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Arts A passion for operaHow many home-grown Black opera singers and performers can you name? Probably none. Yet, Britain's opera world is not what it used to be. Black performers are claiming centre stage with a combination of musical talent and hard work that cannot be denied. We've asked around and here are some of the Black stars - their passions, roots and concerns - that are shaping the Black contribution to opera in Britain.
Soulful diva
One of the few black British women to gain operatic success, soprano Alison Buchanan has bowled over audiences and critics as Mimi in the San Francicso Opera's production of La Boheme, probably Puccini's best-loved opera. Professionally in great demand, Buchanan is comfortable with her fame as "a voice with soul". Known for her street-credibility as well as her operatic voice, Buchanan supports the Pegasus Opera group in London's Brixton district, heart of the black community. Buchanan, who studied at London's Guildhall School of Music and trained with the San Francisco Opera, has also appeared in Glyndebourne Opera's acclaimed 1986 production of Porgy and Bess, the entirely black cast Gershwin classic. (See Diana Evans, "Opera Soul", Pride magazine March 1999) The high spirited diva believes Black singers bring more than voice and muscianship to the standard operatic range. They convey an element of soul, and the folk and church music that feeds it, as they perform even the most Euro-centric music. "Our music is all from the heart," says Buchanan "...and that's how we are as performers, black musicians." . "Give
us the tools"
Rodney Clarke is tall, black, young and handsome - and a baritone. Not your usual stereotype of an opera singer: white, middle-aged and overweight. Clarke's fine debut this year in major productions of Verdi's Otello and Beethoven's Fidelio at the Glyndebourne Festival is a major achievement for the 22 year old from Nunhead, south London. Rave reviews appeared in the Financial Times and Opera magazine. Schooled in his local cathedral choir, Clarke says "When people found out I was a singer they thought I meant R' n' B. When I said it was classical music, the reaction was often surprise". He is convinced that, in future, "with more guys like me those reactions will change," he told Ingrid Mansfield-Allman in "New Voice Sings Opera's Praises", The Voice black newspaper, 19 March 2001. Educated at London's Royal Academy of Music, one of Europe's leading music colleges, Clarke says "I want to be the best professional I can be". His own success, he believes, may serve as a beacon for talented young black men, He credits black opera singers Willard White and Jessye Norman as role models. Though reluctant to be drawn into the politics of race in opera, this young man is concerned that "we are merely recreating the old, and illuminating what, let's face it, is upper class, courtly and increasingly remote in its origins. Clarke calls on Black composers and librettists - Paul Gladstone-Reid, Tunje Ajede and Sunadi OBE come to mind - and their white partisans, to "give us the tools we need to reflect the black community and contemporary society of which we are a part". . From chorister to operatic plays Andrew Clarke, born in London, was a chorister at St George's Cathedral, Southwark, studied at the Royal Academy, and has given recitals at prestigious church venues St Mary le Strand and St Martin in the Fields. His operatic experience includes scenes from Cavalli's L'Ormindo, Mozart's Die Zauberfolte, Beethoven's Fidelio and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. He has also appeared in Mary Seacole, the operatic play by composer Richard Chew and librettist Suandi OBE, based on the life of the Jamaican-born nurse famed for healing wounded soldiers in the Crimean War.
Early start to musical career Bianca Campbell, a soprano, born in London, began her musical studies at the age of 14 and graduated from the London College of Music in 1998. She has appeared in productions of Handel's The Beggar's Opera, Orpheus in the Underworld by Offenbach, and in Mary Seacole.
Notable performances
Keel Watson has performed in Billy Budd at the Royal Opera, as well
as in a new work by Jonathan Dove, Palace in the Sky, at the Hackney
Empire theatre. The bass baritone, who has given notable performances
in productions of the English National, is compared favourably with
the Caribbean-born baritone Willard White by many opera buffs.
Tributes
to great Black men and women
Wills Morgan, a versatile performer and recording artist, debuted at Wigmore Hall, the well-known classical music venue in London. Beginning his operatic career in the chorus of the English National Opera, Morgan was soon appearing as soloist with the Royal Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Kentish Opera and the Cleveland Opera where he was an Associate Artist. An active concert singer and recitalist, Morgan has appeared at the London Barbican with Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra. The lyric tenor is an admirer and interpreter of the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the eminent black composer and musician. No stranger to the composer's Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, he was the featured soloist for the work in England performing it in Norwich, Oxford, and London. Like Coleridge-Taylor, Mr. Morgan was schooled at the Royal College of Music. In his varied career, Morgan has featured in the opera play about the Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole and in Porgy and Bess under Sir Simon Rattle. His work with leading contemporary dance, theatre and music ensembles is widely acclaimed.
Many
faceted personality
Clive Rowe, a 36-year old Lancastrian actor, who can't read music but has always sung, resists pigeonholing and typecasting. He has played straight roles as Thersites in Troilus and Cressida at Regent's Park, Herod in the Coventry Mystery Plays, and brought audiences to their feet as Pompey in Measure for Measure at the Royal Shakespeare Company But he has also performed a range of musical roles: as Dink in Carmen Jones; he's played pantomime at the Hackney Empire theatre; done a bravura turn as Nicely Nicely Johnson in the National Theatre's revival of Guys n' Dolls; and was a sensational first black Mr Snow in Carousel. Whatever he does however Rowe gives a winning performance. "Pantomime-performer extraordinaire," raved one reviewer, "Clive Rowe adds generous helpings of sauce to his appearance as the title dame, in a tour de force of jokes, groan-worthy double entendres and hyperactive choreography which all leave the audience honking for more." Rowe's opinions about race and opera are quite clear. Race shouldn't matter "but there are plenty of people out there ready to deny black actors work".
