35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Super Hero MARIAN ANDERSON

Marian Anderson

Known as the "baby contralto" when she sang in Philadelphia churches as a child, Marian Anderson became one of the 20th century's most celebrated singers, with a nearly three-octave voice that ranged from low D to high C. She was the first African American to solo with New York's Metropolitan Opera, and she retired in 1965 after a farewell concert at Carnegie Hall. 

Anderson made history twice. In February 1939, the world-famous contralto was refused permission by the Daughters of the American Revolution to sing in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. because of her color. A resulting nationwide protest caused First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from the group and arrange for Anderson to give a free Easter morning concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. An estimated 75,000 people, including government officials, Supreme Court judges, and everyday citizens, attended. She eventually sang at Constitution Hall, but not until 1953. 

Anderson made history again in 1955 when she was invited to become the first African-American soloist to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Langston Hughes called Anderson's performance as Ulrica in the Verdi opera Un Ballo in Maschera, "a precedent-shattering moment in American musical history." The New York Times deemed the breakthrough so important to the issue of race relations in America that it ran a front-page story on Anderson's debut the next morning. 

Anderson was born in Philadelphia on February 27, 1902, with what she called a compulsion to make music. She ran errands for neighbors to earn enough money to buy a violin from a pawn shop and later persuaded her father to buy a piano, which she and her sisters taught themselves to play. 

But what she did most was sing. In fact, Anderson often missed her classwork because she was singing at nearby schools and at churches. In 1919, she began studying with the famous music teacher Giuseppe Boghetti. Her church paid for the first year of instruction, but Boghetti was so enamored of her talent that he spent years tutoring her for free. 

In 1925, Anderson bested 300 other young singers in a competition to win a contract for concert tours. This led to her appearance with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1933 to 1935, she toured Europe on fellowships and sang for royalty in England, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It was during this extended excursion that the famous opera singer Arturo Toscanini called one of Anderson's concerts something you hear only once every 100 years. 

Three years after her return to America, Anderson was considered one of the country's leading contraltos. Her recordings were national hits, and her concerts were sellouts. By 1941, she was one of America's highest-paid concert artists and, in 1978, she received the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Award for her "lifetime achievements in the arts." Anderson died in 1993. 

From Great African Americans.  Copyright, Publications International, Ltd.