Anne Brown

S =Standifer
B = A. Brown

S We're at the home of Ms. Anne Brown in Oslo, Norway and are delighted to be here on this day of October 9, 1980. Ms. Anne Brown.
B Yes, and I'd like to with you "Galcome in Norwegian Belcome and Oslo"

S Danka. Thank you. Is that the way you would say "thank you" in Norwegian?
B In Norway we say "Toxgaluha it is bydetok"

S Ah, I see. Where are we now in your home?
B This is my living room. Let's see now, out there we have the cherries which overlooks the woods and a swimming pool on my terrace.

S While you walk out there I have a shot of your terrace and perhaps we can see a bit of you out there. All right.
B Lots of Norwegian pine trees and good air here. This is over Montebello. That's not a very Norwegian name "Montebello", but that's the name of this section here, because there is an old convent which was earlier run by Italian Nuns and they have gotten the name Montebello, so the whole section is called Montebello.

S I see. That wall over there has two very interesting faces on they are masks. That masks, for example.
B Actually, that's the head that should go over a fountain.

S Oh, I see.
B And I brought that from Italy--on one of my trips to Italy, where I have my second home.

S Ah, I see. Also, here is very interesting that there is a pool. We're up on the--is the first level or the second level?
B This is the first level. All of the apartments on the what in Norwegian is called une nictitating, which means "on the floor". They have swimming pools. All these apartments have swimming pools. The small swimming pool, my grandchildren call it a wading pool because they are such ____ swimming that they just jump into the sea and swim as far as they like. They're like fish.

S Are you able to use it in the winter should you like?
B No. It would be too expensive to keep it heated, and it freezes over. We never let the water go out of this swimming pool. It goes around and around and is washed in the tank which has sand in it. It goes through and it has chemicals which keep it clean.

S I see it's very, very clear, so...
B Yes, the water is clean.

S That filter system contributes to that cleanliness, obviously.
B Yes. Well it's very well filtered. I wouldn't attempt to drink it. The people who sold it to me said, "Well, if you don't have too much chlorine in it, you could even drink it because it's so clean.

S I see. Why don't we have you come in and we'll perhaps continue this. This is really a lovely room also. I might ask you this piece of furniture there on the wall. It looks, well, it's very interesting. Maybe you could tell us something about that.
B This is a cupboard from the Norwegian peasant culture. It's from the 18th Century--the early 18th Century. The painting of it, which was done about 100 years after the cupboard was first made.

S Can you describe the colors? This is in black and white.
B Yes, of course. This is the pale aquamarine blue and these figures are in a sort of orange-red. It's known as a peasant, really. Both of these colors--this is called bone worth blue color, and this one is a bone lift, really colorful.

S Has this been in your family for a great number of years, or is this something that you happened to purchase.
B Well, both. I say that we bought it--Martinston and I bought it.

S Well, we're actually here for a specific purpose which mainly is to find out more about Anne Brown and her role in the historic Porgy & Bess, which obviously is known internationally and to find out about the real Anne Brown behind the role. Could you just give us some idea about where you were born and some of the things you did as a child, particularly as it related to music.
B I was born in Baltimore--Baltimore, Maryland, on the corner of Crestnut andStukus Street. I had a fascinating childhood in many ways. I used to wander around the city when I dared to play hooky from school and wander, and I had and have 3 sisters, all younger than I am.

S Where are they now?
B Oh, scattered around the world. One lives in Paris, one lives in New York and the other lives in Washington, and here I am in Oslo.

S That in and of itself is rather unique, especially for someone let's say older than 50, for example, where the children are scattered and especially for Black families. Is there anything that you think that might have contributed to that in your family?
B The only thing I can think of is that my father never wanted us to go away from home. He wanted us all to be teacher, to be able to have a pension, he was a very conservative doctor. He wanted us to teach and then to get a pension when we were old and to stay in Baltimore. To contribute whatever we were capable of contributing culturally to the Black people and to the society as a whole, because he had, in spite of his conservativeness, he had a global wide and philosophical view of people and life itself.

S That's very strange or very interesting that you should choose a life that is not very secure, actually, it's most artists lives or not in terms of financial security and do you think that was because your father had given you such a secure life you had the confidence to go out, or what?
B That's quite possible. Yes, we had a very secure life, my sisters and I. I remember that my father had 4 daughters in college at one time.

S My goodness.
B I was at the Julliard School of Music where I won a scholarship. I had a sister at Howard University, one at Normal College in Baltimore and another at Boston University, she went to Sargeant School of Physical Education. And in this period that I'm thinking of now my father used to brag very much that he 4 of the daughters in college.

S Right. The fact that he was financially able to speak in and of itself was rather unique.
B Well, it wasn't unique. I don't think it was exactly that that he was bragging about. He was bragging about the fact that he produced 4 daughters that had grown up and wished to go to college and getting a higher education. My father stressed the fact that 4 Black people in education were a very important thing. It was a protection first of all. It may not protect you at every step of the way, but it was a certain security of protection.

S Well, I was speaking more, I guess, from the point of view the fact that being a professor it's incredible to even afford to have one child in school and he had four daughters. I know things were less expensive, but comparatively speaking, I would assume that it was just as expensive then for four as it is now for four in terms of income.
B Because salaries were lower. I mean, he earned less money then than he would be earning now, of course, because a doctor's fees are much greater now than they were at that time. But we managed.

S As girls, did all of you grow up in Baltimore?
B Yes. We grew up all of us in Baltimore. At least I left home when I was 15 to go to school in New York. I went to the Institute of Musical Art, which is a part of the JulliardSchool of Music.

S At 15 you entered?
B Yes, I was a little over 16. Actually my birthday was in August when I entered school in September. And, my sisters grew up and they left around about the same age--Henrietta. My next ___ lives in Washington now, and Henrietta Franklin she left around the same age, about the same age and went to Sargent School of Physical Education that is ___ ___ ___. I don't know how these things are now.So much time has gone by. I don't know whether Sargent School of Physical Education exists, for example, or not today. Do you know about that?

