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Annette John-Hall: Mann salute to black opera voices

Nowadays, Angela M. Brown sings wherever she wants. She's hit the high notes to critical acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera. She's performed at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where she is a popular favorite. I wouldn't be surprised if she busts a few arias in the shower if the spirit moves her.

Nowadays, Angela M. Brown sings wherever she wants.

She's hit the high notes to critical acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera. She's performed at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where she is a popular favorite. I wouldn't be surprised if she busts a few arias in the shower if the spirit moves her.

It's her voice, rich, pure, passionate, hailed as "the ideal Verdi soprano," that defines her - not her skin color.

"It doesn't matter what color you are," says Brown, 45, who is African American. "Just be excellent and let your cream rise to the top."

(Or chocolate sauce, whatever the case may be.)

Still, Brown wouldn't be in a position to make the merit argument had it not been for the many African American artists who in the 1930s and '40s blazed the trail - a trail marked with racial discrimination that often barred them from performing in opera houses and concert halls.

What most folks don't realize is that while black artists were denied opportunities elsewhere, the Robin Hood Dell - briefly known as the Robin Hood Dell West and renamed the Mann Center for the Performing Arts - welcomed them with open arms from its inception in 1935.

From Philly contralto Marian Anderson to baritone Todd Duncan, who played the first Porgy in Gershwin's groundbreaking American opera Porgy and Bess, many of the great African American opera singers of the day appeared at the Mann. And that helped integrate the Mann audience to a degree unusual for the time, according to Mann artistic adviser Evans Mirageas.

To commemorate this bit of little-known history, along with the Mann's 75th anniversary, a quartet of opera all-stars, including mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson, tenor Vinson Cole, baritone Gordon Hawkins, and Brown will present a three-part concert, "Summertime Songs: An Opera Celebration," Tuesday at 8 p.m.

(In "This Little Light of Mine," the prelude event, Adrienne Danrich will honor opera legends Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price. Italian maestro Edoardo Müller will conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra.)

It wasn't until Mirageas began combing through old program cards that he realized the Mann had hosted a virtual who's who of black performers, little remembered today, who were standouts then.

One of those stars, soprano Dorothy Maynor, a favorite of music director Eugene Ormandy, carved out a classical career thanks in large part to the Mann, where she performed often and recorded with the orchestra. Long before Renée Fleming put her signature on arias from Louise by Gustave Charpentier, Maynor had made them her own on 78s that collectors now treasure.

Well, who knew?

What we do know is this: The Mann's commitment to diversity hasn't stopped. The venue distributes 50,000 free tickets all over the city, president and chief executive officer Catherine Cahill says.

And this year, it will present the most intriguing concert of the summer - Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Condoleezza Rice.

Yes, that Condoleezza.

For her part, Brown is also on a mission to make classical music accessible. On June 21, the star will perform her free one-woman show, "Opera From a Sistah's Point of View," at Old Pine Presbyterian Church. It's an evening of conversation and song, designed to help non-classical music lovers realize that opera is for them, too.

"Look, I can dig it, because I was that person," says the Indianapolis native, who aspired to a career in theater and once auditioned for Dreamgirls. "I thought opera was too elitist and highbrow and not relevant to my life at all. But it's entertaining. Opera is all about people."

It all makes for two grand nights of opera - with some important history thrown in.

Brown follows a star-studded lineage that includes Maynor and Anderson, Price and Grace Bumbry, Shirley Verrett and Kathleen Battle, "examples of the progress that has been made," Mirageas says: "We now have great opera singers, who, oh, by the way, happen to be black. That's the big payoff of this concert - the 'oh, by the way' factor."