Grace Bumbry, a singer of radiant charisma, expansive range and superstar glamour who became one of the first African Americans to conquer the international opera stage, died May 7 at a hospital in Vienna, Austria. She was 86.
.” She “circumvented” the matter of race, she told The Washington Post in 2009, by using makeup to change her skin tone when necessary for a particular role.
She and her two brothers grew up with “the necessities of life but no luxuries,” Ms. Bumbry said. Her mother fashioned clothes from fabric remnants purchased for 25 cents a piece, ensuring that her children always had something new to wear. Confidence, her parents taught her, was everything. Following her graduation in 1954, Ms. Bumbry entered a local radio teen talent competition whose prize included a scholarship to attend the now-defunct St. Louis Institute of Music.Camilla Williams, an acclaimed soprano who broke racial bounds, dies at 92
Ms. Bumbry received scholarships to study at Boston University and Northwestern University, where she attended master classes taught by the German-born soprano Lotte Lehmann. She followed Lehmann to the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Calif., where Ms. Bumbry remained for more than three years, immersing herself in the study of music, drama and languages including Italian, German and French.
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