Denyce Graves | |
|---|---|
 Denyce Graves in Baltimore, Maryland, 2013 | |
| Born | March 7, 1964 |
| Occupation | Opera singer (mezzo-soprano) |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Spouse | Robert Montgomery [1] |
| Parents |
|
Denyce Graves (born March 7, 1964) is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer.
Graves was born on March 7, 1964, in Washington, D.C., to Charles Graves and Dorothy (Middleton) Graves-Kenner. She is the middle of three children and was raised by her mother on Galveston Street, S.W., in the Bellevue section of Washington. [2] She graduated from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in 1981. Graves studied voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory with Helen Hodam. [3] She worked at the Wolf Trap Opera Company, which provides further training and experience for young singers who are between their academic training and full-time professional careers. Soon after, she was invited by David Gockley to participate in the Houston Opera Studio, from 1988 to 1990, where she studied with Elena Nikolaidi.
She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1995 [2] and has appeared at many opera houses. Though her repertoire is extensive, her signature parts are the title roles in Carmen and Samson et Dalila . Graves also made many appearances on the children's television series, Between the Lions , where she used her talents to teach children sounds of words. [4] On January 20, 2005, she sang the patriotic song "American Anthem" during the 55th Presidential Inauguration, between the swearing-in ceremonies of Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush for their second terms in office. [5]
Graves sang "America the Beautiful" and "The Lord's Prayer" at the Washington National Cathedral during a memorial service for the victims of 9/11 on September 14, 2001, attended by President Bush, members of Congress, other politicians and representatives of foreign governments. [6]
In 2003, Graves performed in front of a live audience at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia for a television special, Denyce Graves: Breaking the Rules. In 2005, she hosted the radio show Voce di Donna (Voice of a Lady) on Vox!, the vocal classical music channel of XM Satellite Radio, on which she interviewed various opera singers. Graves often was heard on The Tony Kornheiser Show radio program with her rendition of the "Mailbag Theme".
In 2005, she sang the lead role in the world premiere of Margaret Garner , an opera by Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison. [7]
In May 2010, Graves performed a concert with tenor Lawrence Brownlee in the United States Supreme Court Building for the Supreme Court justices. [8]
On June 15, 2013, Graves sang in the world premiere of Terence Blanchard's and Michael Cristofer's boxing opera, Champion with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
In 2014, a recording of We Shall Overcome arranged by composer Nolan Williams, Jr. and featuring Graves was among several works of art, including the poem A Brave and Startling Truth by Maya Angelou, sent to space on the first test flight of the spacecraft Orion. [9]
On September 25, 2020, Graves sang at the US Capitol as her friend Ruth Bader Ginsburg's casket was lying in state. Ginsburg was a devoted fan of opera.
On November 22, 2022, she sang the role of Sally in the stage premiere of Kevin Puts's opera The Hours at the Metropolitan Opera. [10] The performance of December 10 was video-cast as part of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series. [11]
In 2017, Graves was honored by The Washington Performing Arts with the Ambassador of the Arts Award. [12]
In 2019, Graves received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Dr. Ben Carson. [13]
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American spinto soprano who was the first African-American soprano to receive international acclaim. From 1961 she began a long association with the Metropolitan Opera. She regularly appeared at the world's major opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and La Scala; at La Scala, she was also the first African American to sing a leading role. She was particularly renowned for her performances of the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida.
Renée Lynn Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In June 2023, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Fleming would be one of the five artists recognized at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors, which she received in December 2023. Other notable honors won by Fleming have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Unusual among artists whose careers began in opera, Fleming has achieved name recognition beyond the classical music world. In May, 2023, Fleming was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health. On April 9, 2024, Penguin Random House published Fleming's anthology Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, a collection of essays about the health benefits of music and the arts, by scientists from leading research institutions, practitioners, educators, arts leaders, musicians, artists and writers.
Kathleen Deanna Battle is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio, 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 lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s, until her eventual dismissal from the Metropolitan Opera in 1994. She later has focused on recording and the concert stage. After a 22-year absence from the Met, Battle performed a concert of spirituals at the Metropolitan Opera House in November 2016, and again in May 2024.
Jessye Mae Norman was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but did not limit herself to that voice type. A commanding presence on operatic, concert and recital stages, Norman was associated with roles including Beethoven's Leonore, Wagner's Sieglinde and Kundry, Berlioz's Cassandre and Didon, and Bartók's Judith. The New York Times music critic Edward Rothstein described her voice as a "grand mansion of sound", and wrote that "it has enormous dimensions, reaching backward and upward. It opens onto unexpected vistas. It contains sunlit rooms, narrow passageways, cavernous halls."
Phyllis Curtin was an American soprano and academic teacher who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She is known for her creation of roles in operas by Carlisle Floyd, such as the title role in Susannah and Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights. She was a dedicated song recitalist, who retired from singing in 1984. She was named Boston University's Dean Emerita, College of Fine Arts in 1991.
