OSU School of music program salutes pioneering opera singer
It was a story that just needed to be told.
A pioneering black opera singer, who had moved no less than George Gershwin to create the role of Serena in his landmark composition Porgy & Bess specifically for her, had gotten her start as a music student at The Ohio State University.
“I went to OSU and I didn’t know about her,” David Weaver, singer and co-founder of Columbus Light Opera, told The Beat. In 2004, he published Black Diva of the Thirties: The Life of Ruby Elzy, the unintended but obvious result of several years of research into Elzy’s life.
“At that time, there were limitations for blacks. For example, there were no black singers at (New York’s Metropolitan Opera),” Weaver explained. “I always thought she would have been among the first crossovers.”
Elzy died in 1943 at age 35, cutting short a career that saw her rise above poverty and prejudice and that was just reaching its zenith.
Her life and music are the subject of a program by the OSU School of Music Feb. 11 at the Lincoln Theatre. The program not only celebrates the life of an esteemed alumna of the university but also serves as part of Columbus’ year-long bicentennial celebration and Black History Month.
“It also serves as a spotlight for our opera students,” Patrick Woliver, interim director of the opera program at OSU, told The Beat. “They’re very excited.”
Woliver said the program includes music, multimedia and narration from Weaver, and chronicles Elzy’s life from her youth in Mississippi through her studies at OSU and into her professional career.
Musically, the program is divided into two parts — the first in recital form with students in various configurations accompanied by piano, and the second featuring music from Porgy & Bess, accompanied by a seven-piece ensemble.
Woliver said 14 graduate and undergraduate student singers, selected via audition, will be featured. The program provides recital experience but also an opportunity to learn about some musical and cultural history.
“The first thing I had them do was read David’s book,” Woliver said. “And they’re not necessarily familiar with some of the repertoire she sang, as some of it has fallen out of the standard repertoire.”
Musical selections will include spirituals, Woliver said, because in many instances, that was what she was hired to sing, but will also include pieces by Schubert and Brahms, among others.
“That music is also part of her story,” he said.
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