Soprano Anne Wiggins Brown, born August 9, 1912, created the role of Bess in George Gershwin's folk opera Porgy and Bess in 1935. She was also a radio and concert star.
Biography
A native of Baltimore, Maryland, she trained at Morgan College and then continued on to the esteemed New Institute of Musical Art (now known as the Juilliard School) in New York. After her appearance as the first Bess, she appeared in the Broadway play Mamba's Daughters and in the film Rhapsody in Blue. She appeared in various revivals of Porgy as well and toured as a concert artist from 1942 to 1948 when she settled in Oslo, Norway, after meeting and marrying Norwegian olympic ski-jumper Thorleif Schjelderup. She continued working as a professional musician into the 1950s on productions like Menotti's The Medium and The Telephone.
Brown later said she felt her singing was better received in Europe because she mainly sang works by European composers, such as Brahms, Schubert, Schumann and Mahler. She had to cut her career as a singer short for health reasonscitation needed, but did work for several years as a song teacher. Among her students were the famous soprano Elisabeth Norberg-Schulz, actress Liv Ullmann and the ballad singer and former Minister of Culture,Åse Kleveland. She staged several operas in France and Norway. In 1999 she was elected as honorary citizen of Baltimore, the town where, 70 years earlier, she was refused a music education because of her colorcitation needed. In 2000 she was awarded Norway's Council of Cultures Honorary Award.
Brown has been a Norwegian citizen since 1948. She currently resides in Oslo.
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