- Abbie Mitchell
Abbie Mitchell (
25 September 1884 –16 March 1960 ), also billed as Abbey Mitchell, was an Americansoprano opera singer who created the role of "Clara" inGeorge Gershwin 's "Porgy and Bess " in 1935.Mitchell began her career in musical comedy with
Will Marion Cook 's "Clorindy; or, the Origin of the Cakewalk" in 1898. She performed with George Walker andBert Williams ,Black Patti 'sTroubadours , and in the operetta "The Red Moon" (1908) by Bob Cole andJ. Rosamond Johnson . In 1919, Mitchell went to Europe with Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra. Mitchell and Cook were married in 1898.Following this, she began performing on the concert stage and performing opera in addition to teaching. She performed in
New York and taught at theTuskegee Institute inAlabama .Lee De Forest made a short film "Songs of Yesteryear" (1922) of Mitchell singing, using his DeForestPhonofilm sound-on-film process. This film is preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection at theLibrary of Congress .Her 1935 appearance in "Porgy and Bess" was her final stage appearance. She died in
New York City on16 March 1960 .References
*McGinty, Doris Evans, '"As Large As She Can Make It": The Role of Black Women Activists in Music, 1880–1945' in Locke, Ralph P., and Cyrilla Barr, editors, "Cultivating Music in America: Women Patrons and Activists since 1860", 1997, University of California Press. ( [http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft838nb58v&chunk.id=nsd0e8467&toc.depth=1&toc.id=endnotes&brand=eschol Footnote 33] )
*Peterson, Bernard, "Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960", 2000, Greenwood Press [http://books.google.com/books?id=94Vkm-y_3CEC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=%22abbie+mitchell%22+opera&source=web&ots=F7Teb3TS2i&sig=pM7hfCylzOgf_S2Pl9Zxw8xMhQM#PPA187,M1 p.187] .ee also
*
African American musical theater
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
