Betty Allen
*Betty Allen was born on this date in 1927. She was a Black operatic mezzo-soprano and teacher.
She was born Elizabeth Louise Allen (or Betty Lou) in Campbell, Ohio, near Youngstown. Her father was a college-educated math teacher who worked in a steel mill as racial segregation during the 1930s. Her mother earned extra money for the family by washing other people's laundry. When Allen was 12, her mother died of cancer. Her father's depression and alcoholism caused Allen to leave home. She spent the rest of her youth living in foster homes.
In 1943, Allen entered Wilberforce College in Xenia, Ohio, where she majored in languages. While there, she was encouraged to pursue a singing career, which involved her with the school's choir, whose membership included Leontyne Price. Price and Allen became friends while singing in the choir together. After graduating, she entered Hartford School of Music in 1947 on a scholarship, where she earned a bachelor's degree in vocal performance. After graduating, she moved to New York City and continued her studies.
She was known for her collaborations with American composers, such as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Ned Rorem, and Virgil Thomson. Allen's professional singing career was cut short by chronic lung problems, which she attributed to her exposure to the Campbell, Ohio, steel mills in her childhood. Although she made a handful of concert appearances into the 1980s, her opera career was over earlier. After her singing career ended, she became a lauded voice teacher and arts administrator.
From 1969 on, she served on the Manhattan School of Music faculty, both the Curtis Institute of Music (masterclasses since 1987) and the North Carolina School of the Arts (1978-1987). Allen was part of the first generation of Black opera singers to achieve wide success and part of an instrumental group of performers who helped break down the barriers of racial prejudice in the opera world. Bernstein greatly admired her, and the conductor notably chose her as the featured soloist for his final performance as the New York Philharmonic music director in 1973.
In 1979, Allen became the executive director of Harlem School of the Arts, later becoming its president in 1992. In September 1989, she became the first American to teach a masterclass at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory through a cultural exchange program with the Harlem School of the Arts. She was also active as an adjudicator for many vocal competitions, such as the Metropolitan Opera Regional Auditions, the Young Concert Artists, and the Dutch International Vocal Competition' s-Hertogenbosch, among others.
Betty Allen, who had an active international singing career from the 1950s through the 1970s, died in Valhalla, New York, on June 22, 2009, at 82.