S I don't really know but that's certainly one of the things that I will check out when I get back too the States. Tell me, prior to going to New York, what kind of schooling did you have in the lower grades?
B In Baltimore I went to a school #1 ___ to 12 where I had a principal named George Murphy. A very fine man that I loved very much as a child, and I went to the Freddie Pelfis Junior-Senior High School. I went from the 8th grade to 4 years of high school. And I liked my schools very much, in spite of the fact that they were segregated schools. But we had some of the finest teachers that I think existed in the state. I had in High School two English teachers who were very, very fine and had some fine backgrounds. Yolanda Dubois was a daughter of W.
B . Dubois.

S Oh, my.
B One of our great educators and thinkers. And Mae Miller was a daughter of Dr. ____. What is his first name? Do you remember Dr. Miller?

S No.
B Also an educator. Very fine and intelligent people.

S Baltimore is the home of another famous Black musician, Ube Blake.
B Yes.

S I spoke to him on the phone before leaving the United

States and of course he sends his very fond regards.
B Thank you. You must give him mine when you see him again. Baltimore has produced a great number of musicians. I'm ashamed that I can't think of their names. But, Chick Webb, for example.

S Oh, really?
B He played with

S Ella Fitzgerald.
B Ella Fitzgerald for many, many years. He was from Baltimore, too.

S Thomas Kerr who retired from Howard University is from Baltimore. He's still living in Washington and he's a pianist. He's written quite a few things for N_____ Canderas(?).
B Oh, I didn't realize that he was from Baltimore. I was thinking he was from Washington.

S Well, I did, too. I interviewed him about a month ago and he indicated that his home--in fact, I believe his parents are still living in Baltimore. Are your parents still alive?
B No. My parents are both dead. I have lots and lots of cousins that are still living in America and when I take a trip there once in a while--I don't do it often--I plan to come next year.

S Ahh. Good.
B Then I visit all my cousins or as many of them as I can.

S Did you have any musical training while you were in school in the lower grades?
B Yes. I had my mother as a teacher first.

S So this was your private lesson at the home?
B My mother had to study singing herself, and she sang and played the piano and she was my first teacher. Then, I had a teacher by the name of Mrs. Reckling whose husband was my History teacher in High School. I studied a couple of years of voice with her when I was 13 and 14.

S Is this rather young to be studying voice?
B Yes it is. In a certain sense, it's too young. But I think she was a very wise teacher. She didn't force my voice at all, and she just kept me within the certain limits that a young person should be singing. And then, I sang anyway. I sang in the church choir. So it was good that I had some guidance, which kept me from doing too many wrong things. I have two pupils today among my pupils. I have two 12-year old girls and I do the same with them. I don't let them stretch their voices at all or as they say "in your oppressed voice". And just let them sing easily and lightly within that range which they sing now, but try to inspire them not to sing too loud or to do the things which young people can very easily do if they try to imitate famous singers.

S Well, speaking of imitating famous singers now, you grew up in a time and in a part of the country where there were a lot of famous singers both commercial and popular as well as classical artists. Did you imitate or were you prone to want to imitate the classical as well as the popular singers?
B Oh, yes. Well, not the popular because I always thought I couldn't do--I had a feeling that I can't manage this. And when I try to sing jazz or dance, my sisters laughed at me. They said, "You sing like a White person." And that was the worst insult I could think of. So I stopped singing or trying to sing jazz. And then I liked the classical music better. And I remember when I'd dance, they said, "Oh stop dancing. You dance like a White girl." It was terrible.

S Well, as a child...
B Today, of course, that doesn't go.

S Right. In fact it's completely seems to be a uniformed...
B Oh, yes. It's wonderful. Everybody is doing everything.

S And in the same way.
B I hear White singers who sing ___ ___ ___, well, you cannot tell the difference.

S Right, unless you really know who the person is actually singing.
B Yes.

S Now, as a child also, many singers, obviously Black singers get their first chances in the church, but I'm beginning to feel maybe this is a myth in a sense. Did you get a great deal of instruction in the church?
B Yes. Not instruction, but I got ­ you see, to learn to sing, you must sing. You're not going to learn if you sing at home. You have to go out and sing for the public, because the public or audience is partly your teacher. You sense after a while the reaction of the public and you get the feedback. That's the ____ expression coming from me.So the public, the audience is your teacher as well as ...

S What was the denomination of y our church?
B You mustn't ask me that. I've forgotten.

S I'll tell you why I ask it and why you think of it is that large numbers of Black singers, both popular as well as classical, have gone to the traditional churches such as the Baptist or the Methodist, where the singing for the most part is not oriented toward the classical orientation.
B More toward the shouts and Negro spirituals and that sort of thing. Well, I went for a while when I was very young. I went to Shevon Baptist Church which was just across the street from the house where I was born on Stricker Street. And there I sang in something called the BYPU--Baptist Young People's Union.

S Right. The BYPU.
B And that took place at 6:00 every Sunday afternoon, and most Sunday afternoons my sisters and I were there and very often we took part. We recited or sang. I don't think that we danced.

S Right.
B And I was 8 or 10 years old then.

S Very young. So you were getting
B 11 years old or 12 years old. And then, I think I was 12 years old when we moved from that part of the city to another part of the city on Madison Avenue. After we moved over there, then I went to another church and that church was Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.

S Well, I know the Presbyterian churches because I've attended. My father's Presbyterian and it's quite different from the Baptist. In fact, you don't say Amen and you don't do a lot of things that one does in the more traditional churches, of course.
B Right. Well there the music was, I should say, a little more classical. And I remember that we did oratorios and that sort of thing. So, that ...

S Were you reading music at the time that you ­ said you were about 8, 9, 10 years old. Have you learned?
B I had taken piano lessons and could read, but I can't say that 8 or 9 years old I just read immediately from the page. But I read music. You know music. You follow up and down, you know the notes go up or they come down and it's a short note or a long note. That's the way to learn to read. So I was learning to read.

S At that particular time.
B Learning to read and belonged to a choir.

S Now, I haven't heard you say a great deal about your mother.
B Well have I said much about my father?

S A great deal.
B Oh, have I?

S Was your mother from Baltimore for example?
B My mother was from Wilmington, North Carolina. And her brothers and her family were very musical. My father was not musical at all. He could hardly carry a tune. But my mother sang and played, of course I mentioned my mother. I said she sang and played and she was my first teacher. She had been a secretary in Oslo, in Watervleit, NY, up near Joy, NY and while there she had singing lessons and then she met my father while she was there and they married and came to Baltimore to live. My father was from Washington. He was born in Georgetown.

