Various Artists - Black Swans: at Mid-Century (2022)

In 2019, Parnassus Records’ “Black Swans” CD recalled to life an almost forgotten aspect of Black culture, the active participation of Black musicians in classical music 100 years ago. As a follow-up, “Black Swans at Mid-Century” presents a collection of 18 fine Black singers who specialized in opera and art song, in recordings made from the late 1920s to the early 1960s.

Thanks to George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” and Virgil Thomson’s “Four Saints in Three Acts,” for both of which the composers specified Black casts, some of the outstanding Black singers of their time achieved a certain amount of exposure. However, even today vocal enthusiasts may be surprised to hear the creators of the roles of Porgy and Bess (Todd Duncan and Anne Brown) singing music from the European art song repertoire, taken from scarce 78s. We hear Mattiwilda Dobbs, who did get a chance to shine at the Metropolitan Opera in the late 1960s, dazzling an audience at a live performance in Sidney, Australia.

Carol Brice sings Brahms’s “Alto Rhapsody” live at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Robert McFerrin sings the role of Amonasro from “Aida” in live performance from Naples. Other singers represented in the collection are Adele Addison, Betty Allen, Marian Anderson (two unpublished items), Jules Bledsoe, Thomas Carey, Ellabelle Davis, Gloria Davy (music by Shulamit Ran with the composer at the piano), Ruby Elzy, Charles Holland, Inez Matthews, Margaret Tynes, William Warfield, and Camilla Williams.

Audio restoration engineer Steven Smolian, who did such amazing work with the very early recordings of “Black Swans,” has again worked his audio magic with recordings originating over a wide variety of times and locations. Biographical notes by producer Leslie Gerber help place each singer in the contexts of their places and times.