A Day with Camilla Williams

Her friend and colleague, Todd Duncan, creator of George Gershwin's Porgy on Broadway in 1935, called her "Diva." She is Camilla Williams, lyric soprano, who in 1946 was the first African-American to receive a regular contract with a major American opera company. Her debut role at New York's City Center Opera was as Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Other leading roles Miss Williams was to perform with this company for the next six years were Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Mimì in Puccini's La bohème, and Verdi's Aida. Then, in 1954, she appeared as Butterfly with London's Sadler's Wells Opera and later the Vienna State Opera. Miss Williams was also a distinguished concert artist, performing throughout the United States, in fourteen African countries, and in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia. From 1977 to 1997, she was professor of voice at Indiana University's School of Music. Although Miss Williams has officially retired, she is still teaching

Recently, Sony reissued the thrilling 1951 Columbia recording of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess starring Lawrence Winters and Camilla Williams. ¹ Once again we can hear her vocally and theatrically exciting Bess. Winters is a superb partner, and the performance is further enhanced by the beautiful singing of June McMechen, Helen Dowdy, and Eddie and Inez Matthews, as well as the luminous conducting of Lehman Engel.

In 1995, I had the privilege of spending a day with this charming, elegant, and courageous pioneering opera diva at both her lovely apartment and memorabilia-enriched studio in Bloomington, Indiana. Miss Williams is a delightful raconteur and graciously shared many of her fascinating experiences with me.

 

I WAS taught to love people by my mother, who was a great Christian woman. She taught us the love of God. Everybody had to go to church. Everybody had to go to Sunday School. Everybody had to sing in the choir because that [Begin Page 221] was our gift. (I started at eight years of age.) And everybody had to take piano lessons.

"Mother came from one of the first families of Virginia: the Careys. There were no slaves on my mother's side of the family, and my maternal grandmother went to Hartshorn School for Girls, which is now Union University in Richmond, Virginia. So I have a wonderful cultural background. My mother didn't have a chance to go to college, but she had lots of motherwit.

"I graduated from Virginia State College in 1941, and two years later won the Marian Anderson Award. If you received the Anderson Award, you could compete again the next year, so I won it twice. Miss Anderson and I were to remain dear friends until her death. My husband, Charles Beavers, and I spent many weekends as Miss Anderson's guests at her farm in Danbury, Connecticut. I don't think many people know how close we were. Her sister Alyce told me I was the most faithful award winner they ever had. I kept in touch with Miss Anderson all the time. It was not just because I won the award, it was because I loved her. And she knew it.

"I remember she asked me if I would introduce her to my New York couturière, who came from Paris and created gowns for many of the artists. In 1963 she made the beautiful white gown Miss Anderson wore when President John F. Kennedy honored her with the Freedom Medal. Also, she made Miss Anderson's dress for her farewell concert in Carnegie Hall on 18 April 1965. Then, at the gala seventy-fifth-birthday concert in her honor at Carnegie Hall on 27 February 1977, Miss Anderson wore the beautiful seeded, beaded jacket I told her to buy. 'Camilla,' she said, 'I could buy a tractor with what that costs!' 'But it's so beautiful,' I replied. Finally, she wore another of my couturière's gowns in...