I Never Walked Alone

The Autobiography of an American Singer
By Shirley Verrett (with Christopher Brooks '80 MMus), John Wiley & Sons, 2003, $30 hardbound.

Shirley Verrett, the James Earl Jones Distinguished University Professor of Music, was an unhappily married 24-year-old real estate salesperson when she decided, “This career is ridiculous. I’m really a singer, and I’m ready to sing.”

From that point on, Verrett ascended to the top of the vocal world, starring at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Bolshoi Opera, Covent Garden, the Paris Opera any many more venues. Her rare mastery of both soprano and mezzo roles earned her a unique place in opera history, an achievement to which Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti attest in their warm forewords to this book. “I didn’t set out to put a tag on my voice,” Verrett says. “People are uncomfortable with that notion. They want to categorize you, put you in a box. I refused to be boxed in.”

Verrett’s discography includes several dozen records and CDs, all of which bear out the critics’ initial dubbing of her as “the Black Callas.” In fact, it was hearing Callas in Bellini’s Norma in 1956 (“I was mesmerized by her”) that made Verrett realize that the opera would free her to express the range of her emotions and intelligence as well as the beauty of her voice.

Verrett, who joined the U-M faculty in 1996, tells her life story with a frankness that belies the unusual path of her career, and the book immediately inspired feature articles and reviews in the New York Times newspaper and Book Review. Her artistry shines through in the prose of this life story, as she presents her early years of racial segregation, unhappy first marriage, health problems, operatic rivalries and the challenge throughout her life of trying to square her career with the moral strictures of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and her devout parents.

Church teachings and her parents’ beliefs made her feel that it was immoral to dance or to portray sinful characters, causing her a deal of anguish until she formulated her own spiritual beliefs.

At Michigan, Verrett has begun to send protégés from all over the world out onto operatic stages. “Professor is a title that I wear proudly,” she told students in 1997. “Teaching and college life suit me.”

Largely self-taught but also an alumna of Juilliard, Verrett fashions her teaching to the individual student. “I feel that vocal cords are like thumbprints. I try to teach each student according to what God put into his or her throat.”

Her ultimate lesson to her students? “I teach my students how not to be a prima donna or a primo uomo. It’s wonderful to be a prima donna in the true sense of the word but not the fake kind, the temperamental diva who goes around snapping at everybody.”

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