Martina Arroyo facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Martina Arroyo
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Arroyo in 2013
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| Background information | |
| Born | February 2, 1937 New York City |
| Genres | Opera |
| Occupation(s) | Opera singer, educator |
| Instruments | Voice |
| Years active | 1963–1991 |
Martina Arroyo (born February 2, 1937) is a famous American opera singer. She is a soprano, which means she sings high notes. Martina became well-known around the world from the 1960s to the 1980s. She was one of the first black opera singers to become widely successful.
Martina first became famous at the Zurich Opera from 1963 to 1965. Then, she was a top soprano at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1965 to 1978. During these years, she also sang in many other famous opera houses. These included La Scala in Italy and Covent Garden in London. She also performed at the Opéra National de Paris in France and the Vienna State Opera in Austria.
Martina Arroyo is best known for singing Italian opera roles. She was especially famous for playing heroines in operas by Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini. Her last opera performance was in 1991. After that, she started teaching singing at different universities. In 2013, Martina received a special award called a Kennedy Center Honor.
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Early Life and Music Beginnings
Martina Arroyo was born in New York City. She was the younger of two children. Her father, Demetrio Arroyo, was from Puerto Rico. Her mother, Lucille Washington, was from Charleston, South Carolina. Her family lived in Harlem.
Martina's father was an engineer. His good salary allowed her mother to stay home with the children. It also meant the family could enjoy New York's cultural scene. They often visited museums, went to concerts, and saw plays. Seeing Broadway shows in the 1940s first made Martina want to be a performer.
Her mother supported her dreams. She let Martina take ballet classes. Her mother was also a talented piano player and taught Martina to play. Martina also sang in her Baptist church choir. She sang in choirs as a student at Hunter College High School too.
Hunter College Education
After high school, Martina went to Hunter College in 1953. She earned a degree in Romance languages in 1956. She was nineteen years old. While there, she studied voice as a hobby in an opera workshop. Her teacher, Joseph Turnau, saw that Martina had a great talent. He knew she just needed proper training.
After the workshop, Turnau introduced her to voice teacher Marinka Gurewich. Marinka immediately took Martina as a student. At first, Martina did not take her training seriously. Marinka even threatened to stop their lessons. Martina later said that back then, most major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, had never hired a black singer. So, she thought "opera wasn't a real possibility."
However, Marinka's threat made Martina study harder. She continued to learn from Marinka until Marinka passed away in 1990. Around this time, Martina also met concert manager Thea Dispeker. Thea offered to help manage Martina's career for free until she became successful. Thea helped Martina for many years.
Working as a Social Worker
After college, Martina found it hard to work and study singing at the same time. Her mother suggested she become an English teacher. So, in 1956, she taught at Bronx High School. But it was difficult to balance teaching with her singing lessons.
She decided to leave teaching. Instead, she became a social worker at the East End Welfare Center. For two years, she helped over 100 people. She also continued her voice training. Martina found the social work rewarding. She said, "My life had been centered on music for so long, and suddenly there I was, deeply involved in other people's problems."
Joining the Metropolitan Opera
In 1957, Martina auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera but was not accepted. Feeling a bit sad, she thought about becoming a professor. She started working on a master's degree at New York University.
The next year, she won the Metropolitan Opera's Audition of the Air competition. This competition was a big deal. She won $1,000 and a scholarship to the Met's Kathryn Long School. She left NYU and joined the school in 1957. There, she studied singing, acting, German, English speaking, and even fencing.
While at the school, she got a role in an opera called Murder in the Cathedral. This was her first professional opera performance. It happened at Carnegie Hall on September 17, 1958. The New York Times newspaper praised her performance. They said she had "a voice of amplitude and lovely color."
In 1959, Martina sang the main role in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. Soon after, she made her official debut at the Metropolitan Opera. This was on March 14, 1959. She sang the Celestial Voice in Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo. This was the start of her long and successful career at the Met.
A Flourishing Musical Career
After her Met debut, Martina moved to Europe in 1959. She started performing in smaller opera houses. While in Italy that year, she met her future husband, Emilio Poggioni, a violist. They later divorced. She then married Michel Maurel, who passed away in 2011.
For several years, Martina mostly worked in Europe. She often sang smaller roles. In 1961 and 1962, she traveled between Europe and the Metropolitan Opera. Her roles at the Met included parts in Richard Wagner's The Ring Cycle operas.