S Okay. Was your family one you might call patriarchal or matriarchal in its pattern or was it a partnership?
B Oh, it was patriarchal. My father laid down the law and though we tried to avoid as much as we could the oppression, he was what is known as a very strict, very stern father and we had many conflicts. My mother was the softer type. My mother tried to prevent the conflicts by standing between my father and we children. And of course that meant that she got many of the blows--not physical blows. And oh it was definitely patriarchal.

S When did you express the desire that music perhaps would be an area that you'd like to go into?
B Very early in my life.

S So your preparation began toward that end?
B Yes. When I was 6 years old and my sister, Henrietta, was 4, we entertained the soldiers that had not yet been dismissed from the Army Quarters in Baltimore. I remember that one of the numbers that we sang was "A Good Man is Hard to Find". There we sang jazz.

S Right.
B And danced. And we sang "Shimmy" "Shimmy Shewable". Do you remember that?

S I know the name, but...
B Such a thing. And another one about a "Red Cross Nurse". What was that? "The Rose of No Man's Land." Good heavens. How many years ago is that? Well, in two years I'll be 70 years old, so that's more than

S 70?
B Yes.

S Well, I think you have just shocked our viewers anyway who think that such a gorgeous face that you have and in appearance.
B Well, I don't feel 70 if that's any special 70-year old feeling, or 68 years old, which is what I am today.

S Well, maybe some of this Norwegian weather has something to do with it, too.
B Oh, no. I come from a line of people that live to be 100 and 106 and 98, my grandmother was 98 when she died--my mother's mother. And my mother's brothers were 95, 93 when they died, and my father had a great uncle or a great grand uncle who 106 years old when I met him.

S So longevity runs deeply into your family I see.
B Yes. Well, I've tried to keep myself in good condition and not do things to excess which can ruin your health and your body and all that, so I think it's because of the stock I come from.

S Tell me, when you went to New York at such a young age, were you able to live alone or did you live in a boarding house or ___?
B No, I didn't live alone. My father would never have approved of that. As a matter of fact, I had a great problem making my father agree to send me finally to New York. I lived with my aunt and uncle. My Uncle Willie Wiggins who was an unknown violinist, my mother's brother, and his wife, Martha. I lived with them for the first two years of my life in New York as a student of the Julliard School of Music. And then I got a room with a young couple. She was a pianist and she accompanied me very often. So, it was a very nice arrangement and they were very nice people.

S Now, this was at Julliard. You entered from Baltimore into the Institute ...
B Into the Institute of Musical Art. Yes. I came to New York, had an audition with Frank Demrush(?)

S Is this _____ anywhere near _____?
B .._____ to Demrush.

S Brother?
B The brother.

S I see. And he was teaching there at ______ Institute?
B He was the--well, I've forgotten what you call it--director of the school.

S Probably something like a Dean.
B the Dean. Of course. He was the Dean of the school ____ ____ and he _____...

S Do you recall what your audition numbers were? Many of us forgot or forget. I remember mine distinctly because I blew them both.
B Well, I was rather sure of myself. I sang two Schubert songs in English--"Who's Sylvia", and "Hark, Hark, the Lark". Both of these songs are ___ ___ English.

S Who wrote the words to "Who is Sylvia" do you recall?
B Wadsworth.

S Wadsworth.
B I can't remember. Well anyway, it's a well-known English and does it come from The Lady in the Lake? No. Well, I can't remember now for the moment. I should remember that. I sang these two songs and he was very pleased.

S Do you remember any personal critiques that he might have given you afterward?
B No, but I remember that he asked me if I had any hobbies. And I said, "Well, yes. Painting. I would like to study painting." And he looked at me and said, "I've known you, Lady. You should know that you can't sing for two ____. And if you're going to be a musician you should concentrate on music and music alone."

S How did you respond if you responded at all? Here was a 15-year old girl, has been given a rather unique charge in a sense, and what was your response, if anything?
B Well, I thought he's ____ of course because if you're going to be a good painter you have to concentrate as much on that as you do on music as any other art, of course. But, you know, I hadn't meant it exactly that way. I meant that I'd like to learn to paint as a hobby. But when I said I'd like to be a painter, too, I think that's what I said. I think I said "I'd also to be a painter. To paint pictures."

S While you were at the institute, when did you begin to take roles either in opera or small dramatic parts as one does in Institutes of Music? Your second or third year?
B Well, actually, the schools at that time were not so very much concerned with an opera as they were ___ ____.

S It was not performance oriented?
B Oh certainly, and being _____ and songs, French songs or Italian songs, German, Spanish. I had a very wide and very varied repertoire when I ___ ____.

S Were you required to give, to write a concert or juries as we call them now?
B Yes. Yes. We had concerts after the second year, or we took part in programs, or we had a group of songs. I think that's the general plan for most conservatories.

S And then in New York were you able to accept any quayside professional engagements prior to your completion of your education?
B Well, professional is in a very small way in YMCAs, churches...

S Barmitzfka(?)
B ...yes. And things like that and women's clubs and schools. That sort of thing. And then, after I had done 4 years and graduated, then I began giving concerts in colleges, very many in the Negro colleges.

S Did you have an agent at the time?
B No. I didn't. My mother usually arranged those things.

S How did you find yourself--were you accepted very well on these first tours?
B Yes. Do you mean did I have success?

S I guess when I say accepted, yeah, do you find them successful tours or did you...
B Yes. Very successful. Or perhaps when you're in my youth and enthusiasm and ____ I thought they were more successful than they were, but I think they were _____ successful. And then I did two more years of teaching at the same school.

S Where was this now?
B The Julliard School of Music.

S Oh, you taught there also.
B I didn't teach there, I had a course in teaching, and I had a course in something called Maturity in Singing. That was after I had graduated from 4 years. And before I was finished with this school I met George Gershwin.

S This was after you had gone ­ now, was this before or after you had done some of the tours of the Black colleges?
B Oh, this was after.

S I see.
B I met George Gershwin and then begins the story of...

