Iconic Black American Singer Dies In Nursing Home

Margaret Tynes, an iconic Black American singer who was long ignored in the United States but a prominent success in Europe throughout her illustrious career, has reportedly died at the age of 104. Tynes reportedly died in a nursing home in Silver Spring, Maryland on March 7th.

Tynes spent her life doing what she loved, and though her art was never truly appreciated in the United States, she simply forged ahead.

The famed singer was a soprano, and primarily focused on different forms of Opera music, including “Tosca” and “Carmen.” The New York Times reports on her death,

In the 1960s and ’70s Ms. Tynes, with her incendiary, full-throated voice, in roles like Aida and Salomé, sang at opera houses in Vienna, Prague and Budapest, earning high praise on the continent — “an exceptional voice, intense in every coloring, vibrant and dramatic,” Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper wrote — even while U.S. critics were cooler. The Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich wrote of her performance in Benjamin Britten’s “The War Requiem” that “What Britten expects of a woman’s voice can only be achieved by a singer of Margaret Tynes’s caliber.”

But she did not make her Metropolitan Opera debut until 1974, when she was 55, in a run of three performances as the title role in Janacek’s “Jenufa” that began and ended her career there.

New York Times

Operawire posted an obituary for the legendary American opera singer at their own website. That insightful obituary reads,

Born on Sept. 11, 1919 in Saluda Virginia, Tynes was discovered to be a childhood prodigy at the age of six when she won her first award of $500 against adults at the time. She won her second award, also against adults, at the age of 12 when she sang the lullaby from Jocelyn by Godard.

She went on to get her Bachelor’s from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1939 and continued her studies at the Juilliard School. She would later transfer to Columbia University and receive a Master’s in Music Education.

Following her studies, she went on to become a leading soprano in the world performing at many of the world’s greatest houses. She performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, Prague State Opera, Budapest Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, and Teatro Comunale di Bologna, among others. She also performed at the Spoleto Festival under Thomas Schippers and Luchino Visconti.

OPeraWire

Rest in peace, Margaret Tynes.