British but honouring "the lives and aspirations of my ancestors" Soprano Maureen Braithwaite of Barbadian parentage, does a lot of concert work: singing the role of Pamina in Mozart's Magic Flute and three season's engagements for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and singing recitals, concerts and oratorios. Once a chorister in her local Anglican church, Ms Braithwaite went on to the Guildhall School of Drama, where, she says "I learned how to use my voice and talent to best advantage."... I quickly discovered that I enjoyed performing in a variety of styles, for instance my first job was in the title role in "Puss-in-Boots", a Victorian pantomime." Ms Braithwaite has also given star performances singing Summertime in Porgy and Bess with the BBC Singers and the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus. She has also performed a successful duo with Wayne Marshall, a prominent Black organist and improvisationist. Her repertoire ranged from Gershwin, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin to such composers as Purcell, Poulenc, Satie, Rachmaninov, Duparc, Mahler, Montsalvatge, Bernstein, Stravinsky and Copland. Her love of infinite variety may be, she says "an unconscious attempt to avoid the pitfalls of opera casting and the difficulties some directors still have when faced with black singers". She has few doubts about herself, however: ."England is the place of my birth, thus I am a black British woman," she says. "As far as being black in Britain, there are still issues which need to be discussed and openly dealt with if there is to be true equality of opportunity and mutual respect in all areas of our lives," said Ms Braithwaite in a statement during a British Council sponsored trip to Zimbabwe.
Prize winning roles
Hyacinth Nicholls, born in Trinidad, studied at Guildhall School of
Music in London where she won several prestigious prizes. Nicholls has
appeared at the Glyndebourne Festival and with touring opera companies
in roles as Flora in Verdi's La Traviata, Dalila in Saint-Saens' Samson
and Dalila, Dido in Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and Serena in Gershwin's
Porgy and Bess.
Noble scholar Trinidadian born Ron Samm studied at London's Guildhall School of Music and has appeared in contemporary operas The Secret Garden and The Lamentations of Thel. He also played the roles of Arcas and Tisiphone in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie. In 1995 he won the Lord Pitt foundation scholarship named after the civil rights champion and black member of the House of Lords.
On the move Roderick Williams uses his baritone voice to great effect in productions of Opera North. Ruby Philogene a mezzo soprano whose appearances gain favourable reviews. Anthony Garfield Henry is a tenor and actor who has appeared in Carmen Jones. Gwenneth Ann Jeffers is another up and coming soprano. Simone Benn, a soprano trained at the Royal Academy of Music, is exploring the realms of popular Black music.
African American in Britain
For singer Tom Randle, performing in England was a dream come true. But upon reflection Randle is highly critical of opera's colour bar. Twelve years ago Randle was a church soloist living in Los Angeles. Today, after being recruited by Sir Michael Tippet, he is one of British opera's most unlikely stars. Randle made his UK debut as lead tenor in the English National Opera production of The Magic Flute. He has sung the works of Stravinsky, Handel and Verdi and appeared in the Welsh National Opera's production of Berlioz's Beatrice and Benedict. The latter part was "a bitch to sing", says Randle. Despite his own success, the British media and opera establishment have drawn the ire of the fair-skinned African American. He found the Daily Mail's description of his "smooth cappaccino coloured skin and full sensual lips," disquieting, if not racist in tone. Randle says blacks fare badly in general, but lighter ones, like himself, are treated more favourably by whites. "My darker-skinned colleagues are suffering. There's no doubt about it," says the socially aware singer. His precocious success raises some disturbing questions about the roles black tenors are offered, or denied, in opera. "You have black men in opera who have had big careers - Simon Estes, Willard White - but where are the tenors? It's not that the brothers aren't singing!...[It's because] in opera the tenor makes love onstage. The tenor gets the girl. He's in charge. He wins. And this is what people don't like...I'm sure I'm the first person of any hue that a lot of die-hard opera people even come close to talking to," he told reporter Anna Picard.
A showcase of variety
Black opera singers in Britain are not yet among the biggest names in classical music. Hence, they are still unfamiliar even to opera afficionados. Yet, more numerous and wide-ranging than ever before, serious black classical performers are claiming centre stage with a portfolio of musical talent and hard work that cannot be denied. Chief among their passions and concerns is the desire to connect with their audiences in a variety of musical idioms. To dazzle them and reach out and reward them with a generosity of spirit. Yet, Black artistes are discomfited by the ignorance and prejudice they face. Classical music critics and journalists still seem surprised at, and fearful of, the mysterious, vaguely threatening, exotic black man singing a song of comfort to a white woman. Many audiences feel more comfortable with blacks who entertain them with a staple of post-Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess spirituals, superstitions, minstrelsy and bufoonery. A more serious worry is that the roots of the problem run much deeper. The musical establishment:- the schools, opera companies and the record industry - must rid themselves of entrenched prejudices. When fully appreciated, the exhilaration, grace and power of Black British opera and classical singers, librettists and composers, are part of the opening up of classical repertoires that have long been dominated by Austro-German and Franco-Italian traditions. (Given the chance they could do wonders with the works of English composers: Britten, Purcell, Elgar, Walton and Vaughan Williams). The warmth they generate from deep within their souls owes as much to the "lives and aspiration of their ancestors" in the Caribbean and Africa as it does to Britain, the country of their birth, training and artistic triumph.
Click here for further articles on Blacks in British Opera and relevant historical information The
Chronicle issue 11 and archives: The
Guardian BBC
Knowledge Black History Mary
Seacole, nurse Other useful sources include Google
search engine (search by artists name) Dialogues on Opera and the African-American Experience. Wallace Cheatham. ISBN 081 083 1473 Aida's Brothers and Sisters - Black Voices in Opera. Video. See http://www.kulturvideo.com
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