| Price singing 'Puccini Arias.' We cut our classes for the rest of the day. We didn't eat. We didn't go to the bathroom. We did nothing but listen to Leontyne Price sing all day. That was the thing that really changed my life. I fell in love with opera." It would still be a long, long time before she would ever sing opera, but the passion had been kindled inside. After pursuing a degree at Oberlin College where Graves learned how to use her God-given instrument, her voice, and after endless hours of practice, practice, practice and numerous competitions and many, many years of performances, Graves has now entered the upper echelons of her profession. She has performed in opera houses on four continents, from Argentina to Austria to New York and continuously receives rave reviews wherever she performs. Graves was demur in talking about the artistic qualities that have let her rise to the top, perhaps because she still studies and practices hard to perfect her craft. She protests that she is not qualified to judge her own work. It is best to be left to others. But what others have said is praise enough. "I hear that I've achieved a name for myself in this business because I'm a great singing actress who has a beautiful voice," Graves said. "And I think I'm a great storyteller. I am able to communicate and connect with an audience. I know what music is to me. I know that it moves me and it touches me to my very core. My hope is always that I am able to let the music speak and have its effect on others through me. I am one who has been able to bring together the marriage between the music and theater." And while some may still think, in this day and age, that African American opera singers are a rare occurrence, Graves pointed out that there is a long standing tradition of African Americans starring in operatic roles. "African Americans were present in classical music long before Marion Anderson, back in the days of Sissieretta Jones and Black Patti," Graves observed. "There's a wonderful book by Rosalyn Storey called "And So I Sing." She goes back to the very early days in the 1800s with some African American opera singers." Opera is looked upon by some as the entertainment of the well-to-do. But while admitting that tickets for opera performances are expensive, Graves also emphasized that it is a universal art form. "I think that the stories are the stories that we have been telling for years," Graves emphasized. "Anyone who is walking through the game of life knows joy, sorry, frustration, and heartache. It's speaking to the human experience. And that is what makes it universal." Last year, Graves was a part of a historic moment that pushed the universal message of opera to embrace the African American experience. In May 2005, she starred in the title role of Richard Danielpour's Margaret Garner, based on the Toni Morrison's Pulitzer-Prize winning novel Beloved, which was based on the true story of a fugitive slave in Cincinnati and the horrible choices she was forced to consider due to the institution of slavery. "I'm careful as not to alienate some of the other great works," Graves cautioned. "But for obvious reasons, it has been the most personal one I have performed and the one I felt the most amount of pride and responsibility in terms of telling the story and getting it right. I feel a great amount of responsibility in telling it in a very positive way and telling the story that they haven't heard before, one that is shocking, one that happened right here." But while in its narrow sense it is about the African American experience, Graves also feels it transcends to become a story about all of America and the human condition. "Whenever we have performed Margaret Garner, there hasn't been anyone who has left the theater whom I have spoken with who hasn't been affected by it," Graves said. "I know that everyone who was working on that project with us, Black, White, Chinese or whomever, held a great amount of personal responsibility towards this story. It's about all of us and the part that we all played in this drama. And it's a part that we continue to play. That's why it has been so personal for everyone who hears it, certainly as Americans. It's a horrible stain on this chapter of American history, one that continues to change. It's changed some, but I think that all of the problems that exist even today have been born out of the slavery experience." Margaret Garner is obviously a project that is close to Graves' heart. She is excited about the possibility it could be performed in Europe. "I certainly hope we have the opportunity to perform it in Paris and many, many, many different places," Graves exclaimed. "I hope so, from your mouth to God's ear." Margaret Garner will make its debut in Paris, in a way, when Toni Morrison is officially named an honorary curator of The Louvre next month. "We'll speak a little about Margaret Garner and then they'll play excerpts of a movie about it," Graves said. Today, Graves calls both Washington, D.C. and Paris home, as much as any place can be called home for a worldwide performer. "To say I live anywhere is the biggest joke on earth," Graves said with a chuckle. "I really live in United Airlines seat 10A. That's really where I am. I'm never really anywhere. I am everywhere else besides Virginia or in Paris. I'm there for Christmas and for holidays and that sort of thing." While Graves spends too much time in airplanes and her life is constantly moving around the globe, she is grateful for what she has. "I'm grateful to have the life that I have, which allows me to live a passionate life first of all and a life that brings beauty into the lives of others," Graves emphasized. "About that, I am proud." The epiphany rang true. Denyce Graves will be performing songs from Margaret Garner with the Madison Symphony Orchestra under the direction of John DeMain November 3-5 in the Overture Hall. Tickets start at $15. They are on sale now at the Overture Center Box Office (608-258-4141.) |
| Denyce Graves to perform with the Madison Symphony Orchestra A defining moment By Jonathan Gramling |
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| There comes a time in many of our lives when we are fortunate to have an epiphany, that sudden clear revelation to our inner souls of what our purpose is in life. We may not consciously understand it fully, but the lasting feeling is there within us nonetheless. Denyce Graves, the world-acclaimed opera star who will be performing with the Madison Symphony Orchestra in November, that moment came when she was a 15- year old student at the Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. It was a moment meant to happen. "One of my best girlfriends saw me in the hallway and said 'Denyce, I just heard something that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard in my life,'" Graves recalled during a telephone interview with The Capital City Hues. "'You have to come listen to it.'' I said 'Cece, I can't. I'm late for class.' She replied 'You have to come hear this.' So I went to hear it and it was a recording of Leontyne |
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