Legendary Contralto Marian Anderson Hit High Note for Posterity

When mezzo-soprano Florence Quivar takes the stage of the Metropolitan Opera to sing the role of the sorceress Ulrica in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera,” she is far from alone.

Oh, yes, there are other performers about and an orchestra and conductor in the pit before her. But there is another, much larger, presence. It is the spirit of the great contralto Marian Anderson, whose life, dignity and quiet grace set a rare and wonderful lesson for all the world.

Ulrica was the role Anderson sang when she pierced the color barrier and made her debut at the Met in 1954.

“Marian Anderson is a part of all of us black performers,” Quivar says. “When we walk on the stage--she opened those incredibly hard doors for us to enter. When she wasn’t allowed to sing, she maintained her drive, in her quiet way. When I think of her, I think of inspiration, courage, dignity and a golden, golden voice.”

Marian Anderson was born 100 years ago on Feb. 27, 1897. Her centenary was honored with a gala concert at Carnegie Hall, where she sang more than 50 times during her career. Soloists included Jessye Norman, Sylvia McNair, Denyce Graves and Quivar. The affair was conducted by Robert Shaw and James DePreist, who is Anderson’s nephew.

Carnegie Hall, where Anderson gave her farewell recital in 1965, has an exhibit in its Rose Museum through April 16 called “Remembering the Art of Marian Anderson.”

One interesting artifact is a fan with a watch sewn inside so Anderson could keep track of time on stage. It was loaned by DePreist.

Also in the exhibit: a letter expressing her dejection over the mixed reviews a 1924 Town Hall recital received; her 1927 visa for Europe (Anderson knew she’d never find any success in segregated America, so she went to Europe to establish a career); congratulatory telegrams from Louis Armstrong and Jean Sibelius; and music to “Solitude,” a song Sibelius wrote for her.

The exhibit also includes a 1935 booking agreement for the Philadelphia Orchestra in Washington’s Constitution Hall reading, “a concert by white artists only,” and correspondence from impresario Sol Hurok asking for any date in Constitution Hall after being told Easter Sunday 1939 was booked and warning he would “make a national issue if refused,” which he did.

In the center of the room are two of Anderson’s concert gowns. When nine of her gowns were auctioned, Bette Midler, seeing that they weren’t selling, bought them and donated them to the Museum of the City of New York.

“I don’t know another artist in the last half of the 20th century who had the affectionate respect Marian Anderson had,” Stern says.

“Dignity and quiet self-containment are the first things that come to mind when I think of Marian Anderson. She had incredible gentleness, a total lack of braggadocio, and professionally she worked to the limits. She had deep faith.

“One of the remarkable things about Marian Anderson was how well she lived in her own skin. It’s something very few of us, regardless of color, race or creed, do.”

DePreist, music director of the Oregon Symphony, is the son of one of Marian Anderson’s two sisters. DePreist, with whom the contralto lived the last months before she died April 8, 1993, calls his aunt a spiritually centered person.

“For those who loved her singing, there was a uniqueness to the quality of that voice that was able to touch people profoundly,” he says. “For those who viewed her as a symbol against prejudice, her life was an example of the dignity of the person versus the absurdity of discrimination.

“Her work as a musician, pioneer and extraordinary example of courage and determination stand out. She was trying to build a career at a time [when] it was difficult for women and very difficult for black women.”

Opera star Jessye Norman has said, “It would be completely impossible for me to have any kind of career if it hadn’t been for Marian Anderson.”

Hers was a voice “such as one hears once in 100 years,” the great conductor Arturo Toscanini once said about Anderson.

It was a voice that produced a deep and velvety sound, a voice that liberated the soul and set it in joyful flight, whether she was singing German lieder, operatic arias, Negro spirituals or sacred music. Her rendition of “Ave Maria” was so touchingly beautiful that it easily brought tears.

As a child growing up in Philadelphia--the daughter of a father who sold coal and ice and a mother who did laundry--she sang in the Union Baptist Church choir. Her talent did not go unnoticed, and a community fund-raiser netted enough money to send her to a noted Italian voice coach for private lessons. In short order, she won the New York Philharmonic competition and soon appeared as a soloist at Lewisohn Stadium. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1929.

An international superstar in the classical music world by 1939, Anderson brought her gift to Washington at the urging of Hurok. She was no stranger to the nation’s capital--she was the first black person to perform at the White House in 1936.

Hurok wanted Anderson to sing at an Easter concert at Constitution Hall. But the Daughters of the American Revolution, owners of the building, refused to allow Anderson to sing there because she was black.

Their racism shocked the world, and everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt to actor Fredric March raised their voices in collective outrage--everyone except Miss Anderson.

She knew the stings of bigotry. As a child she had been told by a leading Philadelphia music school: “We don’t take coloreds.” And, as a singing star, she was forced to use servants’ entrances when going to American hotels.

The concert was switched to the Lincoln Memorial, where 75,000 heard her sing instead of the 4,000 who would have fit in Constitution Hall.

Anderson wrote about the furor and change of locale in her 1956 autobiography, “My Lord, What a Morning.”

“I said yes, but the yes did not come easily,” she wrote. “In principle, the idea was sound, but it could not be comfortable to me as an individual. I could see that my significance as an individual was small in the affair. I had become, whether I liked it or not, a symbol representing my people. I had to appear.”

As for the DAR, she said she forgave them many years ago--”You lose a lot of time hating people.”

From 1941 to 1972, Anderson gave $50,000 to a scholarship fund for young singers in Philadelphia. One of the winners was Florence Quivar, who was taken to Anderson’s Connecticut home on one memorable occasion.

“She was so humble,” Quivar says. “She told us: ‘It is not me but what God did through me that I was able to do this.’ ”