Frances Yeend was an American classical soprano who had an active international career as a concert and opera singer during the 1940s through the 1960s. She had a long and fruitful association with the New York City Opera (NYCO) between 1948 and 1958, after which she joined the roster of principal sopranos at the Metropolitan Opera where she sang between 1961 and 1963. She also had an extensive concert career, particularly in the United States. By 1963 she had sung in more than 200 orchestral concerts in North American with major symphonies like the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra among others.
Regina Resnik was an American opera singer who had an active international career that spanned five decades. She began her career as a soprano in 1942 and soon after began a lengthy and fruitful relationship with the Metropolitan Opera that spanned from 1944 until 1983. Under the advice of conductor Clemens Krauss, she began retraining her voice in the mezzo-soprano repertoire in 1953 and by 1956 had completely removed soprano literature from her performance repertoire.
Mary Costa is an American retired actress and singer. Her most notable film credit is providing the voice of Princess Aurora in the 1959 Disney animated film Sleeping Beauty. She is the last surviving voice actress of the three Disney Princesses created in Walt Disney's lifetime and was named a Disney Legend in 1999. She is a recipient of the 2020 National Medal of Arts.
Rose Bampton was an American opera singer who had an active international career during the 1930s and 1940s. She began her professional career performing mostly minor roles from the mezzo-soprano repertoire in 1929 but later switched to singing primarily leading soprano roles in 1937 until her retirement from the opera stage in 1963.
Patricia Lynn Racette is an American operatic soprano. A winner of the Richard Tucker Award in 1998, she has been a regular presence at major opera houses internationally. Racette has enjoyed long-term partnerships with the San Francisco Opera, where she has been a regular performer since 1989, and with the Metropolitan Opera, where she has performed since 1995. Also active on the concert stage, Racette has appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She also received the award for Best Opera Recording for her performance in the Los Angeles Opera's production of The Ghosts of Versailles at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.
Jennifer Larmore is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer, particularly noted for her performances in coloratura and bel canto roles which she has performed in the world's major opera houses. She has been a professor at the Music College of Seoul National University since March 2021.
Joyce DiDonato is an American opera singer and recitalist. A coloratura mezzo-soprano, she has performed operas and concert works spanning from the 19th-century Romantic era to those by Handel and Mozart.
Detroit Opera is the principal opera company in Michigan, US. The company is based in Detroit, where it performs in the Detroit Opera House. Prior to February 28, 2022, the company was named Michigan Opera Theatre.
Nancy Fabiola Herrera is a Canarian mezzo-soprano opera singer. Born in Venezuela to Canarian parents, Herrera is the recipient of the "Best Zarzuela Singer of 2007" award presented by the Fundación Premios Liricos Teatro Campoamor, for her performance in Ruperto Chapí's La Bruja.
Cincinnati Opera is an American opera company based in Cincinnati, Ohio and the second oldest opera company in the United States. Beginning with its first season in 1920, Cincinnati Opera has produced operas in the summer months of June and July with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra providing orchestral accompaniment.
Alyson Cambridge is an American operatic soprano. In addition to opera, she sings classical song, jazz, and American songbook and popular song. She is also known for her work as a model, actress, and host.
William Burden is an American opera singer (tenor). Since his professional debut at the San Francisco Opera in 1992, he has performed in lead roles in North America and Europe.
John Thomas Holiday Jr. is an American operatic countertenor. His repertoire focuses on the Baroque and contemporary composers, including staged opera and opera in concert, works for voice and orchestra, and experimental mixed-media. He has participated in several world premieres. He has performed with several opera companies in the United States, toured with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and sung in Shanghai and several European cities. He also sings gospel, pop, and jazz; he was a contestant on season 19 of NBC's The Voice, a vocal competition television series.
Heidi Stober is an American operatic soprano who has performed leading roles in major opera houses internationally, including the Dutch National Opera, the Garsington Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the Municipal Theatre of Santiago, the Semperoper, and the Vienna State Opera. She has been particularly active with the Houston Grand Opera where she has performed in more than a dozen operas since 2004, including the world premieres of Daniel Catán's Salsipuedes: a Tale of Love, War and Anchovies (2004), Mark Adamo's Lysistrata (2005), and Ricky Ian Gordon's The House without a Christmas Tree (2017). She has also performed in more than ten operas with the San Francisco Opera since 2010. Since 2008 she has been a resident artist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin where she has primarily performed roles from the lyric soprano repertoire. Also active as a concert soprano on the international stage, she has performed with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest among other orchestras. She is particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of George Frideric Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
J’Nai Bridges is a two time Grammy-Award winning American mezzo-soprano. She is a winner of the Marian Anderson Award and has performed for the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, and San Francisco Opera. BET has described her as The Beyoncé of opera.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
