Camilla Williams' performance delights audience

I saw Camilla Williams, the 83-year-old opera soprano and the first black professor of voice at IU, sing 8 black spirituals to a crowd of over 100 at the Neal Marshal Education Center on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Williams performance was sponsored by the Collins Living Learning Center.\nWilliams is a ground-breaking performer. She was the first black performer to get a contract with the New York City Opera and then appear in a role not specifically written for a black performer. She played Cio-Cio San in "Madame Butterfly" in 1946. Williams soon played leading roles in Puccini's "La Boheme," Bizet's "Carmen," and Verdi's "Aida." After a 1947 recital in Richmond, Va., a critic with the Times-Dispatch said Williams could "create compelling moods in the realms of both beauty and deep pathos." \nBut while the art world recognized her talent and not her color, while touring she was still made to take the most expensive rooms while her white colleagues were allowed cheaper ones. And in some cases, she had to stay in people's homes, as hotels wouldn't take her in. Williams helped to overcome segregation when she sang at the 1963 Washington rally where Dr. Martin Luther King made his now famous speech "I Have A Dream."\nWhen she let out the first bars of "Ride on King Jesus," I was taken aback. I wasn't expecting her to belt out such a perfectly pitched note with her crystal clear vocal chords. The levels she put her voice at throughout her selections of the evening were amazing. The ups and the down were all performed with great agility as she sang other numbers like "This Little Light of Mine," and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."\nThe voice is a physical instrument. And just like the rest of the body, age takes its toll. But her voice was just as firm as her skin and as strong as her zest for life. There were a few points throughout the work where I thought she might be straining. And indeed there were certainly some points where she was a little crispy. But that is to be expected. Williams is an artist past her prime. But unlike Liza Minelli's recent appearance on Larry King Live, Williams didn't make an idiot out of herself trying to hit notes she couldn't. \nShe chose her pieces very carefully. They were simple, easy, and non-intricate pieces with chords easy for the veteran soprano to reach.\nOf Williams' performance, Dr. Estelle Jorgensen of the IU School of Music said, "She still sings with clarity and sweetness with great emotion and feeling." \nDr. Iris Yob, Academic Coordinator of the Collins LLC and says the event had been in planning since the fall of 2001 when an instructor named Stephanie Shonekan who teaches at the residence center proposed a class to Yob called "Black Women in Music." Of the class Yob says, "the course taught about diversity, arts, and had academic rigor." \nConcerning Williams, Yob continued, calling her "one of the treasures of the music world. We are very privileged to have her as a subject of inquiry in one of our Collins courses and her performance tonight for Collins and the whole community"