Tag Archives: Lillian Evanti

The Story Behind a Custom Piano in a Museum

Posted on by
Reply

Madame Evanti’s Custom Built Fischer Piano. Evans-Tibbs collection, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of the Estate of Thurlow E. Tibbs, Jr.5

Madame Evanti’s Custom Built Fischer Piano is located at the Anacostia Community Library in Washington, DC. Now if you are anything like me you might have questions like: 

Who is Madame Evanti, and why is her piano special enough to be in a museum? What is the Anacostia Museum and why was it assigned for the blog posts this week?  

Anacostia Museum, which opened in 1967,1 is created for and about the community of Anacostia, a neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C. that is home to many influential artists and leaders. The museum does feature many important artifacts from the Anacostia community but has also branched out to incorporate a larger diaspora.

The goal of the museum is to interpret and celebrate African American history and culture.2 This means incorporating not only locally and regionally found expositions, but nationally and internationally as well. Because of this global and local lens, the museum has impressive features on the family archives of  19th-century African American locals and works from black DC artists.2 This archival work is reparative documentation of history that has previously been erased from history but is now story-telling of the east-of-the-river communities in DC that will be remembered and recognized. Starting with Madame Evanti. 

Portrait of Lillian Evanti made in Buenos Aires, Argentina, undated. Evans-Tibbs collection, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of the Estate of Thurlow E. Tibbs, Jr.6

Lillian Evanti is famous for being the first African American to sing in a professional European opera company.3 She was born in 1890 to a well-education and affluent African American Family in Washington D.C.. Due to her family status, she was fortunate enough to attend Howard University and graduated in 1907. She became composer, lyricist, and teacher but was limited in her professional opportunities due to discrimination. She moved to Europe and made her debut in Nice, France in 1924.4 Her success in Europe is impressive and historically significant, but it is not as heavily discussed as the great strides she afforded for the arts in America upon her interspersed returns home. 

Madame Evanti was a founding member of America’s National Negro Opera Company (NNCO).4 She starred as Violetta in the opening production staging of Verdi’s La Traviata. Throughout the 1930s, Evanti advocated for the establishment of cultural center in Washington for classical and contemporary music, drama and dance. Her labor, testifying to a congressional committee in advocacy for a national performing arts center, contributed to the creation of the Kennedy Center.4

Madame Evanti is also a good-will ambassador through the State Department.3 She traveled to Latin America to perform, but her travels inspired something bigger. Evanti was also a composer. Below is a recording of one of her compositions. Her song Himno Pan-Americano is an anthem of peace dedicated to the Pan-American Union (now known as the Organization for American States).3

So much history and story-telling to be told, and it was all behind a piano. 

Lilian Evanti at the Phillips Memorial Gallery

Posted on by
Reply

While myself and my group have looked through many data points trying to put together a coherent argument on Lilian Evanti, I found a new source that I thought I would look further into. This program comes from the Phillips Memorial Gallery, which she has performed at on several occasions. This program was “a varied program of Classics, a group by Hugo Wolf, an Inter-American group, and a group of Negro Spirituals,” according to the performance’s brochure.

All this to be said, it was a data point I was very excited to share with my group, as we hadn’t found it yet. This program provides additional information on Evanti being an activist in her choice of repertoire. Additionally, I found a letter from the staff of the Philips Gallery regarding Lilian Evanti’s pay, in which they express their gratitude that she performed for them.

Between the correspondence, the program and the brochure, there is a sizeable amount of information on this performance. Tickets were $1.10, her pay was $100, and people clearly enjoyed the opportunity to listen to Evanti. Her program is incredible, spanning from Handel and Mozart to Hugo Wolf, to her own compositions to spirituals. Along with being impressive, these texts are incredibly meaningful and impactful, many of which are still performed today. Just under 3 years ago, for the St. Olaf Choir’s tour, they performed City Called Heaven. It’s a text I’ve performed in the past. Lilian Evanti was truly ahead of her time, and did not shy away from showing off her wide range of styles.

 

 

Work Cited

From the Archives: Lillian Evanti – The Experiment Station The Experiment Station (phillipscollection.org)

The Truth About American Music? It’s Closer To You Than You Think!

Posted on by
Reply

Lillian Evanti was a highly successful coloratura soprano in the 1920s-40s, performing and educating all over the country and abroad. Her success was charted in newspapers in many states, taking the form of advertisements, reviews, documentation of her appearances at dinner parties, book clubs, and other events, as well as other bits of news. One such advertisement appeared in the Plaindealer from Topeka, Kansas, on November 11, 1927.

Newspaper advertisement for her upcoming recital.
“Advertisement.” Plaindealer (Topeka, Kansas) TWENTY NINTH YEAR, no. FORTY FIVE, November 11, 1927: FOUR. Readex: African American Newspapers.

