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Maria Ewing
Maria Louise Ewing, Lady Hall (March 27, 1950 – January 9, 2022) was an American opera singer. In the early part of her career she performed solely as a lyric mezzo-soprano; she later assumed full soprano parts as well. Her signature roles were Blanche, Carmen, Dorabella, Rosina and Salome. Some critics regarded her as one of the most compelling singing actresses of her generation.
Maria Louise Ewing was born in Detroit, Michigan, on March 27, 1950. She was the youngest of four daughters of Hermina Ewing, née Veraar, a Dutch-born homemaker, and Norman Isaac Ewing, an electrical engineer at a steel company. Her father claimed to be of Sioux descent, but he was the son of parents who were each mixed-race, part European and part African.
An episode of the genealogical television show Finding Your Roots devoted to Ewing's daughter, the actress Rebecca Hall, revealed that Norman was the son of John William Ewing, born into slavery, and as an adult a prominent figure in the African-American community of Washington, DC. He was a descendant of Bazabeel Norman, a notable Black veteran of the American Revolutionary War.
(Rebecca Hall's interest in her mother's ethnicity inspired her to make a film, Passing, adapted from a 1920s novel by Nella Larsen. The two African-American women protagonists are each of mixed race, but one has chosen to pass as white and has a white husband who does not know of her African ancestry.) According to Ewing's former husband, her father's African roots caused her family so much anxiety that a particularly dark-skinned relative of theirs was forbidden from visiting their home during the hours of daylight. Ewing was unembarrassed by her racial make-up, regarding her African roots not with shame but with pride.
Ewing's parents were both musical enthusiasts: her mother was a keen collector of classical recordings, and her father played the piano well enough to attract an audience of admiring neighbors. Ewing's own musical education began with piano lessons when she was thirteen. As well as playing solo piano pieces, she sometimes acted as an accompanist for one of her sisters, Frances, occasionally singing duets with her; their mother was sufficiently impressed by her voice to encourage her to complement her keyboard work by studying singing too. Coached by a local voice teacher, Ewing joined the alto section of the chorus at her Detroit high school—Jared W. Finney High School—and was soon participating in and winning singing competitions.
When she was seventeen, she became a pupil of Marjorie Gordon, a coloratura soprano (not to be confused with an English Gilbert and Sullivan soprano of the same name). After only a year of teaching Ewing, Gordon suggested that she should apply to take part in Oakland University's Meadow Brook Music Festival. She auditioned for the role of Maddalena in a production of Rigoletto that was to be conducted by a young James Levine. Their meeting proved to be wonderfully serendipitous: Levine was so struck by her expressive power that he assured her that she had the potential to become a major artist. For her part, she found in him a teacher, mentor, guide, champion and friend. In order to study with Levine, she sought and won a scholarship at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where her other instructors included soprano Eleanor Steber. After she graduated in 1970, Levine urged her to continue her training in New York City as a private pupil of the great mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel. Ewing supported herself by working in offices and clothing stores.
Ewing began her professional life as a lyric mezzo-soprano. Her debut was as Rosina in an English-language production of Il barbiere di Siviglia in Detroit in 1970, staged by a company now known as the Michigan Opera Theatre. (She returned to the role many times, including at Houston Grand Opera in 1976 and 1983, at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1981 and 1982 and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1982.) After three years of gradually building a career as a recitalist, concert artist and opera performer, she made her first appearance at a high-profile venue on June 29, 1973, when she starred at the Ravinia Festival singing a program of songs by Alban Berg accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Levine. "I cannot remember a young singer who has excited me more on a first hearing", wrote the Chicago Tribune's Thomas Willis. "Still in her early twenties, she has the clear stamp of greatness in every movement and tone".
The first leading opera company that engaged Ewing was San Francisco's. She was their Mercédès in Carmen in 1973, and their Sicle in Francesco Cavalli's Ormindo in 1974. In 1975, Santa Fe Opera presented her in Così fan tutte as Dorabella, one of the parts with which she became most closely associated: she was highly praised in the role both at Glyndebourne in 1978 and at the Metropolitan Opera, with Levine on the podium, in 1982. In his history of Glyndebourne, Spike Hughes remembered Ewing's Dorabella as "a particular joy, with a natural gift of timing and an enchantingly comical face", while for Levine, Ewing was "the funniest, most stylish Dorabella you could imagine, absolutely sensational".
