Gloria Davy

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gloria Davy 1958

Gloria Davy (born March 29, 1931 in Brooklyn , New York , † November 28, 2012 in Geneva , Switzerland ) was an American opera singer (soprano).

Life

After studying at the Juilliard School of Music, the soprano began her career in 1954 with the musical Porgy and Bess , with which she also went on a worldwide tour. After she left, in order not to commit herself artistically, she sang the leading role in the Aida performance at the Nice Opera as a member of an Italian opera company .

In February 1958 she was the first black artist to sing the title role in Aida in the New York Metropolitan Opera . During a three-year engagement, she was there in the operas Pagliacci , Die Zauberflöte and Il trovatore . Here she sang the roles of Nedda , Pamina and Leonora .

In parallel to her engagement, she performed opera guest performances at the Vienna State Opera in 1959 (as Aida under Herbert von Karajan ) and a year later at Covent Garden Opera (also as Aida ). From 1957 to 1961, a focus of her musical performances was in Italy , when she appeared at La Scala in Milan , in Bologna , Naples , Palermo and Parma . At La Scala in Milan, she sang the title role in Madama Butterfly , Nedda, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Mozart's Don Giovanni and Jenny in Kurt Weill's opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny . Between 1961 and 1962 she sang Pamina in the Magic Flute at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels .

She could also be seen in Germany in the 1960s. At the 1961 Berliner Festwochen it was the focus of Wieland Wagner's Aida production . She stayed in the city for the next two years when she was engaged at the Deutsche Oper . She also gave guest appearances at the Hamburg State Opera .

A long-playing record with her in the role of Bess was recorded in 1968 with William Pearson as Porgy. On June 21, 1969, Davy, who lived with her German husband Hermann Penningsfeld in Geneva in the mid-1960s , also appeared as a guest on the ARD Saturday evening show One will win .

Their son Jean-Marc Penningsfeld comes from the later divorced marriage.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gloria Davy in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  2. ^ Time of February 24, 1958
  3. ↑ Margalit Fox: Gloria Davy, First African-American to Sing Aida at the Met, Dies at 81. The New York Times , December 10, 2012, accessed December 11, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Music: Double Launching - Info in the cover text on the middle picture
  5. ^ Marian at the Met: Background - African-Americans at the Met

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to other, presumably uncertain sources, 1932 or 1933
personal data
SURNAME Davy, Gloria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 2012
Place of death Geneva , Switzerland