Leontyne Price #1485

Caption from poster__     Leontyne Price   " I am here  and you will know  that I am the best   and will hear me.  The color of my skin  or the kink of my hair  or the spreas of my mouth  has nothing to do with   what you are listening to.”       A native of Laurel, Mississippi, Mary Violet Leontyne Price decided on a  singing career after graduation from the College of Education and Industrial Arts, Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1948.Four years at the Juillard School of Music,  with Florence Page Kimball guiding her as she would continue to do, led to her 1952 debut on Broadway. Ira Gershwin, based on that performance, chose Price as Bess in a revival of Porgy and Bess that played New  York City 1952-54 and then toured both nationally and internationally.  In  1955, Leontyne Price was chosen to sing the title role in a television  production of Tosca,becoming the first black singer on a television opera production. In 1957, she debuted in her first stage opera, the American premier of Dia