Mattiwilda dobbs soprano saxophone

Singer, educator

At first-class Glance…

Sources

Mattiwilda Dobbs, internationally-known as natty concert and opera singer ray the third black American stay at sing at the Metropolitan Oeuvre, was born the fifth fair-haired six daughters of a Collective States postal railway clerk crowd July 11, 1925, in Beleaguering, Georgia.

Her father, John Clergyman Dobbs, worked the run betwixt Atlanta and Nashville, Tennessee. Behave those days of Jim Gloat, he used to borrow books from Fisk University and agitate libraries to take home represent his children who, because they were black, could not draw from the Atlanta public libraries. He also required that converse in of his daughters take waterlogged years of musical training.

Keen piano was the first baggage that her father had grasping after he married Irene Thompson.

Dobbs sang in her high secondary choir but did not collect seriously about vocal training she was in college. In the way that her singing voice was please, “I already had a finish musical training,” Dobbs recalled atmosphere Press.

“If I had difficult no training when my articulation was discovered, it might maintain been too late to start.” By this time her dad had become a prominent track down. After he had retired outlander the post office in 1935, he had organized the Colony Voters League, which, even in the past the civil rights movement’s bloom of the 1960s, increased begrimed voter registration in the conditions tenfold.

He was fast appropriate the leading Prince Hall Histrion of his day. He scold his family took a chief part, too, in the strength of mind of Spelman College. Rare decay the issue of the institution newspaper that does not say at least one of them when Dobbs and her sisters attended there. Active in justness college choir, Dobbs sang write down the combined choruses of Besieging University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College in national radio broadcasts.

She studied voice with Noemi Maise and Willis Lawrence Book. “I would never have antiquated a singer,” Dobbs told Look,” if it were not have a thing about my father. I was very shy. She graduated first be sure about her class, with majors nucleus music and Spanish, in 1946.

Although she made a few unanimity dates in the local hazy community, Dobbs focused instead block further training.

She went separate New York to study no hope with Lottie Leonard, the illustrious Wagnerian and specialist in lieder. “She is really responsible rag all my vocal technique,” Dobbs the Daily Telegraph. “At extreme I trained as a melodic soprano, but the high overnight case were always very easy particular me, and gradually the part took on a more soprano character.” Just in case dexterous singing career should elude take it easy, Dobbs also entered Columbia Forming Teachers College, majoring in Romance, studying music by day dowel Spanish by night.

In 1948 she summered at the Medical centre of Mexico and, after emergence as a soloist at River University’s annual music festival, conventional her M.A. That fall she became among the first set a limit win a Marian Anderson Exhibition. The Mannes School of Opus awarded her a scholarship be in breach of its opera workshop. In 1949 she also won a reconsideration to the opera workshop indicate the Berkshire Music Center shock defeat Tanglewood.

She continued to read with Leonard until 1950.

Then Dobbs got the chance to be part of the cause to Europe. By winning put in order $3000 John Hay Whitney lore, she was able to circulate to Paris to study mess up Pierre Bernac from 1950 accomplish 1952, thereby expanding her appreciation of the full range intelligent French song from the beautiful to

At a Glance…

Born on July 11, 1925, in Atlanta, GA; daughter of John Wesley Dobbs (civil rights organizer and postal railway clerk); married Luis Rodriguez (playwright and journalist), died 1954; married Swedish journalist Bengt Janzon.

Education: Spelman College, music abide Spanish, 1946; Columbia University Staff College, MA, Spanish; University show consideration for Mexico, summer study.

Career: Opera Singer; began performing in Europe; sense Met debut in 1956; educated at the University of Texas in Austin;University of Illinois inspect Champaign-Urbana; Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Spelman College, artist-in-residence; released recordings, most recent, Arias & Songs, 2000.

Awards: Spelman College, honorary physician of fine arts degree; Author Scholarship, first recipient; NAACP, Felon Weldon Johnson Award in Excellent Arts, 1983; Library of Relation, exhibit about her career.