S How did you meet George Gershwin? I mean, how does, I would assume that George Gershwin even at that time had produced many popular tunes
B Oh, yes.

S And had a name.
B Oh, and his musical comedies. Oh, indeed. He was world famous.

S So, how did a young aspiring singer meet George Gershwin?
B Well, I was very courageous. I read in the newspaper. I've written all of this in my book. You know, last year I wrote a book which is produced in Norway, in Norwegian.

S Does it have an English counterpart?
B No. Not yet. I hope that will come. But, I tell about this in my book. I read in the newspaper that George Gershwin was writing an opera based on the story of Porgy, upon which I'd heard very much from my mother and father many years before. I think they had gone to New York to see a performance of "Porgy" which was ___ ____ ___ with NBC ____ ___. I wrote him a letter saying that I was a student at the Institute of Musical Art, a soprano, and I would like to come and sing for him and perhaps have a small part in his opera. And I received a telephone call from his secretary a few days later asking me if I would come down. They loved music and sent a message to Gershwin. Which I did.

S You had never met him before that time?
B No. But he was hearing everybody at that point. When I met him he had only written his manuscript of "Porgy & Bess". He had only written about four pages.

S Oh, he began.
B He had just begun really putting it down on paper.

S Now, how old were you at this time, Anne?
B Well, I must have been 19. 18 or 19 or 20. Let's see. I have to think about that, but I've already said that I was 68, so I don't have to try and ____.

S Right. Well, I was trying to establish that because as a young girl, this is quite a ...
B Well, I had gone for 4 years at the Julliard School and I began that when I was 16. So, after that, 19, and then I was doing 2 more years. I must have been 20 years old.

S So, you knew where you were going and you had evidently had some plan perhaps to get there.
B Oh, yes.

S And perhaps George Gershwin was a part of those plans as you wrote him anyway.
B Oh, he became one, yes indeed. Because I mean it gave me the push I needed right at the very beginning of my career. As a matter of fact, I have said that I've never been able to leave town doing Bess. Well, that's a rather ambiguous statement, not that A blank skip in the tape here.

S You had just met George Gershwin, indeed he had begun the first part of his opera "Porgy & Bess". Could you pick up then and let us know just how you became involved with this role of "Bess"?
B That's a, I think, rather interesting story that I had the opportunity, the honor of following the writing of this opera from nearly the beginning right through to the finish. I used to go down to George Gershwin's apartment--wonderful duplex apartment. For the moment I can't remember what street it was on.

S Well, that's not important anyway.
B And sing all the different roles as he wrote them. I sang the music for the tenor, for Sporting Night, for Porgy, for Mariah, for Clara, for Serena, as well as Bess's music. As fast as he wrote it, he would telephone and say, "Come down. I want you to sing something." I'd go down and sing it and he sang with me. He sang when there were duets, he sang... You know, he would play the melody first for me and I would sing it over and then we sang it two or three times and then if it was a duet, he would sing the other part.

S Was he a good singer himself?
B No.

S Mostly folk...
B Amusing and funny voice that cracked all over the place. And he shook his head and his chin moved up and down when he sang, which was completely charming and believe me, I mean, you know what he meant. You know what he was thinking and you got the melody and the feeling of it and everything else, but it was completely anti-singing, if you can call it that. This went on for a year or more.

S And did he actually geared this role or patterned or tailored this role for you then almost.
B He not only did that, but when I asked him one time much later, the theater guild was to produce Porgy & Bess and they had another singer that had been very successful in the musical comedy the year before. And they had suggested to him that she sing the role of Bess.

S Who was this?
B Oh, don't ask me.

S Was she Black
B Yes. Of course she was Black and beautiful and talented. She didn't have a classically trained voice at all and of course that's what George Gershwin wanted for the role, the important roles of Porgy & Bess and Serena to be well schooled in the classical tradition in order to sing that music.

S Well, how is that you won out over this beautiful competitor? And talented.
B Do you mean to say that I was no competition for a beautiful Black girl? That's true. I wasn't. You are quite right.

S No. I didn't mean that at all.
B Now, I've got you. But I'm going to explain something else what I mean by saying that. You know, I always lived between two worlds. I wasn't white enough to be White and wasn't black enough to be Black. And you know in a certain sense that's a terrible thing. I don't want to say I wasn't accepted, but of course, you know how I was not accepted by the Whites. I could have sung lots of roles on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera. I was 20 years before my time, I often say, where the Metropolitan Opera was concerned. George Gershwin wrote this role with my voice in mind. He wrote it for me and I remember asking him one time, near the time that we were to sing and it was to be decided who was to sing the roles by the Theater Guild. I said to him, "Well, what if they want this other singer? What if they take her instead of me?" He said, "Over my dead body."So I was quite sure that they would have great difficulty getting him to take another singer for that role.

S Well, in his concept of realizing the potential for makeup, your fair appearance doesn't strike one as a typical Bess now, while in his concept of the role was it a fair Bess, a fair complexion woman?
B No. No. No. I remember another thing he said to me one time. You'd know Ann Brown, or he said Annie, because that's really my name "Annie".

S Oh, I didn't know.
B He said, "You know, Annie, Bess was a very Black woman." He said, "Have you read Dubois ___ ___ novel, "Porgy"? I said "No. I haven't." I read it soon afterwards. " But she was a Black woman, or course." He said, "But I don't see any reason why my Bess shouldn't be café au lait. Do you?" I said, "No. No. I definitely don't." And that was the first hint that I had that he really meant me to sing Bess.

S Let me ask you another question, and this is a leading one. Obviously, well at what point had he gone to Charleston to study?
B After that first year he went.

S This is after he had?
B After that first year I knew him.

S I see. So then maybe after visiting Charleston he might have even been more confirmed in his use of you as for the role because, obviously, you at that time and still are large numbers of Black women in Charleston who have the appearance of the cafe au lait, because of the nature of the city and that culture at the time, did he ever mention any of that of his impression of the Mulattos that were in that particular social structure upon his return from Charleston?
B No. He didn't. And I don't think that entered into his considerations at all. I think that he wanted a Black singer--well, in this case you have to say "Black" in quotation marks.

