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Martina Arroyo--soprano
London
1973
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"Martina Arroyo 1936–
Opera singer
Of Puerto Rican and African-American descent, soprano Martina Arroyo emerged in the 1960s as part of a vanguard of performers who broke down opera’s color barriers. After Arroyo’s debut at New York’s famed Metropolitan Opera House in 1965, she was well on her way to becoming an international star. As one of the few black opera stars at the time, she helped usher in a new era in opera—an era filled with greater opportunities for black opera singers.
Born in 1936, Arroyo grew up in Harlem near St. Nicholas Avenue and 111th Street. Her father, Demetrio Arroyo, had emigrated from Puerto Rico and married Lucille Washington, a native of Charleston, South Carolina. Demetrio Arroyo was a mechanical engineer, and his salary from his Brooklyn Navy Yard job allowed Arroyo’s mother to stay at home with the couple’s two children—Arroyo’s older brother became a minister. Their comfortable income also allowed the family to experience New York’s rich cultural offerings.
Dreamed Of Opera Career
As a child, Arroyo learned how to play piano from her mother, sang in the choir at her Baptist church, and took ballet classes. However, it was the Hollywood musicals of the 1940s which sparked her passion for the stage. “I had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and my mother humored them,” Arroyo told the New York Times Magazine. “She said she’d help me be a singer or dancer or a pianist or whatever… provided I had another profession to fall back on.” At the time, only a few minorities performed in the classical arts such as opera. So Arroyo selected a back-up career that she knew would provide a steady income: teaching.
Arroyo, an excellent student, attended the elite Hunter High School, an affiliate of Hunter College. Fueled by her interest in music, Arroyo sought and earned special admittance to a graduate-level opera workshop at Hunter College. “One day I got up nerve and said I’d like to sing,” Arroyo recalled in the New York Times. “When I was through with Gounod’s ‘Jewel Song’ from Faust, they said that was fine, but what language was I singing?” Her French, which she had learned phonetically singing along with opera records was so bad it was nearly unrecognizable.
Arroyo remedied this shortcoming with a degree in Romance languages from Hunter College, which she
At a Glance…
Born in 1936, in Harlem, NY; daughter of Demetrio Arroyo and Lucille Washington; married Emilio Poggioni (divorced); married Michel Maurel. Education: Hunter College, BA, 1956; attended the Metropolitan Opera’s Kathryn Long School; pupil of Marinka Gurewich, Mo Martin Rich, Joseph Turnau, and Rose Landver.
Career: Soprano. Performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Berlin Deutsche Opera, and Rome Opera; performed at most of the major opera houses, including Covent Garden in London, Hamburg Staatsoper, La Scala in Milan, and Munich Staatsoper; Indiana University Bloomington, School of Music, distinguished professor of music, currently."; encyclopedia.com
