Laurence Harris/AP
London Grace Bumbry
American opera singer Grace Bumbry, in her dressing room at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
Before she was an international opera star, Grace Bumbry was a student at the Ville's Sumner High School in the 1950s, singing in Kenneth Billups' a capella choir. But big things lay ahead for this student. Bumbry made history in 1961 as the first African American to perform at Bayreuth, the annual opera festival that's a celebration of composer Richard Wagner’s works. The composer’s grandson Wieland Wagner cast Bumbry, just 24 years old, as Venus in Tannhäuser. The goddess of love was a role traditionally reserved for a blonde, and when Germans got word, the letters of protest poured in.
Bumbry's career would take off after the performance, for which she received 30 minutes of applause. Later, in 2009, her career would be celebrated at one of the most prestigious arts ceremonies in the country: the Kennedy Center Honors. St. Louis Magazine recently interviewed Bumbry for a feature on the history of Sumner High School. Below is an edited and condensed version of that interview.
What memories do you have of St. Louis?
I lived in St. Louis until I went off to college, at 18 or 19. For me, St. Louis was the place where I made my first steps. I think very fondly of the time that I spent there. I lived first on Whittier Street, which is a block or two away from where I eventually landed, Goode Avenue [now Annie Malone Drive], and maybe five or six blocks from Sumner High School. From grade school to Sumner High School, that was my area. My brothers, Benjamin, who was six years older, and Charles, who was two years older—my life revolved around them, because they were my big brothers. They were very active in football and in basketball. My brother Benjamin was the basketball player and Charles in football, and Grace was in piano and singing. Our house was always full of young people in all kinds of things, in the arts, someone singing, and in piano and choir. Charles played the trombone and the bugle, and Benjamin played the drums. Everybody had some instrument in our house. So I knew instruments from the day I was 4 years old.
So your family was musical?
They were not musicians, but they were musical. My father played the piano by ear very, very well. And I think he became ashamed that he didn't read notes. When I had started taking piano and was doing quite well, he suddenly decided he couldn't play the piano any longer. But that's much to my chagrin because he could really play well, and most anything he heard he could play. My mother played the piano by notes, and my dad played better than anybody in the family but by ear. Everybody sang. My father had a very high tenor voice. My mother had a soprano, mezzo-soprano voice, much like my own but maybe even warmer in sound. My brother Benjamin was the baritone-bass in our family. He thought he was the singer. [Laughs.]
How did you find your voice?
My brothers were in the junior choir at the church. My mother was in the senior choir at the church. My father was in the gospel choir at the church. There was music in my ears all the time. What I remember very clearly was the time that the church was doing The Messiah, and they were going to do the first part and the second part, which meant Christmas and Easter. Now, that was, first of all, a very bold challenge for the whole congregation. But what happened was the organist decided to put all of the choirs together, and they would work on these two parts of The Messiah simultaneously. I was too young to be a member of that choir. I was only 10 or 11, but I had to be at the rehearsals because they couldn't leave me at home. So I tagged along with my brothers and my parents for their rehearsals. I could hear all of the music, everybody's. I could hear it. And knew it. I knew everybody's part. My brothers found out one Saturday afternoon. We were doing our Saturday chores. We were doing the washing, and Benjamin and Charlie were singing along in The Messiah, and I popped in with something that was missing. And they said, “Well, how do you know that?” I heard it in the rehearsals. They were surprised to see that Grace knows all of the music. I still wasn't allowed to sing, but my mother decided that we had to do something with Grace’s voice, so she spoke to the choir director of the junior choir. And she said, “Well, but you know, she's too little,” but she became so infatuated with what Grace could do that she put in for that Christmas program “Cantique de Noël”—“O Holy Night.” I sang "O Holy Night" which I later found out was really quite difficult. But in those days, you don't have the sense to know that it's hard. ... For me, it was normal. It was like playing with my yo-yo or something.
How did you get involved in the choir at Sumner High School?
That's a good story. The history of the Sumner a cappella choir was quite phenomenal. Kenneth Billups was an enormously great voice teacher. He had a great understanding of the voice, and every choir he ever touched was turned over into something magical. I wanted to be a member of the Sumner a cappella choir, but I didn't dare try out for it, because it was just too good. But I wanted to sing. So I applied to the girls’ glee club, and that director turned me down. Fortunately, Billups was listening to the audition, and he invited me to sing in his choir. You cannot imagine my joy. I told him, “I really wanted to be in your choir, but I didn't think I was good enough. He said, “No, no, no, you come to class on Monday morning, and you will see what will happen.” From that day on, I was in—and I sniff my nose at the choir director of the girls’ glee club.
I didn't realize my luck until maybe 2004. I was starting to write my autobiography, and I realized, What is it that made my voice so special? It was because I had six lessons a week with Kenneth Billups. Five days in the school in the Sumner High School a cappella choir, and one lesson on Saturday. That's six lessons a week—that's unheard of. Nobody has six lessons a week.
What do you remember from Mr. Billups' instruction?
I always followed instructions. My mother would say: "Grace was always crying. Every lesson, she came home from her lesson with tears running down her face." I was just always in tears because trying to do what he wanted me to do...you hear this wonderful sound coming from a person that you admire so much and you want to emulate what it is that they've done. And it doesn't happen like that at age 16, 17. So by the time I would get home, tears would be rolling down, and my mother would say, "I know, I know, he's already called me to tell me you're on your way and not to worry, you'll be alright." But it all paid off in the end, because that's what I'm doing now. I teach my students the same things that Kenneth Billups taught me. I was thinking just yesterday about a manner in which he taught, and how you do things in phrases, not a whole big aria at one time, and then you repeat them and go to the next one. And you repeat them, and then go back to the beginning. It's all about how you learn and how you continue with that knowledge.
Can we talk about Bayreuth? When people found out the role of Venus was being played by an African American, they wrote letters of protest. What was that like for you?
It meant that everything that I had learned from my childhood was now being tested. Because I remember being discriminated against in the United States, so why should it be any different in Germany? I remember my mother and I one day, we were shopping downtown. I was about 10. And I said, “Mommy, I have to go to the toilet.” There was a toilet right there in front of us. She said, “No, no, we can't go in there.” I said, “Why not?” She said, “Come, come, I'll tell you later.” So we went over to this other one. After we came back, we were on the streetcar, and I said to her, “Mommy, why couldn't we go to that other toilet?” And she said, “Baby, we'll talk about that at home.” I knew that was embarrassing her, so I could hardly wait to get home to find out what was it that she was so embarrassed about. And so she told me there's these people who think that they're different. I said, “Well, what do they do when they go to the toilet?” She said, “Well, that’s the problem. There’s a toilet for them, and there's a toilet for us.” I said, “Well, that's really stupid.” And she said, “Yeah, you're right, baby, but we don't call anybody stupid.” The thing is that when you have lived through that all of your life, why should I be so concerned about what has happened to me in Germany? There was no difference. But I knew what I had to do. 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.
And you certainly did as Venus. The audience applauded for 30 minutes. What were you thinking at that point?
Oh, my god, this will never end. This is fantastic. This is fabulous. And I said to myself, I guess that’ll show them.
I see a photo of you and the Obamas behind you on your piano. Was the Kennedy Center Honors the highlight of your career?
It was a high point. Don’t forget, it’s a very long career—50 years. But it was a great honor because I was there at the inception of the Kennedy Center Honors program, when they were honoring Marian Anderson. I sang for Marian Anderson. And then, years later, there I was receiving my own. There’s also a picture of me with Kennedy as well. That, for me, is as important as Obama was.
