It’s Hump Day P.O.U. Family. This week’s open thread is dedicated to well-known African-American Opera Singers.
Robert Keith McFerrin Sr. (March 19, 1921–November 24, 2006) was an operatic baritone and the first African-American man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Critic Albert Goldberg described his voice in the Los Angeles Times as “a baritone of beautiful quality, even in all registers, and with a top that partakes of something of a tenor’s ringing brilliance.” He was the father of Grammy Award-winning vocalist Robert McFerrin, Jr., better known as Bobby McFerrin.
Born in Marianna, Arkansas, Robert showed vocal talent at an early age, singing while still a boy soprano in a local church’s gospel choir. As a young teenager, he joined two of his siblings in a trio. The three accompanied their father on regional preaching engagements, singing gospel songs, hymns and spirituals.
Graduating from high school in 1940, Robert enrolled at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Following his freshman year, the young baritone won a scholarship to attend Chicago Musical College and transferred to that institution. Robert moved to New York City and began coaching voice with Hall Johnson, the composer and choir director. Robert married Sara Copper, another aspiring singer, in 1949. The couple had two children, Robert Jr. (Bobby) and Brenda.
In New York, Robert McFerrin’s singing career prospered. A 1949 appearance in a minor role in the Kurt Weill Broadway musical, Lost in the Stars, led to an acquaintance with Boris Goldovsky. Goldovsky presented the baritone in the title role of Rigoletto at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 1949 and cast him in his company, the New England Opera Theater. McFerrin was also cast as Valentin in Faust and in Iphigénie en Tauride by Gluck. That year he also performed as Amonasro in Aida with the National Negro Opera Company made his New York City Opera debut, singing the role of Popaloi, a voodoo doctor, in the premiere of William Grant Still’s Haitian opera, Troubled Island.
Robert McFerrin went to California in 1958 to work on the Otto Preminger movie, Porgy and Bess. The casting plans for this production of the George Gershwin opera slated Sidney Poitier as Porgy. Poitier was to act the role onscreen and “lip-synch” the musical numbers. Robert McFerrin was engaged to provide Porgy’s singing voice. The McFerrins settled in Hollywood that year so that Robert could begin working with Sidney Poitier. When the movie was released in 1959, the New York Times stated that, like Poitier’s acting, McFerrin’s singing was “as sensitive and strong as one could wish.”
Robert and Sara set up a vocal studio in Los Angeles and began teaching. In 1959 Robert was engaged to teach singing lessons at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and later he became a voice teacher at Sacramento State College. While they were living in California, Robert and Sara’s marriage ended in divorce. In 1973, McFerrin returned to St. Louis. The city would remain the baritone’s primary residence for the rest of his life. McFerrin accepted an appointment as Artist-in-Residence at the St. Louis Institute of Music Conservatory.
McFerrin was twice awarded honorary doctorates: in 1987 from Stowe Teacher’s College, St. Louis, and in 1989 from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. In 2003, Opera America, with the Association of U.S. and International Professional Opera Companies and Opera Volunteers International, honored McFerrin with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He is commemorated by a brass star and bronze plaque embedded in the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Robert Keith McFerrin Sr. suffered a heart attack on November 24, 2006 and died in St. Louis at 85. He is buried at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
***Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org***