And So I Sing: African-American Divas of Opera and Concert (1990), and Helena Matheopoulos, Diva: Great Sopranos and Mezzos Discuss Their Art (1991), each include a chapter on Bumbry with information about her activities during the 1960s. Blacks in Classical Music: A Bibliographical Guide to Composers, Performers, and Ensembles (1988), compiled by John Gray; and Black Music in America: A Bibliography (1981), compiled by JoAnn Skrowronski, provide many citations for articles about Bumbry in journals and reference works.

Christine Wondolowski Gerstein