Robert McFerrin
Encyclopedia
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York City. His voice was described by critic Albert Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
as "a baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
of beautiful quality, even in all registers, and with a top that partakes of something of a tenor's ringing brilliance." He was the father of Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
-winning vocalist Robert McFerrin, Jr., better known as Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...
.
Early years
Robert showed vocal talent at a early age, singing while still a boy sopranoBoy soprano
A boy soprano is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range. Although a treble, or choirboy, may also be considered to be a boy soprano, the more colloquial term boy soprano is generally only used for boys who sing, perform, or record as soloists, and who may not necessarily...
in a local church's gospel choir. As a young teenager he joined two of his siblings in a trio. The three accompanied their father on regional preaching engagements, singing gospel songs, hymns and spirituals. Reverend McFerrin did not wish Robert to sing non-gospel music, but in the end this wish was undone by his desire to give his son the best possible education.
After Robert completed eight grades in Memphis, his father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle in St. Louis in order for him to attend Sumner High School
Sumner High School (St. Louis)
Sumner High School, also known as Charles E. Sumner High School, is a St. Louis public high school that was the first high school for African-American students west of the Mississippi River. Together with Vashon High School, Sumner was one of the two segregated public high schools in St. Louis for...
. There, the young man's musical horizons widened. He joined the choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
and impressed the director, Wirt Walton, sufficiently that he began teaching Robert privately. Walton also arranged for Robert's first vocal recital to help him earn funds for his college enrollment.
Further studies
Graduating from high school in 1940, Robert enrolled at Fisk UniversityFisk University
Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...
in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. Following his freshman year the young baritone won a scholarship to attend Chicago Musical College
Chicago Musical College
Chicago Musical College is a division of Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt UniversityIt was founded in 1867, less than four decades after the city of Chicago was incorporated...
and transferred to that institution. World War II and the Draft interrupted McFerrin's schooling, but he returned to Chicago Musical College after discharge and received his degree in 1948.
Early career
That same year Robert moved to New York City and began coaching voice with Hall JohnsonHall Johnson
Hall Johnson was one of a number of American composers and arrangers—including Harry T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Eva Jessye—who elevated the African-American spiritual to an art form, comparable in its musical sophistication to the compositions of European Classical...
, the composer and choir director.
Robert married Sara Copper, another aspiring singer, in 1949. The couple had two children, Robert Jr. (Bobby) and Brenda.
In New York, Robert McFerrin's singing
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
career prospered. A 1949 appearance in a small role in the Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
Broadway musical, Lost in the Stars
Lost in the Stars
Lost in the Stars is a musical with book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson and music by Kurt Weill, based on the novel Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton...
, led to acquaintance with Boris Goldovsky
Boris Goldovsky
Boris Goldovsky was a Russian conductor and broadcast commentator, active in the United States. He has been called an important "popularizer" of opera in America...
. Goldovsky presented the baritone in the title role of Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
at the Tanglewood Music Festival
Tanglewood Music Festival
The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts....
in 1949 and cast him in his company, the New England Opera Theater
Boris Goldovsky
Boris Goldovsky was a Russian conductor and broadcast commentator, active in the United States. He has been called an important "popularizer" of opera in America...
(later the Goldovsky Opera Theater)
as Valentin in Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
and in Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. It was his fifth opera for the French stage. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard....
by Gluck. That year he also performed as Amonasro in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
with the National Negro Opera Company
National Negro Opera Company
The National Negro Opera Company was the first African-American opera company in the United States.Organized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, under the direction of Mary Cardwell Dawson, the company was resident in a Queen Anne-style house at 7101 Apple Street in the city's Homewood...
and made his New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
debut, singing the role of Popaloi, a voodoo doctor, in the premiere of William Grant Still
William Grant Still
William Grant Still was an African-American classical composer who wrote more than 150 compositions. He was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major...
's Haitian opera, Troubled Island
Troubled Island
Troubled Island is an American opera in three acts composed by William Grant Still , with a libretto begun by poet Langston Hughes and completed by Verna Arvey...
.
In 1950 McFerrin sang the title role in Rigoletto with the New England Opera. Moving between opera and Broadway, in 1951 he performed in a revival of The Green Pastures, and the following year he sang in My Darlin' Aida, a version of Verdi's Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
updated to 1861 and set in Memphis, Tennessee. He also returned to the National Negro Opera Company in 1952 to sing Valentin in Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
.
The Metropolitan Opera
Robert McFerrin had distinguished himself in singing competitions earlier in life, but in 1953 he eclipsed these honors by winning the Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
's "Auditions of the Air", the first African-American to do so. During this time, it was usual for the winner of the "Auditions of the Air" to receive six months' training and a contract to sing at the Met. McFerrin received 13 months training but did not receive a contract. No black person had ever sung on the stage of the Met.
In 1950 the Metropolitan Opera came under the leadership of Sir Rudolf Bing, who was determined to integrate the Met's casting of singers. Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...
made history during Bing's tenure as the first African-American to sing on the Met stage. Robert McFerrin followed with his Met debut in the same month, January 1955. Thus, Robert McFerrin became the first black man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. Rarely stated in the great publicity surrounding Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...