S Well maybe black in back ground and understanding
B Black in cultural background and in experience black in family and he wanted a trained singer. And he wanted one that had certain personality that he evidently found in me. And that was that. And the make up could take care of the rest of it.

S Did you have the dramatic training when you first auditioned or worked with Gershwin? Cause obviously this roll requires some very fine acting.
B No I was still conservatory pupil I was still a student. But I had always taken part in school musicals and operates and all through my life from the age of six on I must have had one or another kind or roll generally the leading roll in some school production or amateur production well you see that is just ____, but one learns to assess the audience reaction and the people who play with you and you get corrections and praise and all that so you build up a kind of shall I say technique for acting. You can depend on your self on certain things, now this is not to be compared with experienced actor by any means, or an opera singer or anything.

S Were you provided dramatic coaches after the roll was given to you?
B Well of course we had the great Hollywood Ruben _____ as our stage director and he gave me lots of, and gave order and lots of tips and ______.

S At what point and I'll get back to this..
B I am doing very very_______.

S And very quickly from what I've been able to read about you.
B Yes I did, I picked the lot very quickly because I fill my self completely 100% into it. I lived Bess. And you know

S What kind of research since you said you lived Bess did you do after you found you had this roll, what kind of research did you do in order to become Bess?
B Well research, well maybe I shouldn't say I lived Bess, because Bess was quite a women, what I mean in my heart and in my imagination and in my thoughts and in my studies and thinking I was living Bess all the time. I practiced and all the time I was in rehearsals and I didn't got on the stage.

S Did you do any particular thing or visit any places to get a better feel for it?
B No, no I didn't

S Any reading?
B Oh reading yes, but I'd always read a lot and I talked to people who knew types like that and I talked to George Gershwin very much. And I talked to some of the other people who were in the cast who had much more experience. No actually I was a very inexperienced school girl from terrible conservative background and actually when I did Porgy and Bess second time several years later, I had learned so much more about life and then experienced so much more that I believe it was quite another interpretation.

S A much more mature...
B Much more mature.

S Lets get back to first production however, was this initially intended for Broadway or was it going to be produced elsewhere? What was the first production?
B Well you know there are lots of stories written about Porgy and Bess and what it was intended for and opera. You know the Metropolitan Opera talked about producing it long before it was written. I think that was really the original part idea, that Porgy as it was called in the beginning was to be an American Opera which would be produced at Metropolitans stage, and then something happened and it didn't come off. And then it was talked about and until finally the theater guild decided to produce it. And they actually commissioned George Gershwin to write it.

S All the theater guild?
B Yes

S Well perhaps this had some influence on the Metropolitan Operas not producing it.
B I don't know, I don't think the Metropolitan Opera, you know what the policy was at that time. They probably didn't want to have black people on the stage

S Especially an all black case. Were there any whites at all?
B They probably decided that whites couldn't do it and they were not going to have blacks doing it.

S Were there any blacks, when Mary _____ had not appeared either.
B No no, much later Mary _____came in 55' I believe.

S Oh I see, well now when this was finally produced then where did it open?
B You know I have terrible memory. When I wrote my book, I went back and found all my old programs and all the old things from the original production from the premier in Boston and New York and all that and now suddenly it must have been the Alvin Theater on 52nd St.

S Was the theater a good house?
B Oh yes it was a good house. It was a good house and Porgy and Bess is a big production. Of course it could be done_____.

S So as you were saying this had opened up you think at the Alvin Theater, and was this an on or off Broadway house?
B Well it was an off Broadway , but it was a Broadway house, it was 52nd St.

S Was your first night a sell out?
B Oh yes....oh yes indeed. It was history making. Sensational.

S Do you remember sitting up for the reviews the following night?
B I must have I can imagine that I did anything else.

S Do you recall the performance where many people still go to Sartied?? Or some place?
B In those days my dear professor, we black people didn't go to Sarties.

S Where did the black people go especially the actors BSmall places along the streets, occasionally in some of those restaurants the smaller restaurants and on Broadway particularly places, not even places like Lindies. Does Lindies still exist in New York?

S I think so.
B We went to the Chinese restaurants or the Automate, there were some few restaurants, we were not welcome in Sartied.

S Even in theater the racism was a ramped then as it
B Racism was ramped in most places even among artist and theater people, now of course exceptions to the rules and the higher up you were the less chance there was the higher up a person was less change there was in finding real racial predigest. Simple come over that dimension, but oh yes we had lots.

S When did Todd Dunkin join the to your knowledge join the cast and where did you first have an opportunity to perform with him in this roll?
B I had performed with Todd Dunkin in little opera company that Para chi and _______. Somewhere in New York somebody put it up for Negro singers and we did that in New York. And I knew Todd Dunkin before that and I told George Gershwin about him at the same time that Abby Mitchell told George Gershwin about him. I think it was the same day, because George said I heard about this man today from Abby Mitchell and he is coming to New York to sing for me. And the minuet George heard him, there was no other change that anyone would be Porgy except Tom Dunkin.

S I see
B But the roll was very, he had written very much of the roll, but I tell you another thing which is history making, and I wonder that Todd hasn't written or said something about this before, I haven't heard. But Todd sang as audition the song of the flea. For George Gershwin. And George Gerswin liked it so much that he wrote buzzards some which in his mind resembled to a certain extent the song of the flea, because Todd Dunkin or Porgy had to laugh in it. He made it a song where Porgy would laugh because in the song the Flea there is so much acting and drama and laughing and snarling and all that, that I truly believe George Gershwin got, I remember it that he got the inspiration from writing the buzzard song.

S Did you at the time the press the media ever try to.....I should ask that question again. Did the media ever try to match up Todd Dunkin and Anne Brown as in done in Theater and television and movies today where to make the production more popular they talk about the principals of the production? Did that type of thing go on with Porgy?
B No.

S And perhaps that because it was an opera...
B Well you see there again, the hush, you have the racial predigest coming in you see why should the white romanticize black people.

S I see
B Now they do that, at that time it was never done.

S It might have given some added importance to the black ...
B It might have made them more human like other people.

S That's brilliant I think that might have made them loved and laughed and hated us as all people did.
B I can't remember that at that period you say such references to love affairs or such things between black people. They certainly didn't do it with us.

