10/29/2024
Camilla Williams, Soprano (1919 -2012)
Camilla Williams was born Oct. 18, 1919, in the city of Danville, Virginia. Her father was a Chauffeur and her mother was a Laundress. It was her mother who introduced Camilla to "Madama Butterfly," Mozart and other classical works at the age 12. A Welsh voice Teacher came to the segregated city to teach at a school for White girls and taught a few Black girls at a private home. By that time, Williams had been singing in the choir at Danville's Calvary Baptist Church for four years.
A graduate of Virginia State College, she was teaching third grade and music in Danville schools in 1942 when she was offered a scholarship from the Philadelphia alumni association of her alma mater for vocal training in Philadelphia, where she studied under Marion Szekely-Freschl and worked as an Usher in a theater. She earned a Marian Anderson Fellowship in 1943 and again in 1944. She continued to receive honors in vocal competitions.
Beginning in 1944, Williams performed on the coast-to-coast RCA radio network and made her debut with the New York City Opera in the title role in Puccini's Madama Butterfly. As Cio-Cio-San, Miss Williams, was the first Black woman to secure a contract with a major United States opera company a distinction widely ascribed in the public memory to the contralto Marian Anderson. Her performance was hailed by the New York Times critic as "an instant and pronounced success."
During the next six years, she performed Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Mimi in Puccini's La bohème, and the title role in Verdi's Aida. Williams sang throughout the United States and Europe with various other opera companies. In 1951 she sang Bess in the landmark, first complete recording of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Under the baton of Lehman Engel, this recording is considered by some to be the most authentic recorded performance of the opera and brought Williams international recognition.
In 1954 she became the first African American to sing a major role with the Vienna State Opera, and performed her signature role in Madama Butterfly. In 1963, as part of the Civil Rights March on Washington, she sang The Star-Spangled Banner" at the White House and before 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial, preceding Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
A noted concert artist, Williams toured throughout the United States, in fourteen African countries, as well as numerous countries in Asia: Formosa, South Korea, China, Japan, Laos, South Vietnam, the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia. In addition, she was a soloist with the Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. In 1950 she recorded Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with Stokowski and the New York Philharmonic.
Williams was the first African-American Professor of Voice appointed to the Voice Faculty of what is now known as the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 1977. In 1984 she became the first African American instructor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. In 1997 Camilla Williams became a Professor Emerita of Voice at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, but continued to teach privately.
Camilla Williams, a lif well lived. Black women are legendary, long live Black women.
