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Posts tagged as “Metropolitan Opera”

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Classical and Opera Singer Marian Anderson – “The Voice of Freedom” (LISTEN)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Classical and Opera Singer Marian Anderson – “The Voice of Freedom” (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 8, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast expands on the Tuesday, February 8 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022, which offers an inspirational quote from famous contralto Marian Anderson.

I include that, as well as a bit more historical context and links to sources, which can be found in the show’s transcript below.

(Btw, GBN’s Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 is 50% off at workman.com with code:50CAL until 2/28/22!)

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, February 8th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today, on #OperaDay, we offer an inspirational quote from famous contralto Marian Anderson, the first Black performer to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.

In addition to her commanding voice, Anderson is widely known for singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939 after the Daughters of the American Revolution enforced their segregationist beliefs and denied Anderson the opportunity to sing to an integrated audience at Constitution Hall in Washington D.C.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and President Roosevelt supported Anderson, and over 75,000 people showed up to watch her outdoor concert.  To quote Anderson:

“Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.”

To learn more about Anderson, you can check out her 1956 autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning, the book about her landmark performance called The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault or the 2011 award-winning children’s book The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman.

You can also watch Voice of Freedom, the 2021 PBS documentary about Anderson. Links to these sources provided in today’s show notes.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022, published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

(paid links)

R.I.P. Tony-Award Winning Dancer, Actor and Artist Geoffrey Holder

By goodblacknews on October 6, 2014

Geoffrey Holder, the dancer, choreographer, actor, composer, designer and painter who used his manifold talents to infuse the arts with the flavor of his native West Indies and to put a singular stamp on the American cultural scene, not least with his outsize personality, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 84.

Charles M. Mirotznik, a spokesman for the family, said the cause was complications of pneumonia. Few cultural figures of the last half of the 20th century were as multifaceted as Mr. Holder, and few had a public presence as unmistakable as his, with his gleaming pate atop a 6-foot-6 frame, full-bodied laugh and bassoon of a voice laced with the lilting cadences of the Caribbean.

Mr. Holder directed a dance troupe from his native Trinidad and Tobago, danced on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera and won Tony Awards in 1975 for direction of a musical and costume design for “The Wiz,” a rollicking, all-black version of “The Wizard of Oz.”

His choreography was in the repertory of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theater of Harlem. He acted onstage and in films and was an accomplished painter, photographer and sculptor whose works have been shown in galleries and museums. He published a cookbook.

Mr. Holder acknowledged that he achieved his widest celebrity as the jolly, white-suited television pitchman for 7Up in the 1970s and ’80s, when in a run of commercials, always in tropical settings, he happily endorsed the soft-drink as an “absolutely maaarvelous” alternative to Coca-Cola — or “the Un-Cola,” as the ads put it.

Long afterward, white suit or no, he would stop pedestrian traffic and draw stares at restaurants. He even good-naturedly alluded to the TV spots in accepting his Tony for directing, using their signature line “Just try making something like that out of a cola nut.”

Karyn Parsons ('Fresh Prince's' Hillary) Raising Funds for Animated Doc on First Black Prima Ballerina

By goodblacknews on June 29, 2014

Karyn Parsons, best known for her role as Hillary in the TV show “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” is raising funds for a new animated short about Janet Collins, the first black prima ballerina and soloist to ever perform at NYC’s Metropolitan Opera. In Collins’ journey, she overcame many great obstacles; at the age 15, the young dancer was asked to join the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but only if she performed in whiteface.
After refusing to dance in whiteface, Collins went on to become a renowned Prima Ballerina, winning awards for her performances on Broadway. In 1950, Collins was honored with the Best Dancer of Broadway title, making Collins a pioneer in this industry for paving the way for other black dancers and companies such as Alvin Ailey and the Dance Theater of Harlem.
The short story will be narrated by actor/comedian/producer Chris Rock and presented by Parsons’ founded award-winning organization Sweet Blackberry, whose mission is to educate kids on the achievements of African Americans with inspiring true stories.
So far, the project’s Kickstarter page shows 18 days left to go in the campaign, with over $16,000 already pledged of its $75,000 goal.
For more information on Sweet Blackberry, click here to see the Kickstarter video and contribute!
article by Vanessa Martinez via Shadow and Act

Ballerina Misty Copeland Becomes First African American to Perform Solo in New York for 20 Years

By goodblacknews on June 13, 2013

Star turn: Copeland stars in 'Le Corsaire,' a pirate-themed comedic ballet, at New York City's Metropolitan Opera June 4-8

The prestigious American Ballet Theatre’s first black soloist in twenty years took the stage last week, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg in the unlikely, groundbreaking life of ballerina Misty Copeland. The 30-year-old beauty starred in ‘Le Corsaire’ at the Metropolitan Opera House from June 4-8, but her star turn is just one of a string of firsts and a fascinating life story she brings along with her.

For starters, Copeland, a native of San Pedro, California, grew up in extreme poverty. She didn’t even know what ballet was when she was spotted by an instructor at her local Boys and Girls Club at 13. Which brings up another unlikely fact in Copeland’s life—she didn’t even begin training in ballet until her early teen years.

‘I had no introduction to the arts in any way definitely not the fine arts,’ Copeland told the New York Post of her childhood, part of which was spent living out of a motel room with her mother. ‘Survival was our Number 1 priority, not extracurriculars, or a career,’ she said. ‘These were not things we thought about.’ She was destined, however, to think a lot about those things. In fact, she would soon be thinking of nothing but.

Racy: Copeland danced atop Prince's piano as part of one of his signature sexy performances, this one in his 2010-2011 'Welcome 2 America' tour
Copeland danced atop Prince’s piano as part of one of his signature sexy performances, this one in his 2010-2011 ‘Welcome 2 America’ tour

A ballet instructor named Cynthia Bradley spotted Copeland’s potential and told her she was ‘You are the most gifted dancer I’ve ever seen, and this could be a path to have a career.’ And that’s what it became. But at 13, Copeland was at a major disadvantage. Whereas most ballerinas start at the age of 5, with money and eager parents backing them. Copeland was not so lucky.

GBN Historical Photo of the Day

By goodblacknews on March 29, 2013


Leontyne Price as “Cleopatra” in the 1966 production of “Antony and Cleopatra” by the Metropolitan Opera at the Lincoln Center in New York.

Born On This Day in 1897: Opera Legend Marian Anderson

By goodblacknews on February 27, 2013

Marian Anderson, who became one of the most celebrated singers during the 20th century, was born on Feb. 27, 1897, in Philadelphia, PA.  She began singing in church at 6 years old. Impressed by Anderson’s dedication to perfecting her talents, her church choir raised money for her to take vocal lessons for two years. Anderson soon won a chance to perform at Lewisohn Stadium in New York, and more opportunities followed. 

President Franklin Roosevelt and wife Eleanor invited her to perform at the White House in 1936. In 1939, she faced discrimination from the Daughters of the American Revolution, who did not want her to perform at D.C.’s Constitution Hall. When Eleanor Roosevelt heard of this, she invited Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial.
The singer made history in 1955 as the first African-American to perform as a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.  Anderson passed away at the age of 96 in 1993.
article by Natelege Whaley via bet.com