S Can you think of say an interesting vignette that might have happened under the direction on stage when you might have sung the roll of Bess one way and maybe the director said why don't you try it this way or that way. Can you think of any? I am thinking about the production you put on at Michigan. And I am thinking also about some of rolls of Bess where perhaps Bess isn't sassy enough the first time or .
B Oh well I always got I got lots of criticism from ______and particularly the other member of the cast that I should be more , more what shall I call it, more perhaps more

S seductive?
B Perhaps more seductive, but wilder. I can't remember exactly. I was, as I said before I was a "very refined" I am not proud of it, but I was that . I had to learn to loosen up and break out of a , well I wouldn't call it a shell, because it wasn't a personal thing exactly. You know what I mean?

S Yes you were just a product of...
B I was a product, and I broke out to a great extent well my father was shocked when he saw me on the stage as Bess, being thrown literally from one man to another and showing my legs and taking dope and being almost raped on the stage by Crown you know? He was absolutely shocked.

S Not only you father, what did the black community think about Porgy and Bess, which wasn't very complimentary in some ways to black people.
B No, no and there were reactions from groups that said that Porgy and Bess was not a worthwhile production because of the theme. Even my father who at this particular situation at such a situation was rather broad minded. He meant that every thing in a sense should shown. You shouldn't say, you can't show this because it's negative thing. But even he said Porgy and Bess disappointed me because it emphasized the myth that the Negro is this type. That he says 'yes lord' and 'sure mister Charlie' and so on and so forth and that he is afraid of the police and me. The play and the opera both illustrated quite properly that the Negro was afraid of the police and that he better be if he didn't want his head knocked off or something like that at that point.

S Do you think _______captured the essence of black community in Charleston on catfish row?
B Well not having ever been to Charleston, I can't say that exactly, but I think that ______would book Porgy which I read a second and third time since I have been in Norway, captures wonderfully beautiful way the character of Porgy and those people who were his friends and associated in cat fish row.

S How true is the book to the opera or the opera to the book rather?
B Well rather true. I was too young to have seen the first Porgy, the stage play. _____________. But I understand that was quite different.

S And that was presented in the New York School?
B Oh yes it traveled all over to Europe as well. It probable did a tour and then after words to England. The cast ended up in Russia. I remember Georgette Harvey who traveled with three other ladies, they had a quartet they went all the way to Russia and they had to escape from Russia and get back to the United States by way of Japan.

S Who were some of the other principle blacks in your production the first production of _______production of Porgy and Bess.
B Well Todd Dunkin of course, my dear Porgy, and Bubbles played...

S John Bubbles, I will be talking to John Bubbles probably in umm, he's in California. He's 92?
B Yes he must be now.

S He just appeared incidentally, Ms Brown in a beautiful production called Black Broadway and they had principals such as John Bubbles Adeliade, Oh I can't think of her name, umm, Edith Wilson, Honey Coles. Quiet a few older Black Americans
B Not Adelaide Hall was it?

S I believe so
B I don't know,

S Maybe it was another Adelaide, these were members of a variety of black cast to include noble and _____ plays, sort of a review or a re-introduction of blacks on Broadway. It was to be on for four days, and it ran for four weeks and it was very interesting.
B That is was I regret. That is the only regret about leaving and having lived so long in Europe that is that I have missed out on taking part in the Negro Revolution as it was called in Europe.

S How did you end up coming to Europe?
B I was in Europe for a concert tour, and I met a Norwegian that I married, it was as simple as that.

S And after being married you chose to take hold of your husband???
B Well yes.

S Did you ever travel back to the United

States after your marriage?
B I haven't been back for twenty years.

S So you really cut your strings
B Well I concretized in Europe for many years. I was, I gave birth to a daughter. I had my older daughter Paula who came with my to Europe and stayed here and has lived here ever since and has married.

S This is the daughter of the first husband, what is his name? Pettit. Her name is Paula Pettit Schjelderup.
B She took my husbands name. She was adopted legally by my husband ___________. Paula was 11 years old when her sister was born, whose name is Faun.

S How do you spell Schjelderup. (she spells) What is his first name.
B Tour life (sp?)

S I was wondering if it would Paul Schjelderup or John , no such luck. Will you pronounce that first name again?
B Tour life

S Tour life Schjelderup
B You know Tour was the god of thunder. And Tour life means the life of Tour.

S What is Schjelderup a very old Norwegian name?
B Schjelderup is an old, actually a Danish name. You know the Scandinavian names are very quaint. They very often a man takes his second name from the place where he lives, might be called for example, John Oslive, when Oslive was a little town. Well the name Schjelderup actually means the farm where the roads divide. So here is a man named Tour life the farm where the roads divide.

S And having a daughter at 11 years old. That's in its self rather interesting. First of all an American daughter a child who comes in to a new country a new life and ....
B Yes she came here when she was 8 years old.

S Oh, 8, and she entered in what is for the most part a total Anglo-Saxon community.
B Well Scandinavian

S Ok, and also being the daughter of an artist having to travel anyway, but still it is hard enough being that daughter or child of us common folks
B Don't be too modest.

S So Paula I know opera now and she is a very well developed very mature well adjusted person, but how did you nurse her through those what could have been some rather turbulent years for a young girl whose just opening up to the world and to every body.
B I don't know sometimes I wonder if I did a good job at all with my children.

S Well we all wonder that
B You know I was away very much. I was constantly tired sleep all the time and when_____was born which was three years after Paula came to Norway three years after I was married, I kept on concretizing. I was lucky to have people who were very kind and efficient to look after the house and the children. But as I said before I wonder, and in later years I began to worry even though Paula as you say is very well balanced, and seems to be a happy person and all that, I have the idea that perhaps she had many problems which I didn't know enough about because I was away so much. As a matter of fact, that was a great conflict in my life during the years when I had a family here in Norway and was concretizing all the time. You know who was it that said you should have a new, expect to have new personal life then you are a concert artist.

S I don't recall but it certainly is a true statement I would imagine.
B Of course many people have said it perhaps. But personal life, I mean family life that sort of thing. You are divided, you are split.