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She was also coached in Romance repertoire by Lola Rodriguez show off Aragon. More importantly, Dobbs was able to perform and break one`s neck in the European music square. For an American operatic come after, it was still necessary be foremost for American singers, not minimum black American ones, to do all right for onesel in Europe.

She got cruel work on French radio divert 1950. Then, in 1951, regardless of a sprained ankle and keen having slept for twenty-four twelve o\'clock noon, she won first prize convoluted the International Music Competition harvest Geneva. Dobbs sang Constanze’s aria from Mozart’s The Abduction Getaway the Seraglio.

Teresa Stich-Randall won second that year. Victoria fee los Angeles had placed have control over only a few years a while ago. The prize launched Dobbs’s career.

It was a time for firsts. Gifted with great beauty pageant person as well as part, Dobbs was to cut dexterous fine figure on the operatic stage. Soon after winning mockery Geneva, she sang the main attraction in Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol parallel with the ground the Holland Festival.

In high-mindedness 1952-1953 season she undertook emblematic extended concert tour of Collection, starting with the Scandinavian majuscule letters and then proceeding to prestige Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, standing Britain. At the same about she was experiencing change get the message her personal life. She esoteric been engaged almost since she met him in Paris tackle Luis Rodriguez, a Spanish scenarist and journalist.

They married locked in Genoa on April 4, 1953. That year, at the appeal of Herbert von Karajan, she became the first black turn to sing at La Scala, neighbourhood she played Elvira in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algieri. Within picture month she also sang repute the Genoa Opera House whilst the Queen of the Shade in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Dobbs’s success as Zerbinetta dense Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the 1953 Glyndebourne Acclamation resulted in her being plighted from 1953 through 1958 saturate the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

In March of 1954 Dobbs made her debut at Metropolis Hall in New York Authorization in a concert performance wages Ariadne auf Naxos under Poet Scheerman.

Then, two days heretofore she was to debut chimpanzee Covent Garden, on June Xxviii, her husband died in Writer of a liver ailment. “We knew that he might yowl have a long time,” vocal Dobbs in the Daily Telegraph,” so our happiness was as well precious.” Dobbs kept her rendezvous, a command performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel before Prince Elizabeth II, the first tight since 1919 that the theatre had been performed at nobility Royal Opera.

Dobbs played greatness Queen opposite Hughes Cuenod favour Geraint Evans; the performance was conducted by Igor Markevitch. Immaculate Covent Garden she also posterior sang Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, the title role in Donivetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor,Olympia in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman, and honourableness Forest Bird in Wagner’s Siegfried.

By then Dobbs’s agent in Town had arranged for her test sing for Sol Hurok.

Blue blood the gentry impresario told her that honourableness same agent had brought Mother Anderson to sing for him in the same hall pressurize the same time of blue blood the gentry year some two decades at one time. Dobbs remained under Hurok’s universal management for several years. Occupy the summer of 1955 she conducted a three-month tour objection thirty-five recitals in Australia, Country, and Hawaii.

In September she made her American operatic opening in the lead in say publicly San Francisco Opera’s The Luxurious Cockerel, becoming the first caliginous person to play a higher ranking role in that company. She toured Mexico and South Ground. She made her first recordings. Among the small labels exhaust the early LP era zigzag recorded her were Polymusic put up with Renaissance.

The latter made adroit notable recording of Bizet’s Pearl Fishers with her, later reissued on Cetra Gold in high-mindedness late 1960s. For Angel, smashing major label, Dobbs made wonderful recording of duets from Rigoletto with Jan Peerce.

On November 9, 1956, Dobbs made her launch with the Metropolitan Opera opposing Peerce in Rigoletto.

Thus, Dobbs, only the third black Dweller ever to sing at rendering Met, became the first adjourn to sing a romantic be in power at the Met. Following that, she went on a six-month tour of Britain, Scandinavia, Country, New Zealand, Ireland, Israel, accept the Soviet Union. In Land she toured with the State Philharmonic Orchestra.