The blurb advertises a concert that evening in Kansas City, Missouri, and includes details of the time, place, and ticket pricing. Not only is this advertisement an interesting look into the culture of classical performing arts in the 1920s (imagine going to see a recital for 75 cents!), but it shows us that the history of American music is right in our communities. My hometown is only 30 minutes from Topeka, and an hour away from Kansas City. It is incredibly exciting to discover that your community plays a part in musical history, especially about an underrepresented artist that I never knew existed until we started our projects. 

Portrait of Lillian Evanti.
From this article: Forlaw, Blair. “Opera Diva Lillian Evanti.” DC History Center, March 24, 2021. https://dchistory.org/opera-diva-lillian-evanti/. Sourced from the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.

But this begs the question– why had I never heard about Lillian Evanti before this project? Could it be that there is simply too much history to be discovered and Evanti’s career and legacy have not risen to the top of the reading list yet? Could it be that as a Black woman she gets swept under the rug to make more space for white artists? A common term to describe artists of color is “underrepresented,” because they are precisely that. There is significantly less documentation and evidence of the careers and achievements of BIPOC artists, musicians, composers, poets, etc, which is an unfortunate effect of the legacy of racism and discrimination that was so prevalent in the past and still ingrained in the system today.

Lillian Evanti in costume for Verdi’s La Traviata.
Emilio Sommariva, Lillian Evanti wears opera costume from La Traviata, circa 1924-1935, Evans-Tibbs collection, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Box 1, Folder 3.

Perhaps the reason I never knew about Evanti is because we have been blatantly ignoring her and the other fantastic black women in music of the era in favor of white, European composers. We have a history of pushing away those that do not come from our communities. But the thing is– these artists are in our communities! I just proved that with a source from 30 minutes West of my hometown! Even though, sadly, there is less evidence of these amazing artists’ careers, it still exists! Especially in today’s age of online and digital databases and research possibilities, American musical history is right at our fingertips. The history of BIPOC artists is within our reach, we might just have to look a bit harder.

 

 

 

 

(Citations included in photo captions)

Lillian Evanti: We see her success but cannot hear it

Posted on by
Reply

Lillian Evanti was a prominent opera singer, and one of the first, if not the first African-American women to tour with a European opera company. Additionally, she was a founding member of the National Negro Opera Company, performing as Violetta in their performance of Verdi’s La Traviata. As a famous performer, Evanti gave concerts and recitals all over the United States and Western Europe. One such performance was at the Hall of Americas in the Pan-American Union, celebrating many Latin American composers.

Lillian Evanti with John Hoskins at the Pan-American Union.
Robert H. McNeil, Lillian Evanti and John Hoskins perform at the Hall of the Americas Pan American Union, 1946, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Box 26, Folder 54.

Evanti’s program included works from Mexican, Cuban, Argentinian, and Venzuelan composers (both women and men), an aria from Il Guarany, an opera composed by Antônio Carlos Gomes, as well as a few of her own original compositions. Her performance of a diverse range of composers shows that she uplifts silenced and underrepresented voices. Her contribution of original compositions for this occasion, “Himno Panamericano,” and “Honor a Trujillo,” not only shows musical virtuosity, but also a willing spirit to participate in diplomacy and international relations. 

Recital program, detailing the composers and pieces she performed, including her originals.
Program featuring Lillian Evanti and John Hoskins, Union of American Republics, 1946, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Box 32 Folder 29.

While researching Lillian Evanti, both for this blog post and for my group mapping project, I found myself confused and frustrated at the fact that recordings of Lillian Evanti singing either do not exist, or are extremely hard to come by. It made me wonder why such a prominent and successful singer was not documented in this way. In just a few simple google searches, I found recordings from two other female opera singers who were contemporaries of Lillian Evanti. So why are there no recordings of Evanti even though her contemporaries received this kind of documentation and legacy? Of course, I cannot say the true answer because I do not know. But I can only speculate as to why Evanti’s legacy lives on in pictures rather than audio. Even if she was a famous performer and traveled the world giving performances, the fact still remains that she was African-American. Her success was revolutionary and a great step towards diversifying the Western canon, but unfortunately her identity as a member of a marginalized community may have contributed to her lack of existent audio recordings compared to her contemporaries. While you might not immediately think about the repercussions of something that happened 80-100 years ago, this proves that the effects of racism and inequity are still felt today, as now we cannot truly discover the legacy of Lillian Evanti. We can read reviews of so many concerts, recitals, and other performances telling us how beautiful and lyrical her voice was, but as far as I know, we will never be able to hear her voice and understand part of why she was so successful.

Citations included in photo captions.