Martina Arroyo (born February 2, 1937)Some sources give 1936. is an American operatic soprano who had a major international opera career from the 1960s through the 1980s. She was part of the first generation of black opera singers to achieve wide success.
Arroyo first rose to prominence at the Zurich Opera between 1963 and 1965, and then was one of the Metropolitan Opera's (Met) leading sopranos between 1965 and 1978. During those years at the Metropolitan Opera, she was also a regular presence at the world's opera houses, performing on the stages of La Scala, Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Colón, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the San Francisco Opera. She is best known for her performances of the Italian spinto repertoire, and in particular, her portrayals of Verdi and Puccini heroines.
While Arroyo announced her retirement from performance in 1989 when she joined the faculty of Louisiana State University, she continued to perform professionally for the next five years in a decreased capacity. Her last opera performances were in 1991 when sang the title role in Turandot at the Staatstheater Kassel, and created the role of Miranda in the world premiere of Leslie Adams’s Blake. She continued to sing recitals until as late as 1993, and in 1994 she sang in the world premiere of 's African Oratorio in South Africa. Her later life has been devoted to teaching singing on the faculties of various universities in the United States and Europe. On December 8, 2013, Arroyo received a Kennedy Center Honor.
Biography Childhood Martina Arroyo was born on February 2, 1937 in Harlem, New York City. She is the youngest of two children born to Demetrio Arroyo and Lucille Washington. Her brother, sixteen years her senior, grew up to become a Baptist minister. The family lived in Harlem near St. Nicholas Avenue and 111th Street, and Arroyo was educated at nearby P.S. 170 and Junior High School 101 in the New York City Public Schools system.
Arroyo's father, originally from Puerto Rico, was a mechanical engineer at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and earned a good salary. This enabled Arroyo's mother, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, to stay at home with their children. Her mother was an amateur pianist, and Arroyo learned to play the piano as a child under her mother's guidance. Her other early musical experiences were had at Baptist Temple Church in Harlem where she sang in the choir in her growing up years. She later sang in the youth choir at Greater Calvary on 133rd street. She was also active in school glee clubs.
The finances of the Arroyo family were solid enough that they had the freedom to experience New York's cultural offerings, and Martina frequented museums, concerts, and the theatre in outings with her parents. It was while attending several performances of Broadway shows during the 1940s that her interest in becoming a performer blossomed. Her mother humored her dreams and allowed Arroyo to take ballet classes. She studied dance with well known Harlem teacher Mary Bruce.
Hunter College and vocal training Arroyo attended Hunter College High School (HCHS); a highly selective and competitive school for gifted students attached to Hunter College (HC). She was accepted into the school in 1950, and graduated from HCHS in 1953. She pursued further studies at HC where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Romance languages in 1956 at the age of nineteen. She decided to study languages so that she could better sing Italian in an opera career.
While a student at HCHS, Arroyo participated in the Hunter College Opera Workshop (HCOW); a graduate-level course which was directed by Joseph Turnau. She was allowed to enroll in the workshop only after hanging around HCOW unofficially, and impressing Turnau with her performance of the Jewel Song for Faust. She learned the aria from a recording and sang with very bad French but with an impressive voice. Turnau interceded on her behalf with an appeal the HC's dean, and she was allowed to enroll in this program while a student in high school with the special permission of HC's president George N. Shuster. Not long after this Turnau contacted Marinka Gurewich, and told her the following:
"I have a very strange case here, a girl I consider the greatest future talent. She has no money whatsoever. Would you do me the favor of listening to her? This means that I am doing you the favor of sending a future star to you."
Arroyo was just fourteen years old when she stated voice lessons with Gurewich. Gurewich was her sole voice teacher, and remained Arroyo's teacher until her Gurewich's death in 1990. Turnau did not instruct her singing, but did teach her dramatic acting and other stage skills while she participated in HCOW during her high school and college years.
In May 1955 Arroyo starred in the premiere of Jan Meyerowitz's Bad Boys in School which was staged by HCOW. A review in The San Francisco News criticized the work for being more of a musical than an opera, but acknowledging that it "had the distinction of having a remarkably clever, gifted and rich voiced young actress named Martina Arroyo who should make a hit on Broadway one of these day." She later starred in HWOC's production of Darius Milhaud's Les malheurs d'Orphée in May 1958.
Early professional life While studying voice with Gurewich as a teenager, Arroyo did not take her voice lessons very seriously and viewed singing more as a hobby. This was partly due to the lack of black women working in professional operas in America at that time, and her perception that "opera wasn't a real possibility". At that point in time Marian Anderson had not yet broken the color barrier at the Metropolitan Opera ("the Met"); a historic moment which occurred in 1955.