's accomplishment is the fact that McFerrin was already engaged to make his debut when Anderson received her contract. With his Rigoletto in 1956 McFerrin became the first African-American in history to sing a title role at the Met. In addition, McFerrin was the first African-American to sing at both the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
. He achieved the same distinction with his Rigoletto in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
at the San Carlo
Teatro di San Carlo
The Real Teatro di San Carlo is an opera house in Naples, Italy. It is the oldest continuously active such venue in Europe.Founded by the Bourbon Charles VII of Naples of the Spanish branch of the dynasty, the theatre was inaugurated on 4 November 1737 — the king's name day — with a performance...
Opera in 1956.
Robert McFerrin's debut role at the Met was Amonasro, the Ethiopian king, in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
. He sang for three years at the Metropolitan Opera, seven times as Amonasro, once as Valentin in Faust and twice in the title role of the jester in Rigoletto. While Amonasro is black skinned, neither Valentin nor Rigoletto is.
Concerned with the uncertainty of his future in New York, McFerrin resigned his position at the Met in favor of his chances in Hollywood. After 1958 Robert McFerrin appeared no more at the Metropolitan Opera.
California
Robert McFerrin went to California in 1958 to work on the Otto PremingerOtto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
movie, Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
. The casting plans for this production of the George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
opera slated Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier
Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...
as Porgy. Poitier was to act the role onscreen and "lip-synch" the musical numbers. Robert McFerrin was engaged to provide Porgy's singing voice. The McFerrins settled in Hollywood that year so that Robert could begin working with Sidney Poitier. When the movie was released in 1959, the New York Times stated that, like Poitier's acting, McFerrin's singing was "as sensitive and strong as one could wish." The soundtrack was released as an LP.
Robert and Sara set up a vocal studio in Los Angeles and began teaching. In 1959 Robert was engaged to teach singing lessons at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and later he became a voice teacher at Sacramento State College. While they were living in California Robert and Sara's marriage ended in divorce. Robert credited his ex-wife with helping to support the family while he was beginning his career. She also played as his piano accompanist and helped him learn new music at the keyboard. After 15 years in California, Robert McFerrin moved to St. Louis, Missouri.
Later years
In 1973 McFerrin returned to the city where he had attended high school. St. Louis would remain the baritone's primary residence for the rest of his life. McFerrin accepted an appointment as Artist-in-Residence at the St. Louis Institute of Music Conservatory, both performing and passing on to students the lessons of a full career.During these years he sang in public with his children. Bobby and Brenda had grown up in a household where music was a major topic of conversation, and where, as Bobby McFerrin recalls, "there was all kinds of music." Both Bobby and Brenda became professional singers, though they chose not to follow their parents' footsteps into the classical field. Bobby became a non-classical singer, conductor, composer and Grammy Award winner. Calling herself a consumer vocalist, Brenda pursued a career as a Motown recording artist. The three sang in 1987 at a benefit concert for the McFerrin Endowment for Minority Artist at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
Although McFerrin sustained a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
in 1989 which affected his speech, he remained able to sing. In 1993 he appeared with his son and the St. Louis Symphony; Bobby conducted and McFerrin senior sang. He married his second wife, Athena Bush, in 1995.
McFerrin was twice awarded honorary doctorates: in 1987 from Stowe Teacher's College, St. Louis, and in 1989 from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. In 2003 Opera America
Opera America
Opera America, officially OPERA America, is a service organization in North America promoting the creation, presentation, and enjoyment of opera...
, in conjunction with the Association of U.S. and International Professional Opera Companies and Opera Volunteers International, honored McFerrin with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He is commemorated by a brass star and bronze plaque embedded in the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Robert Keith McFerrin Sr., suffered a heart attack on November 24, 2006 and died at the age of 85. He is buried at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery
Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery
- External links :**...
.
Role model
Robert McFerrin Senior's accomplishments as a black man in the field of classical singing served as an inspiration to singers of color who followed, especially men. Upon McFerrin's death, the distinguished African-American tenorTenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, George Shirley
George Shirley
George Irving Shirley is a renowned tenor opera singer.He is a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.-External links:*** by Bruce Duffie...
, wrote, "Robert McFerrin Sr.'s heart was that of a giant; as one of the world's greatest singers and courageous pioneers, he instilled within me and countless other black males the resolve to pursue our destinies as performers in the profession of grand opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
. In spite of the personal hardships he endured, his magnificent voice retained its amazing power and beauty well into his 8th decade..."
His son, Bobby McFerrin, has said in interviews, "His work influenced everything I do musically. When I direct a choir, I go for his sound. His musical influence was absolutely profound. I cannot do anything without me hearing his voice."
Recordings
Robert McFerrin was called "under-recorded" byOpera News. The following is a list of known recordings.- Excerpts from Rigoletto, for the Metropolitan Opera Club (1956). His "Cortigiani" with Fausto Cleva conducting, called "consummate," was also later released in 2001 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild on a collection called Met Stars Sing Verdi (see below under External Links).
- Aida, live recording, with the Teatro San Carlo (1956). This recording, conducted by Vincenzo Bellezza, was originally identified, "The Golden Age of Opera GAO 130."
- Porgy and Bess, LP soundtrack of the 1959 movie, Columbia OL 5410
- "Deep River" and Other Classic Negro Spirituals, (1959)
- Let's Learn a New Song, a children's album recorded in the 1960s
- Medicine Music, EMI Records (USA), UPC: 077779204823, released July 23, 1996. This CD is a Bobby McFerrin release in which he sings the song "Discipline" with his father, Robert McFerrin Sr.