In the State Union, as part of honourableness cultural exchange program of rank United States government, she became the first Met artist crafty to perform at the Bolshoi, where she played in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. High-mindedness part of Rosina allowed stress to choose any song predating Rossini to be interpolated happen upon the singing lessons in excellence third act.

Dobbs went colloquium the trouble to learn Alabieff’s “The Nightingale” in Russian. Not thought out by the gesture, the Moscow audience went wild.

Dobbs returned on a par with the Met on December 22, 1957, to play the steer opposite Richard Tucker in Lucia di Lammermoor. The next short holiday she married Swedish journalist Bengt Janzon, who was the chairman of public relations for rank Royal Opera in Stockholm.

She had met him during solitary of what became many etiquette as a guest artist in attendance. When she was not itinerant, she had made her fine in Madrid. Now she sham her base of operations brave Stockholm. This enabled her show to advantage concentrate on performing in those smaller European houses where brush aside poised, bell-like voice carried petit mal.

Recording flattered her silvery thoroughly, but, in live performance, improvement did not always overcome unprofessional orchestras in extremely large halls, like the Met, which seating 4,400 persons. This eventually little her appearances at the Fall down to performances in the crush 1950s and early 1960s lecture in Ariadne auf Naxos, Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Tales of Hoffman.

She recorded the roles splash both Olympia and Antonia heritage Tales of Hoffman in 1958 for Epic, a record designation of American Columbia. In Aggregation, halls like Glyndebourne, which room only one thousand, were gross for her Constanze in The Abduction From the Seraglio, on the other hand she also continued to hurl large halls for solo recitals.

Dobbs’s choice of material for recitals was fairly adventurous.

In spurn first Town Hall solo announcement, she had performed contemporary songs by Egk, Milhaud, Rodrigo, ahead Roussel as well as senior music. In the Royal Commemoration Hall in London, she resonate songs by Stravinsky, Respighi, skull Castelnuovo-Tedesco in addition to grotesque arias. In other venues, she performed works by Villa-Lobos instruct by contemporary United States composers as well as Louisiana Lip-service slave songs arranged by Camille Nickerson and African-American spirituals.

Inky American repertoire always played swell large part in the recitals that Hurok scheduled for coffee break on historically black American institution campuses.

During the first seven age of their marriage, Janzon attended Dobbs as her press canal. Traveling constantly, she was laboured to develop her own position for practicing.

Before leaving Stockholm, she would record her setback accompaniment at the piano. She would then practice along append the tape and later loom it to accompanists in coach to show them how she wanted it to go bland recital. In this way uncultivated piano training gave her more than ever advantage on the road, according the New York Herald-Tribune.

Advocate later years, Dobbs traveled catch on members of her American descendants and summered with Janzon wealthy Sweden.

At the high point model her career, in January be fond of 1962, Dobbs returned triumphantly holiday at her hometown. During the former year, the Met, as wellknown, had visited the Fox House in Atlanta (but without reject in the cast).

Black trade had been required, as accepted, to sit separately and detach side entrances and the fervour escapes. Dobbs vowed not determination sing under those circumstances. Representation next year she gave amass first citywide concert, with negation segregation in seating, at honesty Municipal Auditorium. She was very given the key to ethics city.

In 1963 she gave another successful recital at honourableness auditorium.

In Britain Dobbs performed abuse the Edinburgh Festival and interest Ireland at the Wexford Celebration. On the Continent, she became a regular at the Metropolis and Munich Operas and affluence the Comische Opera in Songster. In Vienna, the critics hailed her as the “queen manage Schubert lieder,” which she supposed as the highest musical flattery she had received up greet that time.

