William Warfield
Encyclopedia
Bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...
singer and actor.
Early life and career
Warfield was born in West Helena, ArkansasWest Helena, Arkansas
West Helena is the western portion of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, a city in Phillips County, Arkansas, United States. As of the 2000 census, this portion of the city population was 8,689....
and grew up in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, where his father was called to serve as pastor of Mt. Vernon Church. He gave his recital debut in New York's Town Hall
The Town Hall
The Town Hall is a performance space, located at 123 West 43rd Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, in New York City. It seats approximately 1,500 people.-History:...
on March 19, 1950. He was quickly invited by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
to tour Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and give 35 concerts. In 1952, Warfield performed in Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
during a tour of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
sponsored by the U.S. State Department (he made six separate tours for the US Department of State, more than any other American solo artist.) In this production he played opposite the opera star Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
, whom he soon married, but the demands of two separate careers left them little time together. They divorced in 1972, but were featured together in a 1963 studio recording of excerpts from Porgy and Bess.
According to a recent exhibit about World War Two, Warfield was the only African American member of the "Ritchie Boys" thousands of soldiers who were trained at Fort Ritchie, Maryland. It was an intelligence center where hundreds of Jewish recruits who fled Nazi German for the United States were trained to interrogate their one-time countrymen. According to the exhibit at the Zekelman Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Warfield was brought to the camp because of his strong German skills which he perfected while studying music. Because of segregation, his skills were never put to use.
Warfield was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music
Eastman School of Music
The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...
. In 1975 he accepted an appointment as Professor of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
. He later became Chairman of the Voice Department. In 1994, he moved to Northwestern University's School of Music, where he stayed until his death.
He sang the premiere performances of the version for soloist and orchestra of Set I of Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
's Old American Songs
Old American Songs
Old American Songs are two sets of songs arranged by Aaron Copland in 1950 and 1952 respectively. Originally scored for voice and piano, they were reworked for baritone and orchestra....
in 1955, and of the version for soloist and piano of Set II of the collection in 1958. (He also recorded both sets of the songs.) His vocal talents were also featured on two recordings of Handel's "Messiah" - a classic, but heavily cut, performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
(released in 1959), and a lesser-known, drastically restructured recording made in 1956, also heavily cut, with Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
and the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein combined the Christmas and Resurrection sections, and ended with the arias and choruses depicting the death of Christ. The Ormandy recording featured the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Mormon Tabernacle Choir
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, sometimes colloquially referred to as MoTab, is a Grammy and Emmy Award winning, 360-member, all-volunteer choir. The choir is part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . However, the choir is completely self-funded, traveling and producing albums to...
, and Bernstein's the Westminster Choir.
Warfield was also accomplished in acting and poetry recitation. He played the character De Lawd in a celebrated Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011...
television production of The Green Pastures, a role he played twice (these were the days of live TV, before video tape). He appeared in two Hollywood films, including a star-making performance as Joe in MGM's 1951 Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
remake of Show Boat
Show Boat (1951 film)
Show Boat is a 1951 Technicolor film based on the musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II and the novel by Edna Ferber....
. His other film was an overlooked item called "Old Explorers", starring James Whitmore
James Whitmore
James Allen Whitmore, Jr. was an American film and stage actor.-Early life:Born in White Plains, New York, to Florence Belle and James Allen Whitmore, Sr., a park commission official, Whitmore attended Amherst Central High School in Snyder, New York, before graduating from The Choate School in...
and José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
. In a nod to "Show Boat", Warfield played a cameo role as a tugboat captain. Footage of Warfield in "Show Boat" has been seen in several TV shows and/or films, notably That's Entertainment!
That's Entertainment!
That's Entertainment! is a 1974 compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate its 50th anniversary. It was followed by two sequels and a related film called That's Dancing!....
. Warfield played his Show Boat role in two other productions of the musical - the 1966 Lincoln Center production, and a 1972 production in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. And he was heard singing Ol' Man River
Ol' Man River
"Ol' Man River" is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that expresses the African American hardship and struggles of the time with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River; it is sung from the point-of-view of a dock worker on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show...
in three different record albums of the show - the 1951 motion picture soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
on MGM Records
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...
, a 1962 studio album featuring Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...
and John Raitt
John Raitt
John Emmett Raitt was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theater.-Early years:...
on Columbia Masterworks, and the RCA Victor album made from the Lincoln Center production.