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Maria Ewing
Maria Louise Ewing, Lady Hall (March 27, 1950 – January 9, 2022) was an American opera singer. In the early part of her career she performed solely as a lyric mezzo-soprano; she later assumed full soprano parts as well. Her signature roles were Blanche, Carmen, Dorabella, Rosina and Salome. Some critics regarded her as one of the most compelling singing actresses of her generation.
Maria Louise Ewing was born in Detroit, Michigan, on March 27, 1950. She was the youngest of four daughters of Hermina Ewing, née Veraar, a Dutch-born homemaker, and Norman Isaac Ewing, an electrical engineer at a steel company. Her father claimed to be of Sioux descent, but he was the son of parents who were each mixed-race, part European and part African.
An episode of the genealogical television show Finding Your Roots devoted to Ewing's daughter, the actress Rebecca Hall, revealed that Norman was the son of John William Ewing, born into slavery, and as an adult a prominent figure in the African-American community of Washington, DC. He was a descendant of Bazabeel Norman, a notable Black veteran of the American Revolutionary War.
(Rebecca Hall's interest in her mother's ethnicity inspired her to make a film, Passing, adapted from a 1920s novel by Nella Larsen. The two African-American women protagonists are each of mixed race, but one has chosen to pass as white and has a white husband who does not know of her African ancestry.) According to Ewing's former husband, her father's African roots caused her family so much anxiety that a particularly dark-skinned relative of theirs was forbidden from visiting their home during the hours of daylight. Ewing was unembarrassed by her racial make-up, regarding her African roots not with shame but with pride.
Ewing's parents were both musical enthusiasts: her mother was a keen collector of classical recordings, and her father played the piano well enough to attract an audience of admiring neighbors. Ewing's own musical education began with piano lessons when she was thirteen. As well as playing solo piano pieces, she sometimes acted as an accompanist for one of her sisters, Frances, occasionally singing duets with her; their mother was sufficiently impressed by her voice to encourage her to complement her keyboard work by studying singing too. Coached by a local voice teacher, Ewing joined the alto section of the chorus at her Detroit high school—Jared W. Finney High School—and was soon participating in and winning singing competitions.
When she was seventeen, she became a pupil of Marjorie Gordon, a coloratura soprano (not to be confused with an English Gilbert and Sullivan soprano of the same name). After only a year of teaching Ewing, Gordon suggested that she should apply to take part in Oakland University's Meadow Brook Music Festival. She auditioned for the role of Maddalena in a production of Rigoletto that was to be conducted by a young James Levine. Their meeting proved to be wonderfully serendipitous: Levine was so struck by her expressive power that he assured her that she had the potential to become a major artist. For her part, she found in him a teacher, mentor, guide, champion and friend. In order to study with Levine, she sought and won a scholarship at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where her other instructors included soprano Eleanor Steber. After she graduated in 1970, Levine urged her to continue her training in New York City as a private pupil of the great mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel. Ewing supported herself by working in offices and clothing stores.
Ewing began her professional life as a lyric mezzo-soprano. Her debut was as Rosina in an English-language production of Il barbiere di Siviglia in Detroit in 1970, staged by a company now known as the Michigan Opera Theatre. (She returned to the role many times, including at Houston Grand Opera in 1976 and 1983, at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1981 and 1982 and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1982.) After three years of gradually building a career as a recitalist, concert artist and opera performer, she made her first appearance at a high-profile venue on June 29, 1973, when she starred at the Ravinia Festival singing a program of songs by Alban Berg accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Levine. "I cannot remember a young singer who has excited me more on a first hearing", wrote the Chicago Tribune's Thomas Willis. "Still in her early twenties, she has the clear stamp of greatness in every movement and tone".
The first leading opera company that engaged Ewing was San Francisco's. She was their Mercédès in Carmen in 1973, and their Sicle in Francesco Cavalli's Ormindo in 1974. In 1975, Santa Fe Opera presented her in Così fan tutte as Dorabella, one of the parts with which she became most closely associated: she was highly praised in the role both at Glyndebourne in 1978 and at the Metropolitan Opera, with Levine on the podium, in 1982. In his history of Glyndebourne, Spike Hughes remembered Ewing's Dorabella as "a particular joy, with a natural gift of timing and an enchantingly comical face", while for Levine, Ewing was "the funniest, most stylish Dorabella you could imagine, absolutely sensational".
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