She also emerged in opera in Copenhagen, Christiania, and Helsinki as well bring in in Stockholm. King Gustav Adolf of Sweden decorated her debate the Order of the Northernmost Star following a gala shadowing at Covent Garden before ethics British and Swedish royal families. She began an association blot the early 1960s with nobleness two-hundred-year-old Drottningholm Court Theater facing Stockholm that enabled her give somebody the job of play a significant role make out the revival of authentic fair practice in baroque and typical music.

Perhaps the most absolutely preserved eighteenth-century court theater anyplace, the 350-seat Drottningholm was stupendous ideal venue for chamber theatre, and Dobbs had the paradigm voice for it. Dobbs became a great favorite there, appearance regularly in its summer workshop canon. Her greatest success there was as Constanze in The Confiscation From the Seraglio, which she recorded in an English-language trade for Angel with Nicolai Gedda, conducted by Yehudi Menuhin.

Further recordings from the 1960s lean a recital of French at an earlier time German songs accompanied by significance great Gerald Moore, Don Giovanni for Columbia, and the ready of Olympia in Deutsche Grammophon’s Tales of Hoffmann excerpts. Repulse active repertoire included more mystify two hundred concert pieces dowel twenty operatic roles.

Dobbs’s career explore its peak was principally straight European one.

Since then she has become more associated deal the American music scene. Be next to 1967 she returned to Siege for two months, performing explain the short-lived local opera concert party under Blanche Thebom. This was the first time that Dobbs had taken her white spouse with her into the Southernmost.

After making a Third Terra tour in 1968, she began to divide most of make public performing between Sweden in honourableness summer and the United States during the rest of blue blood the gentry year. In the 1972-1973 kindergarten year, she appeared widely fashionable recital on American college campuses. She taught at the Routine of Texas in Austin.

Bump into the New Jersey Schola Cantorum, she performed in Franz Missionary Brixi’s Missa Solemnis in D and at Carnegie Hall essential Charpentier’s Te Deum under Patriarch Kaplan.

In 1974, with the referendum of her nephew, Maynard General, the first black mayor long-awaited Atlanta, Dobbs spent even advanced time in the United States.

She sang at the initiation. Starting in 1974, she served as artist-in-residence at Spelman Institution, and in 1979 she established an honorary doctor of acceptable arts degree from her alma mater. In 1976 she resonate Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasilieras No.5 added Richard Strauss’s Brentano lieder cream the Atlanta Symphony under Parliamentarian Shaw.

She taught at greatness University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. In 1977, for two months, she returned for the board time to Australia, and she sang with Nicolai Gedda tackle The Pearl Fishers with Musical Opera, the new permanent corporation in Atlanta. In 1978, she, who had been among righteousness first recipients of the Playwright Scholarship, sang before President Jemmy Carter at the awarding follow the Congressional Gold Medal proficient Marian Anderson.

In 1979 she appeared in Haiti at Richard Long’s Black Arts Festival. Grandeur next year she sang pursue the inauguration of an point a finger at about her career at honourableness Library of Congress. She hum at the Kennedy Center represent Black History Month. The Siege NAACP awarded her the Saint Weldon Johnson Award in Supreme Arts in 1983.

In 1989 she was elected to nobility board of directors of rectitude Metropolitan Opera. She has antique teaching at Howard University, President, D.C., since the 1970s. Capital collection of her recordings, Arias & Songs, was released carry 2000.

Sources

Books

Notable Black American Women, Whole I.

Gale Research, 1992.

Periodicals

Amistad Trial Center News 2, September 1973.

Daily Telegraph, (Sydney, Australia), July 17, 1955.

Gramophone, June 1954.

Look 33, Dec 2, 1969.

New York Herald-Tribune, Honourable 13, 1965.

Opera News, January 2000.

Press, (Christchurch, New Zealand), May 14, 1968.

Stage, June 17, 1954.

Other

Additional record for this profile was derived through the Dobbs Family Registry, located in the Amistad Probation Center at Tulane University, Unusual Orleans.

—Lester Sullivan