The Harlem-born opera singer speaks about idol Leontyne Price and more
21 November 2012
By Sergio Mims
Harlem-born and -raised Noah Stewart has become
classical music’s newest sensation and the first Black musician to top
the classical records chart. His debut album for Decca Records, simply
titled Noah, topped the UK classical music chart at no.1, and even reached the No. 2 slot in the U.K. right after Madonna’s latest album, MDNA. And after an appearance on NPR, his album debuted at No.1 on Amazon’s Classical Chart.
Raised by a single mother, it was obvious from an early age Stewart had
an extraordinary voice, and while in junior high, he even recorded
voiceovers for Sesame Street. But it was his meeting his idol
and mentor Leontyne Price that started his career rolling when she
encouraged him to attend the Juilliard School of Music in New York,
where he was awarded a full scholarship and afterward received the Adler
Fellowship program at the San Francisco Opera.
Aside from concerts, he’s been busy making waves at opera houses around
the world, appearing in productions in Paris, London’s Convert Garden
Royal Opera House, the Michigan Opera Theater and the Glimmerglass Opera
in New York.
EBONY recently had a wide-ranging talk with Stewart (he was at London’s
Heathrow Airport shortly before boarding a flight to Singapore for
series of engagements), in which he spoke about the joy and struggles of
being a Black opera tenor, how legend Leontyne Price became an
inspiration, and how to lose 70 pounds.
EBONY: When did you know that you had a voice?
Noah Stewart: I knew that I had something special when
my choir teacher pulled me aside back when I was in junior high school.
I took choir as an elective because I wanted to be a mathematician, a
scientist or an engineer. I took up choir because my mother worked some
40 hours plus a week, so I needed some extra outside activity. I was
admitted into the choir primarily, I think, because I was a boy and
there was a deficiency of men. But like I said, my teacher pulled me
aside and said, “I think you have something special there.” But I didn’t
believe her, to be perfectly honest, until probably my second year at
choir when I won my first competition. And that’s when it was very clear
to me that I had something special to offer.
EBONY: One thing that I constantly read about you is that when
you were younger, you happened to see video of Leontyne Price singing in
Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, and it was a transformative experience for you.
If they’re giving Obama a hard time every day because they just
can’t bear to see a Black man in a position of power, I’m sure it’s the
same singing a tenor role in major opera house.
NS: It was the first person of color I saw singing in
an operatic technique on film, and I was transfixed by the vision of her
with an all-European orchestra, with all European soloists, with a
European conductor. So I went to the library and looked for male
equivalents. And there was George Shirley and Roland Hayes, but I didn’t
see many Black men, so I said I wanted to be the male representative of
what she was able to accomplish in her career. To try to make a dent
somehow in the career of opera.
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