S Well certainly you belong to your public. If you choose to be an actress or public figure, you have to also except the figure the fact rather, that you belong that you have trust to the public.
B Well I've never thought that I belonged to the public the audience. I believe that I belong to my art. And it was the art to which I had to be faithful and what ever else you called it. And that the public could take part in experiencing that condition, rather then belonging to the public, because........... Long break

S From her living room through her window, and what we see in Feurd which I think is incredible beautiful. The trees what you see are pine trees. You also see the rolling mountains or hills near the Feurd and I hasted to do this because it is getting increasingly dark here. It is dusk I'll maybe add, but I did want to show this beautiful view.
B Its 5 o'clock on October the what day is this the 8th?

S October the 9th. And could you describe this view that we are seeing a little a bit more. The trees that we are seeing since it is October what you don't see of course it the colorful beech and birch wood trees mixed in with the ever green.
B Norwegian pines.

S Norwegian pines, and there's a house that's very quaint that you are seeing I now. I can only say that perhaps Ms Brown could give us something. Is it a private home?
B It is abandoned house it's in good condition, but there is no one living there not. And the people who once owned it were the ones who sold this whole mountaintop on which all of our apartments are built. Sold it to the people who built these Terries apartments.

S Well that's the kind of house that I think that if I'd move to Norway I would purchase.
B Maybe you could buy that one.

S It would cost a fortune (laughing)
B I don't know I guess every thing expensive in Norway. (break)
B ..... would probably another time you might have public things it is not so discriminating.

S Right. Then too I was thinking primarily that unfortunately once and artist or a public figure must admit that there lives to a certain extent becomes public, and often you can't have some of the privileges that private person has.
B That is absolutely right. And I believe that there is a responsibility, which goes with all public people. Its very popular to say that I must realize that my self and that my life is my life and because I am a politician or an artist or one that people admire and even copy that I can do what I please. I have never believed that one could do what one pleased in any respect if you were a public figure. That you have a responsibility.

S Did your children such as Paula and what is your other daughter's name?
B Vohr, which really means spring.

S Oh beautiful. If either of those girls take music or espier to be musicians?
B You know Norwegians are very permissive. And I had to fight against a lot of things. That may be the wrong way of putting it, but that's the way I felt. That I had to try to get these children to do things, which the society as a whole didn't support.

S In other words, it sounds like Anne Brown between a third world. We talked about Anne between two worlds, the black and the white and now a third world where you came from not a very permissive society or family to say the least because you became a very reserved young woman not because you were part of a permissive family.
B No I wasn't a very reserved young woman at all. (laughing)

S But certainly you weren't the product of a permissive family,
B No

S In the way we talk about the permissiveness in Norway and so there you were with daughters
B In a society

S In a society, which is very different, then the one that produced you
B Yes quite right. And my husband's background is quite different from mine in just that respect. Because his were a very permissive, every things goes.

S So then your daughters had to function somewhere between your up bringing and views and your husbands up bringing and views.
B Yes and that's probably why I feel sometime or have felt sometimes that I didn't do a good enough job, I don't know what else I could have done. But they are, they seam to be well-adjusted people. Not too well adjusted, I mean not too adjusted. I don't like that word. (laughing) but they are individuals and they are creative and they are to a very great extent free.

S I see what do you do here in Ostenbal (?) Ms Brown? Currently, besides living, what kind of work do you do?
B I just live! I teach at the theater school. I teach singing. And I have private pupils and I have a stage directed opera at our one Norwegian Opera.

S Have you ever participated in a production of Porgy and Bess?
B Yes I have. I have done Porgy and Bess here, which was a big success. I had several Americans who came and sang solo parts, American singers.

S Has it been done in Norwegian?
B It was done in English, they felt they couldn't translate of course quiet right that opera can't really be translated.

S To any other language it would be so
B It would be quite a job and I also produced Porgy and Bess in five different French cities in Moar (?), Starsbuerrg, Mease, Marse _______, Viau and one other, lets see I have forgot.

S So you have a record pretty much close to that to the first choral producer Eva Jessie who tells us she's produced it countless times.
B Yes Eva Jessie has been consulate and advisor many, many times of Porgy and Bess, she has her roots deep in that she was even an advisor to George Gershwin. I think I mentioned that to you before. So often in the rehearsals, George Gershwin would turn to Eva Jessie who directed the choir and say is that right is that the way it is to be done. And she's say yes or no and he'd listen to it. Eva Jessie has a marvelous background and really deep routs in black peoples history and so on.

S Now you were mentioning that Dr. Jessie was quite knowledgeable about black music and the black experience. As a Bess did she ever give you any pointers in performance of that roll?
B Oh yes.

S Such as?
B I can't remember...I am sure she did.

S Did she ever in voice production or in carriage.
B Not it voice production. Not is carriage, but in type and in explaining. She very often or from time to time she would say something that would give me a better understanding of the type that Bess was.

S De Jessie is a very very strong personality. In other words she probably couldn't survive or could not have survived if she wasn't. Did you ever have any confrontations with her during your roll as Bess?
B No. Well I can remember one thing. I said to her one time that when you know George Gershwin wrote "Along with Bess" (?) for me, oh no he didn't she said, don't tell me that. He wrote it for any singer who would sing it. I laughed and said yes of course every composer writes for every singer who will sing it, especially every good singer. Then I told her what I told you about him saying about that if another person got that roll it would be over his dead body and we argued it back and forth for a while and I don't know why she said that , because I think it was quite obvious that he had had my voice in mind from the very beginning in writing.

S In the number of times that you have sung that roll of Bess, how many different choral directors have you performed with or under, such as Dr. Jessie?
B The choral directors or stage directors?

S Well what was Dr. Jessie's roll?
B She directed the chorus . The singing part as well as some of the some suggestions as to movements of the grouping and all that. But of course, _______ did all of the what could be called staging. In the original production. And then we had a wonderful stage director, not so famous as _______, but a very very good man, names Bob Ross, who did the second production of Porgy and Bess which opened on Broadway in 42' I suppose it was.

S Was Bob Ross a black person?
B NO

S Did you ever perform under or with a black stage director?
B No.

S Was there ever a push as there is today to have blacks so things that are either ostensible black or that is Porgy and Bess black
B Not in my day.