In 1963, Martina got her first big break. She was offered a contract to be a main soprano at the Zurich Opera. She made her debut there in the main role of Verdi's Aida. She was very well received. She continued to sing regularly at that opera house until 1968.
The role of Aida became very important for Martina. It helped her get noticed at many major opera houses in the 1960s. She sang Aida for her first time at the Hamburg State Opera in 1963. She also sang it at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Vienna State Opera in 1964.
In February 1965, she sang Aida in her first starring role at the Met. She filled in at the last minute for another singer. Her performance got amazing reviews. The New York Times called her "one of the most gorgeous voices before the public today." The Met's director, Rudolf Bing, immediately offered her a long-term contract. The Met became her main home until 1978.
In 1964, Martina also appeared on national television. She was in a show called Feliz Borinquen for the CBS Repertoire Workshop.
Martina started the 1965-66 season at the Met with a praised performance in Don Carlo. She became a favorite singer there. She mostly played Verdi heroines. Her other roles at the Met included Aida, Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, and Cio-Cio-San in Puccini's Madama Butterfly. She also played Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni. Martina was also the first black person to play the role of Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin in 1968. This was a historic moment in opera.
International Performances
While at the Met, Martina often traveled to perform in other opera houses. She sang in the United States and around the world. In 1968, she sang for the first time in Israel. She also made her first appearance in the United Kingdom. She sang at the Royal Opera at Covent Garden. In both places, she sang the role of Aida. She returned to these companies many times in the 1970s. She sang Verdi heroines and roles like Tosca in Puccini's opera.
She sang Amelia in Un ballo in maschera for her first performances at the San Francisco Opera (1971) and the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1972). In 1972, she sang Aida for her debut at La Scala in Italy. She performed with famous singer Plácido Domingo. In 1973, she sang for the first time at the Opéra National de Paris and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. She was very busy singing in major opera houses until 1979. She mostly sang roles by Verdi, Puccini, and Strauss.
Martina Arroyo even appeared as herself in an episode of the TV show The Odd Couple. This episode aired on January 16, 1975.
Retirement and Teaching
By 1980, Martina Arroyo chose her singing roles more carefully. She returned to the Met in 1983 for a special event. She sang "Fu la sorte" from Verdi's Aida. She returned to sing Aida and Santuzza. Her last performance at the Metropolitan Opera was on October 31, 1986. This was her 199th performance there.
In 1987, she sang her last performance of the main role in Turandot. In 1989, she announced she was retiring from the opera stage. However, she came out of retirement in 1991 for one last performance. This was in the first-ever performance of Blake. This opera was about slavery in America before the Civil War.
Throughout her career, Martina also performed often in concerts. She sang with many of the world's best symphony orchestras. She often performed with the New York Philharmonic. Conductor Leonard Bernstein especially loved her voice in pieces like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Martina Arroyo also appeared on live television. In 1964, she was on the CBS Repertoire Workshop show.
Martina Arroyo received an Opera Honors Award in 2010. This award is from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2020, she was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.
Recordings and Legacy
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Martina Arroyo has performed in major opera houses and with great orchestras. She has left behind many recordings. These include works by Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, and Verdi. She also recorded Mahler's huge Eighth Symphony.
She also recorded important music from the 20th century. This includes Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder. She sang in the first performances of two new works: Karlheinz Stockhausen's Momente and Samuel Barber's Andromache's Farewell.
Martina's list of recordings, called her discography, is impressive. However, it does not include all the roles she sang on stage. For example, at the Metropolitan Opera, she performed many operas she never recorded. These include Verdi's Ernani and Macbeth. She also sang in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.
Teaching and Honors
Since officially retiring from singing in 1989, Martina Arroyo has taught a lot. She has taught at many universities. These include Louisiana State University, UCLA, and Indiana University. She has also taught at the International Sommerakademie-Mozarteum in Salzburg.
She has given special master classes for singers. She has also been a judge for several music competitions. These include the George London Competition.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford appointed her to the National Council of the Arts. This is a group that advises on arts and culture. She also started the Martina Arroyo Foundation. This foundation helps young opera singers develop their skills. She is also active on the boards of Hunter College and Carnegie Hall.
Martina was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000. She was known for her humor. Once, a doorman at the Met mistook her for another famous black soprano, Leontyne Price. Martina sweetly replied, "No, honey, I'm the other one."
See also
In Spanish: Martina Arroyo para niños
- List of Puerto Ricans
- History of women in Puerto Rico
