Photo: Getty Images
Trailblazing opera singer Grace Bumbry has died, per the Associated Press. She was 86.
On Sunday (May 7), Bumbry died at Evangelisches Krankenhaus, a hospital in Vienna, Austria, her publicist, David Lee Brewer announced on Monday (May 8).
Bumbry's death comes after she had a stroke on an October 20 flight from Vienna to New York, where she intended to attend her induction into Opera America's Opera Hall of Fame. The singer was treated at NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens and returned to Vienna in December. Since the stroke, Bumbry had been in and out of various facilities, according to Brewer.
Bumbry, a St. Louis native, was a mezzo-soprano who performed on the world's top stages for over three decades.
The acclaimed opera singer was a winner of the 1958 Met National Council Auditions. In 1960, she debuted in the Paris Opéra as Amneris in “Aida.”
Bumbry made history as the first Black singer to perform at Germany's Bayreuth Festival. Her casting in a production of “Tannhäuser” at the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth resulted in 200 letters of protest against the festival.
“I remember being discriminated against in the United States, so why should it be any different in Germany?” Bumbry recalled of the incident in a 2021 interview. “I knew that I had to get up there and show them what I’m about. When we were in high school, our teachers — and my parents, of course — taught us that you are no different than anybody else. You are not better than anybody, and you are not lesser than anybody. You have to do your best all the time.”
Bumbry was invited to sing at the White House by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Throughout the early 60s, Bumbry debuted at Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Opera, and Milan’s Teatro alla Scala.
The opera singer performed at the Met in 1965 as Princess Eboli in Verdi’s “Don Carlo,” which marked the first of 216 performances with the company.
Met general manager Peter Gelb said “Opera will be forever in her debt for the pioneering role she played as one of the first great African American stars. “
“Grace Bumbry was the first opera star I ever heard in person in 1967 when she was singing the role of Carmen at the Met and I was a 13-year-old sitting with my parents in Rudolf Bing’s box,” Gelb said. “Hearing and seeing her giving a tour-de-force performance made a big impression on my teenage soul and was an early influence on my decision to pursue a career in the arts, just as she influenced generations of younger singers of all ethnicities to follow in her formidable footsteps.”
Bumbry's publicist said memorials will be held for the singer in Vienna and New York.
Rest in peace, Grace Bumbry.
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