Word: marianism
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...still news when a Negro stars in grand opera, even in a role calling for a dark skin. Marian Anderson's Metropolitan Opera debut as the Negro Ulrica, in Un Ballo in Maschera (TIME, Jan. 17), made fortissimo headlines, and this week Baritone Robert McFerrin is causing another stir at the Met by singing the Ethiopian king Amonasro in Aida. The NBC Opera Theater was even bolder: this week it cast Leontyne Price, 26, as the Italian opera singer Tosca...
...Golden Horseshoe, the place usually reserved for visiting statesmen and royalty, sat a small, aged lady who had once been a washerwoman in Philadelphia. Her name was Anna Anderson. As a girl, her daughter dreamed of singing in this great gilt and plush house. Now, at 52, Contralto Marian Anderson was realizing the dream. The first Negro singer to appear at the Metropolitan, she was making her debut in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera...
...audience waited impatiently through the opening scene, for Anderson would appear only in Scene 2. Her role: the fortuneteller Ulrica, who appears for 27 ominous minutes in order to bring the hero together with another man's wife and to predict his murder. When the curtain rose, Marian Anderson was discovered in a shadowy set, stirring a green-steaming cauldron flanked by a pair of skulls. The great contralto was clearly nervous. Her first notes were parched and shaky, and it was only later, when she reached her smooth upper register, that she began to produce those emotionally charged...
...Soprano Zinka Milanov let her voice swoop and squawk through Act II, and when she flipped a disguising shawl over her face, she looked so much like an animated teacozy that the audience snickered. Only Roberta Peters' pearly coloratura and pert presence were thoroughly pleasant. But for Marian Anderson the evening was a soaring personal triumph. There were eight curtain calls. "Anderson! Anderson!" chanted the standees, and men and women in the audience wept...
Today, 82 and frail. Kobayashi rarely leaves his villa near Takarazuka. except for a monthly visit to his theater. Next day he sends cryptic memos to the directors. He still manages to keep his musical empire humming, brings eminent Western concert stars to the town (e.g., Singers Marian Anderson and Helen Traubel, Violinist Yehudi Menuhin). Early this year, he will repossess Takarazuka's Tokyo branch, which the occupation forces had turned into the famed Ernie Pyle movie theater. Last week the old showman ventured forth to take in a special show with a Christmas finale. Sample lyric...