American Grace Bumbry, the first black singer to sing at the Bayreuth Festival in 1961, died Sunday in Vienna at the age of 86, her son announced on Monday. Victim of a stroke in October while she was traveling to New York to receive a reward for her career, this opera star returned a few weeks later to the Austrian capital, her adopted city.
It was there that she died in hospital, according to her adopted son David Lee Brewer, quoted by the APA news agency. Her funeral should take place in Saint-Louis, Missouri, where she was born on January 4, 1937. The daughter of a teacher and a railroad employee, she was taken as a child to a concert by Marian Anderson, the first black artist to tackle lyrical singing.
It was a revelation that led 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 then closed environment, Grace Bumbry becomes the first person of color to land a major role in this renowned place, achieving international glory, according to the biography published on her website.
“The public gives him 30 minutes of ovation and the troupe is called back 42 times on stage”, says the Kennedy Center, which had distinguished it in 2009 by saluting “its unique voice, its presence on stage” and its ease to change of vocal register, from mezzo soprano to soprano. The diva, who loved Lamborghinis, jewelry and haute couture outfits, performed on the most prestigious stages, from La Scala to the Met, as an interpreter of the Italian repertoire (Verdi), but also French (Carmen de Bizet).
Among her many titles, she had been named Honorary Ambassador of Unesco and had received in Paris the insignia of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. In a press release, Austrian State Secretary for Culture Andrea Mayer hailed “an icon of the lyrical art 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 world of opera,” she underlined.
