Grace Bumbry was born into a family of modest means, her father being a railway porter and her mother a housewife. After high school she won a radio competition when only seventeen singing ‘O don fatale’ from Verdi’s Don Carlo. The prize was a scholarship for further vocal study, which she undertook firstly at Boston University and then at Northwestern University. Here Bumbry came into contact with Lotte Lehmann, who became her mentor and subsequently taught her at at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. In 1958 Bumbry was a joint-winner, with the soprano Martina Arroyo, of the Metropolitian Opera Auditions, making her recital début the same year, in Paris. Her operatic stage début took place as Amneris/Aida at the Pa...