This week’s open thread is highlighting African-American Opera Singers.
Kathleen Battle (born August 13, 1948), is an American operatic soprano known for her agile and light voice and her silvery, pure tone. Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid 1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into light lyric soprano and lyric coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s. Although she no longer appears in operas, she remains active in concert and recital performances.
Battle was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, USA, the youngest of seven children. Her father was a steelworker, and her mother was an active participant in the gospel music of the family’sAfrican Methodist Episcopal church. In a Time Magazine interview with music critic Michael Walsh, he recalled first hearing the eight-year old Battle sing, describing her as “this tiny little thing singing so beautifully.” “I went to her later”, Varney recalled, “and told her God had blessed her, and she must always sing.” In that same interview, Walsh described Battle as “the best lyric coloratura in the world”.
Battle was a good student and was awarded a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where she studied voice with Franklin Bens and also worked with Italo Tajo. She majored in music education rather than performance in undergraduate school and went on to get a master’s degree in Music Education as well. In 1971 Battle embarked on a teaching career in Cincinnati, taking a position at a Cincinnati inner-city public school.
In 1972, her second year as a teacher, a friend and fellow church choir member phoned her and informed her that the conductor Thomas Schippers was holding auditions in Cincinnati. Her performance at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy on July 9, 1972 marked the beginning of her professional career.During the next several years, Battle would go on to sing in several more orchestral concerts in New York, Los Angeles, and Cleveland. In 1973 she was awarded a grant from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music to support her career.
Throughout the 1980s, Battle performed in recitals, choral works and opera. Her work continued to take her to performance venues around the world. In opera she sang a variety of roles including Oscar at Chicago Lyric Opera and a highly acclaimed Semele at Carnegie Hall. Battle became an established artist at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1980s, singing over 150 performances with the company in 13 different operas, including the Met’s first ever production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Other opera houses where she performed included San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Vienna State Opera, and Deutsche Oper Berlin.
During this period, she received three Grammy awards for her recordings. She also received the Laurence Olivier Award for her stage performance as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Royal Opera House, London. Critical response to Battle’s performances had rarely varied throughout the years following her debut. In 1985, Time Magazine, pronounced her “the best lyric coloratura soprano in the world”
For the remainder of the 90’s, she worked extensively in the recording studio and on the concert stage. She was a featured guest artist on the May 1994 album Tenderness, singing a duet, My Favorite Things, with Grammy-winning jazz vocalist Al Jarreau.
Recently, Battle has continued to pursue a number of diverse projects including the works of composers who are not associated with traditional classical music, performing the works of Vangelis, Stevie Wonder, and George Gershwin. In July 2003 she performed at the Ravinia Chicago Symphony Orchestra Gala with Bobby McFerrin and Denyce Graves. In 2006 she and James Ingram sang the song They Won’t Go When I Go in a Tribute to Stevie Wonder and she began including Wonder’s music in her recitals. . In October 2007, at a fundraiser for the Keep a Child Alive Charity, Kathleen Battle and Alicia Keysperformed the song Miss Sarajevo written by U2’s Bono.
On April 16, 2008, she sang an arrangement of The Lord’s Prayer for Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of his Papal State visit to the White House. This marks the second time she sang for a pope. (She first sang for Pope John Paul II in 1985 as soprano soloist in Mozart’s Coronation Mass).
On November 23, 2008, she performed “Superwoman” on the American Music Awards with Alicia Keys and Queen Latifah.
***Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org***