American Grace Bumbry, the first black singer to sing in 1961 at the Bayreuth Festival, died Sunday in Vienna at the age of 86, her son announced Monday. Suffering a stroke in October while on her way to New York to receive an award for her career, this opera star returned a few weeks later to the Austrian capital, his adopted city.
That's where she died in hospital, according to her adopted son David Lee Brewer, quoted by the APA news agency. Her funeral is scheduled to take place in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was born on January 4, 1937. The daughter of a schoolteacher and a railroad employee, she was taken as a child to a concert by Marian Anderson, the first black artist to tackle opera singing.
It is a revelation that will lead the mezzo soprano to make her debut at the Paris Opera at the age of 23. Noticed, she was chosen by Wieland Wagner, the grandson of the composer Richard Wagner, to embody the Venus of Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival. Indifferent to racist reactions in a closed environment, Grace Bumbry became the first person of color to land a major role in this renowned place, rising to international fame, according to the biography published on her website.
See alsoGrace Bumbry, the Black Venus of Missouri
Lamborghini, jewelry and haute couture
«
The audience offers her 30 minutes of ovation and the troupe is recalled 42 times on stage, "says the Kennedy Center, which had distinguished her in 2009 by praising "her unique voice, her presence on stage" and her ease in changing vocal register, from mezzo soprano to soprano. The diva, who loved Lamborghini, jewelry and haute couture outfits, will perform on the most prestigious stages, from La Scala to the Met, as an interpreter of the Italian repertoire (Verdi), but also French (Carmen by Bizet).
Among her many titles, she was named honorary ambassador of UNESCO and received in Paris the insignia of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. In a statement, Austrian State Secretary for Culture Andrea Mayer hailed "an icon of opera and a pioneer for generations of opera singers." "With her legendary debut in Bayreuth in the 1960s, she made a decisive contribution to equal rights in the opera world," she said.
