Betty Allen

Betty Allen (born March 17, 1927 in Campbell , Ohio , USA ; † June 22, 2009 in Mount Pleasant , New York , USA ) was an American opera singer ( mezzo-soprano ) and lecturer.

Life

Betty Allen attended Wilberforce University from 1944 to 1946 , then from 1950 to 1953 the Hartford School of Music and the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood . Her mentors during her training were Sarah Peck More , Zinka Milanov and Paul Ulanowsky .

She celebrated her first major successes with her debut in 1954 as Queenie in Showboat at the New York City Opera and in 1958 at the Town Hall in New York . This was followed by engagements in London , Oslo , Montréal and Berlin . In 1964 she made her formal operatic debut at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires , Argentina . This was followed by engagements in Canada , Mexico City (1971) and 1973 at the Metropolitan Opera .

Betty Allen sang with several symphony orchestras, conducted by Leonard Bernstein , Pablo Casals , Lorin Maazel , Charles Münch , Eugene Ormandy , Georg Solti and Leopold Stokowski . Known for her great roles in operas and oratorios, she was a member of the Voice Faculty of Manhattan School of Music and the North Carolina School of Arts in Winston-Salem from 1978 to 1987.

From 1979 to 1992 she was director of the Harlem School of the Arts, of which she subsequently became president.

Betty Allen won the Martha Baird Rockefeller Music Fund Award, the John Hay Whitney and Ford Foundation Award, and the Marian Anderson Award. In 1971 she received an honorary doctorate from Wittenberg University in Ohio and in 1981 from Union College in Schenectady, New York. In 1989 she was the first American lecturer in a master class for singing students at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in Russia .

Web links

• Works by and about Betty Allen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituary article in Washington Post , online, June 27, 2009