The discography of Leontyne Price, an American soprano, consists of studio albums; complete opera recordings; recordings of symphonic and choral works such as oratorios and masses; and live concert, recital, and opera recordings. Her recordings have won a total of thirteen Grammy Awards, and she has been nominated for a Grammy Award twenty-five times. In addition to her competitive Grammy wins, Price was the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards in 1989.
Price's professional recording career began in 1955 when she recorded Samuel Barber's song cycle Hermit Songs for Columbia Records. Price is closely associated with Barber and his music, and several recordings of her singing his compositions have been made; many of them written specifically for her. On the opera stage and on record she is closely associated with the operas of Verdi, Puccini, and Mozart. Her final studio opera recording was released in 1979, and her final live opera recording was made in 1985 when she made her farewell performance as Aida on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera (Met). Her last recording was of the song "America the Beautiful" which was released by RCA in 1992 on the album A Salute to American Music. Price is also highly regarded for the Primma Donna collection; a series of five albums of opera arias released between 1966 and 1980 that encompass a wide range of songs which she sang for this collection but mostly did not perform on the opera stage.
Contents
Overview
First recording and association with Samuel Barber
Leontyne Price is considered the first African-American soprano to receive international acclaim. She made her first professional recording in 1955 with Columbia Records for its "Modern American Music Series"; performing Barber's Hermit Songs with the composer at the piano This song cycle was written for Price, and the work was given its first performance by her at the Library of Congress two years earlier. The premiere on October 30, 1953 was privately recorded, and later released on disc in 2004 by Bridge Records; making it the earliest commercially available recording of Price's singing voice.
Price frequently performed Barber's music in concerts and recitals. Live recordings of some of these performances given in 1953 and 1968 were compiled into the compilation album Leontyne Price Sings Barber (1994, RCA). She also won a Grammy Award for the 1969 RCA album Samuel Barber: Two Scenes from Antony and Cleopatra / Knoxville: Summer of 1915. The concert suite Two Scenes from "Anthony and Cleopatra" was crafted from two arias Barber wrote specifically for Price's voice in the opera Antony and Cleopatra. Price created the role of Cleopatra in the world premiere of this opera which was notably commissioned and performed for the grand opening of the newly built Metropolitan Opera House on September 16, 1966.
NBC Tosca recording, Porgy and Bess, and RCA contract
The earliest recording of Price performing in an opera comes from the year 1955 when she performed the title role in Puccini's Tosca in a live televised broadcast for the NBC Opera Theatre on January 23, 1955. This performance not only marked Price's grand opera debut, but was also the first instance of a black singer starring in an opera on television. It is considered a significant moment in the breaking of the color barrier during the Civil Rights Movement as Price achieved this at a time when black singers were largely barred from the opera stage in the United States due to racial prejudice. While a complete version of this opera recording is only available in archives, excerpts from the recording were released on CD by Legato Classics in 1998.
The success of the NBC Tosca led to Price being offered a contract with the San Francisco Opera; her first with an American opera company. Prior to this Price had starred as Bess in the third revival of Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess from 1952-1954; a work now regarded as an opera masterwork but then viewed more as a musical. While this production was not recorded, Price later performed excerpts from this opera with her husband William Warfield as Porgy for the Grammy Award winning 1963 RCA record Great Scenes from Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess". When she made her San Francisco debut in 1957 as Madame Lidoine in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites the performance was attended by RCA's director Alan Kayes. Kayes was impressed and offered her contract with RCA Victor Red Seal which she signed in 1958.
Recording legacy with mostly RCA
The majority of Price's recording output was made with RCA with whom she recorded music throughout her career. Many of her RCA records have also been re-released by BMG Records. Her first recording as a contract singer under RCA was a 1959 album of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 made with conductor Charles Munch, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the chorus of the New England Conservatory. Price was celebrated for her performances in Symphony No. 9 with orchestras around the world, and the work was described as her "calling card" on the international stage. Another concert work with which she was closely associated was Verdi's Requiem which she recorded twice for RCA studio albums; a 1960 record with Fritz Reiner and the Vienna Philharmonic and a 1977 album with Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Price's first solo album, the 1959 record A Program Of Song, won the 1961 Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist. She later had a record winning streak in this category; winning this award consecutively for five years from 1964 through 1968 (honoring the years 1963-1967). By the end of her recording career, Price had won a total of thirteen Grammy Awards, and been nominated for a Grammy Award twenty-five times. In 1989 she was the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards in 1989.
On the opera stage, Price is celebrated for becoming the first black singer to have a sustained career at the Met. Several live recordings of her performances from Met stage have been released by Sony Records. In Europe, Price had a productive relationship with conductor Herbert von Karajan with whom she recorded for RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, and Decca Records. Karajan notably conducted Price in her European debut as Verdi's Aida at the Vienna State Opera in 1958. She repeated that role soon after in highly acclaimed performances at the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan among other European theaters. Considered "the Aida" of her generation, Price made two different Grammy Award winning recordings of this opera for RCA.
Price also achieved acclaim internationally in several other operas by Verdi, including Il trovatore, La forza del destino, and Un ballo in maschera; all of which she recorded for RCA. Besides Verdi, Price was frequently heard on the stage in the operas of Puccini and Mozart and recorded multiple operas by both composers for RCA. Her 1961 Grammy winning self titled album Leontyne Price (also known as Operatic Arias and often called "the blue album") was dedicated to the music of Verdi and Puccini, and she won another Grammy Award for her 1973 album Puccini Heroines. With tenor Plácido Domingo she recorded the Grammy nominated album Verdi & Puccini Duets (1975), and her 1981 album Leontyne Price Sings Verdi, recorded with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Zubin Mehta, won a Grammy in 1983.
Final recordings
Price's final complete studio opera recording was the role of Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos by R. Strauss which was released by RCA in 1977. Live recordings of Price continued until the very end of her opera career; including her farewell performance as Aida at the Metropolitan Opera in 1985 which was filmed for television broadcast on PBS. After retiring from the opera stage, Price continued to work as a recitalist until giving her final recital in 1998. Among her later recordings was a 1985 recital she gave for the grand opening of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, and a live concert at Avery Fisher Hall, A Salute to American Music, given on November 10, 1991, which featured Price singing "America the Beautiful" as well as introducing songs performed by other singers.
Price is also closely associated with another patriotic song, "God Bless America", which she famously sang a cappella before the United States Congress in 1981 with altered lyrics aimed at compelling the US government to not cut funding for the arts. She later recorded the song with its original words as both a single and a track on her Grammy nominated 1982 patriotic album God Bless America. She came out of retirement to perform the song at Carnegie Hall in a special concert honoring the victims of the September 11 attacks which was given on September 30, 2001 just nineteen days after the tragedy.