Camilla Williams – Woman of the Week

During the month of February, Woman of the Week is sponsored by Carolyn Arnold of Nurturing Life Hypnotherapy: Hypnosis for Weight Loss, Fertility, Birth & Beyond

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Camilla Ella Williams (October 18, 1919 – January 29, 2012) was an American operatic soprano, and the first African American to have received a contract with a major American opera company — a distinction widely ascribed in the public memory to the contralto Marian Anderson.

Miss Williams’s path crossed Miss Anderson’s many times. At the 1963 March on Washington, she substituted for Miss Anderson, who was stuck in traffic, before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, racing up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” By all accounts, the two women maintained a warm, enduring friendship.

As Miss Williams, who died this year at 92, well knew, she was a beacon that lighted the way to American opera houses for other black women, Miss Anderson included.

That Miss Williams’s historic role is scarcely remembered today is rooted in both the rarefied world of opera-house politics and the ubiquitous racial anxiety of midcentury America. And though she was far too well mannered to trumpet her rightful place in history, her relegation to its margins caused her great private anguish.

“The lack of recognition for my accomplishments used to bother me, but you cannot cry over those things,” Miss Williams said in a 1995 interview with the opera scholar Elizabeth Nash. “There is no place for bitterness in singing. It works on the cords and ruins the voice. In his own good time, God brings everything right.” (Source: NY Times)

The video below is a short biography of Camilla Williams. It was shown at the New York City Opera’s salute to Ms. Williams on Feb. 11th, 2009, in NYC. Her beautiful voice provides the background music.