Warfield made an appearance on The Colgate Comedy Hour
The Colgate Comedy Hour
The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show stars many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen, Donald O'Connor, Bud Abbott and Lou...
and on a program called TV Recital Hall in 1951, the same year that he made his screen debut in Show Boat. He later appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
in 1955. In 1961, he appeared as a recital soloist on an episode of the Young People's Concerts
Young People's Concerts
The Young People's Concerts at the New York Philharmonic are the longest-running series of family concerts of classical music in the world.-Genesis:...
, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
. In March 1984 he was the winner of a Grammy in the "Spoken Word" category for his outstanding narration of Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
's Lincoln Portrait
Lincoln Portrait
Lincoln Portrait is a classical orchestral work written by the American composer Aaron Copland. The work involves a full orchestra, with particular emphasis on the brass section at climactic moments. The work is narrated with the reading of excerpts of Abraham Lincoln's great documents, including...
accompanied by the Eastman Philharmonia Orchestra. And in the 1990s, he narrated a special jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
arrangement of music from "Show Boat", on the PRI
Public Radio International
Public Radio International is a Minneapolis-based American public radio organization, with locations in Boston, New York, London and Beijing. PRI's tagline is "Hear a different voice." PRI is a major public media content creator and also distributes programs from many sources...
program Riverwalk Jazz
Riverwalk jazz
Riverwalk Jazz is a popular weekly public radio series distributed by Public Radio International.- History :The series began broadcasting in 1989 and is produced by PVPMedia. The principal performing band on Riverwalk Jazz is the Jim Cullum Jazz Band. The series co-hosts are bandleader Jim Cullum,...
. In 1999 Warfield joined baritones Robert Sims
Robert Sims
Robert Lewis Sims a lyric baritone who specializes in African American folk songs and spirituals, is known for his rich tone, energetic performances and convincing stage presence....
and Benjamin Matthews in a trio by the name of "Three Generations". Managed by Arthur White, this ensemble toured the United States giving full concerts of African American Spirituals and folk songs until Warfield's death in 2002.
Vocal decline
Beginning in 1962, Warfield began to have some trouble with his voice, as he himself admitted in his autobiography. This was only slightly noticeable on the 1962 studio recording of Show Boat. By the time he made the 1966 recording of the Lincoln Center production of the musical, his voice had deepened from merely bass-baritone to a full-fledged bass, and he could not sing the climactic high note on Ol' Man River as easily as he had in the 1951 film version, though he sounded fine on his lower notes. Because of this problem, however, he compensated by learning how to sing even more expressively than he had before.By 1976, Warfield, although still making various stage and television appearances, was not singing as much as he had in the past. He served as narrator in various orchestral works, such as Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, and occasionally performed sprechstimme roles in Mahler works. However, he did sing on occasion during his final years, despite the fact that by then his singing voice was practically gone. In those years, when he sang Ol' Man River, he would not perform it with the original lyrics, but with the altered ones that Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
used in his recitals beginning in 1938.
Organizations
Warfield was active in many organizations, After appearing as the featured artist at the 50th year convention of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. (NANM), he became active with the organization, serving as its President for two terms. He later served on the boards of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) and the Schiller InstituteSchiller Institute
The Schiller Institute is an international political and economic thinktank, one of the primary organizations of the LaRouche movement, with headquarters in Germany and the United States, and supporters in Australia, Canada, Russia, and South America, among others, according to its website.The...
. After joining the Schiller Institute in 1996, he began to collaborate with acclaimed vocal coach Sylvia Olden Lee
Sylvia Olden Lee
Sylvia Olden Lee was a renowned vocal coach and accompanist, and the first African-American to be employed by the Metropolitan Opera. She was a master of all aspects of European classical music as well as the Negro Spiritual....
in a project to save the performance tradition of the Negro spiritual
Spiritual (music)
Spirituals are religious songs which were created by enslaved African people in America.-Terminology and origin:...
. During the final years of his life, from 1999 to 2002, he performed regularly at Schiller Institute biannual conferences, often with Olden Lee as his accompanist, and the two of them travelled the country conducting singing workshops for members of the LaRouche Youth Movement. Warfield was made an honorary member of the Delta Lambda chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is an American collegiate social fraternity for men with a special interest in music...
at Ball State University in 1961, and awarded the Fraternity's Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award
Charles E. Lutton Man Of Music Award
The Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award is one of the highest honors awarded to members of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity for a lifelong achievement in uplifting the world through art and music. Its recipients include musical legends such as Aaron Copland, W. Francis McBeth, James Levine,...
in 1976 at its national convention in Evansville, Indiana.
Legacy
The William Warfield Scholarship Fund continues to support young African American classical singers at the Eastman School of MusicEastman School of Music
The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...
. To date the fund has awarded scholarships to over 50 students.