Upset by Martina's lack of commitment, Gurewich threatened to drop her as a student during her time as a student at HC. This event galvanized Arroyo into taking her studies much more seriously, and from then on she pursued her vocal training with focused energy. Of this experience she stated in an interview:
In the mid to late 1950s, Arroyo worked while studying singing. On the advice of her mother, she began her professional life working as teacher after graduating from HC. She obtained a license to teach high-school literature, and taught for one year at P.S 45 in the Bronx. She simultaneously enrolled in graduate studies at New York University (NYU), and continued to attend opera workshops at HC while studying singing privately with Gurewich. At NYU she pursued a master's degree in comparative literature. Her dissertation was on Ignazio Silone.
Arroyo liked teaching high school English, but found the time demands such that she realized she could not continue to study music and work as an educator. She left that position, and took a job as a social worker at the East End Welfare Center operated by the New York City Welfare Department. She worked as a social worker for approximately two years in , and despite having a busy load of more than 100 people she found it easier to balance her music studies with this job. She found the work fulfilling and stated of the experience, "My life had been centered on music for so long, and suddenly there I was, deeply involved in other people's problems."
Early professional performances Arroyo made her recital debut at Carnegie Recital Hall on January 19, 1957. She was approached by concert manager Thea Dispeker after this recital, and he offered to represent Arroyo for free until her career was established. She was introduced to Dispeker by Turnau. This began a relationship which would last for decades with Dispeker serving as the manager for her career. Later that year she auditioned for the Met but was not accepted.
Arroyo, rebounded in the 1958 Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air where she won a $1,000 cash prize in the contest held in March that year. The competition also provided a scholarship to the Met's Kathryn Long School (KLS). At KLS she studied drama with dramatic soprano and opera director Rose Landver; a teacher she had previously worked with at HCOW. She also studied German, English diction, and fencing at this school.
While at KLS, Arroyo was offered the role of the first Coryphaeus in the American premiere of Ildebrando Pizzetti's Murder in the Cathedral. The work was scheduled for performance at the Empire State Music Festival at Ellenville in August 1958, but bad weather canceled the event. The concert was rescheduled for a performance at Carnegie Hall where it was performed on September 17, 1958. This marked Arroyo's first professional appearance singing in an opera. Harold C. Schonberg in The New York Times wrote of her performance, "Martina Arroyo is a gifted soprano who appears to have remarkable potential, and she sang with a voice of amplitude and lovely color."
In December 1958 Arroyo sang the role of Israelitish Woman in Handel's Judas Maccabaeus with the Utah Symphony and Grace Bumbry as the Israelitish Man. This performances was recorded and released the following year on Westminster Records. In January 1959, she sang a supporting role in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride in a concert version with the Little Orchestra Society at Town Hall with Gloria Davy in the title role. She returned to Salt Lake City in December 1959 to appear with the Utah Symphony again as the Widow in Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah with Norman Treigle in the title role.
Arroyo made her debut at the Met in the small off-stage role of the Celestial Voice in Verdi's Don Carlo on March 14, 1959, with Eugenio Fernandi in the title role, Leonie Rysanek as Elisabetta, Robert Merrill as Rodrigo, and Nell Rankin as Princess Eboli. This was the beginning of what opera historian Clyde T. McCants described as her "first Met career" in which she played comprimario roles through 1962. She returned to the Met in the 1960–1961 season for further performances in Don Carlo, and in the 1961–1962 season performed small parts in Wagner's The Ring Cycle. These included Woglinde in Das Rheingold, Ortlinde in Die Walküre, the Forest Bird in Siegfried, and the Third Norn and Woglinde in Götterdämmerung.
Early international career and marriages After having made her Met debut, Arroyo was advised by the Met's director Rudolf Bing to go to Europe because she would have better performance opportunities there. She traveled to Europe for the first time in 1959 on a tour organized by the United States Information Service as part of a propaganda campaign of the "America Houses". While performing in Italy that year she met her future husband, professional violist Emilio Poggioni. She marriage Poggioni in 1961 in New York City. Their marriage lasted about ten years and ended in divorce. She later married French banker Michel Maurel. They remained married until his death in 2011.
In the early 1960s Arroyo divided her time between work as a concert soprano in the United States and appearing in opera houses in Europe. In May 1960 she appeared with the Dessoff Choirs at Carnegie as a soloist in Bach's Mass in B minor. In February 1961 she gave a recital at Town Hall. In April 1963 she performed the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Andromache's Farewell with the New York Philharmonic (NYP) led by Thomas Schippers. This piece was commissioned for performance by NYP in celebration of the NYP's opening season at Lincoln Center, and it was recorded by the orchestra with Arroyo. She sang again with the NYP later that year as the soprano soloist in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd under the baton of its composer, Paul Hindemith, and in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 under Leonard Bernstein.