S Especially if these were important rolls such as director and producers.
B Not in my day

S Have you experienced any of this sort in the hast few years in your production.
B That's the terrible thing about it terrible, but one of the things that I am glad about living in Europe is all these new trends that I missed. This new trend in the direction pushing blacks in to positions which they should have had all along which they were capable and had the background for doing all along. That suddenly we are confronted with a new way of life in which a few of them and perhaps even now not enough you know that better than I do because you are living in America and I am not, suddenly they are getting some of the things they should get. You know I had a funny experiences, strange experiences, when I produces Porgy and Bess, stage directed it as its called in America, in France I had six at one time six American Black singers in leading rolls.

S Is that unusual, or was
B Yes that was unusual but the production was done first or rather the first sponsors of the first production in France at that time was eleven years ago, was the American embassy and we did Porgy and Bess in Turoose. Ahhh, I had lots of conflicts with the black people.

S For what reason do you think?
B I think that black people are often suspicious of there own people. I sorry to say. And I was a woman. Eleven years ago it was as close as eleven years is to today. A woman who was black would have difficulty with other black people particularly if she was directing if she was in the authority if she was telling them what to do. I was conscious that this might happen and I believe that I was rather cautious and I hope not unnaturally so but cautions and for example I never said to an actor or a singer this is wrong what you are doing. You mustn't do it that way. I would go over to him and take him aside and say, do you think we might try another way of doing it. I see it from out here and you see from a stage and so on and so forth. I actually had difficulty with them and I think it is or was because I was both black and I a women.

S And of course women were both producers in theaters and movies white and black are still having it tough because men had dominated in these rolls of authority.
B But I must also add that these performances were a tremendous success and there hasn't been any Porgy and Bess in France since that time even the production from America there was more successful. And that was confirmed in Herald Tribune about two years ago when an American production was there. They referred these performances to the ones which I had produced ten years before.

S Were your reviews at that time, were you reviewed and were they good?
B Excellent. And another thing which happened, was that I was sort of star on the productions. Rather than the singer who were doing it because I had been the first Bess, I was producing this statement, so they had pictures of me in the papers before the premier and I think this singers were just a little bit jealous and thought that they should get all the attention and that I should take a seat in the back where I belong. But I didn't do it, the productions were very successful. Now that I have spoken so in "badly" about some of the singers, I don't want to say who they were. But they are some very fine singers.

S Did you ever see...
B One that I didn't any trouble with and who was a marvelous Sporty was a man who is playing, what is that review, production on Television?

S Oh um Benson?
B Benson!

S Oh really?
B Yes Bob Geom.

S and he sang Sporty Life
B He had a gorgeous voice and he sang opera in Vienna and Europe and other places. I mean not just Sporty Life, that he sang and he was I think together with Bubbles these two were the best

S Did bubbles play Sporty Life in the original production?
B He's the original and then Evan Long came after words. He was a marvelous Sporty Life too.

S Evan Long was in the second production was he not?
B Evan Long was in the second production Evan Long and I went to high school together in Baltimore.

S Oh I see both of you are from the same place. Is Evan Long living now or do you know?
B Yes I think so, I say him in something on the Norwegian television on one of these imports we have from the states. Not so long ago.

S In the second production, did Dr. Jessie also act as the choral director?
B Yes

S At the second production was Gershwin still alive at that time?
B No. The second Broadway production that I am talking about. But even then we had a serious of performances in California in 1938. That's such a long time ago.

S Now in the 30's
B And even then Gershwin had died.

S Was Ira Gershwin ever around or doing the rehearsals or performances?
B Oh yes all the time in the original rehearsals. But I never knew him I never got to know Ira Gershwin very well

S Were you involved in other rolls or other rolls or other performance media at that time of Bess production or you were so ensconced in that roll you didn't have any time
B Not much else at that time. No we did a absolutely mad thing. And if I had lost my voice, now you know I haven't sung for many years, because I have asthma and had to stop singing because of that. My breath was just cut off by asthma. My vocal chords were in good condition and I never lost my voice, but you can't sing if you haven't breath. (break in tape)

S As you were saying you can't sing if you don't have breath.
B No if you have asthma your breath doesn't flow in singing the breath must flow. Singing is on the breath. So that was that. But you asked about what else I had done while I was doing Porgy and Bess, I said we did a mad thing all of us. We sang up to eight performances a week.

S My goodness.
B At times I sang six evenings and two matinees

S You obviously weren't union at the time.
B I was, no, well we belonged to an Actors equity, but there's another thing. They didn't stop us.

S Nor did they protect you very well.
B Nor did they protect us. They....

S Did that aggravate your voice or your asthma?
B No I was as strong as an ox and I had very good technique, and production. I didn't spoil my voice at all. I start to say that if hadn't had to stop singing because of asthma I might have thought that perhaps all that singing back there in the beginning of my career had strained my voice to a certain extent, well it might have strained it, but I sang very beautifully and very easily years and years after that. It wasn't until after I came to Norway and settled here and I suppose partly the stress of a new language and new family, family background and new country and new mentality new climate and all these difficulties put together on top of the fact that I've always certain amount of allergic condition. I had hay fever when I was young.

S So this, all of these things contributed to your complete stopping
B Stopping , breakdown in to asthma.

S You mentioned in our informal conversation that we had that this asthma is no longer present, but it certainly are not singing any more and you also mentioned that you came to a cross roads in your life when you had an opportunity to perhaps begin performing again. Can you tell us a little about that?
B Well yes after I had asthma, and discovered that it was that, and started taking treatments, both medicine and massages then I started practicing yoga, and learned to breath more correctly and to breath easier and finally after six or seven years I had practically no asthma left. But at that time also, I had very difficult time in my marriage. I started on the course of training in which I believed would slowly, gradually build my voice and my muscles which had gotten very relaxed from not having sung and built it up again. But it seamed that everything aligned its self against that. I can't go into all those details or to tell exactly what it is to personal, and to a certain extent I am still to close to it. Perhaps when I am eighty.

S I can ask again. But I think the important thing is that you had a choice and you made a choice. Could you tell us about, and I felt very eloquently stated the other night.
B Well I had to choose between my family and singing. It would have meant that I turn my back on my children and my husband and my home and said good-bye I'm going to sing. I realized that I couldn't to two things together. That it was partly that which had brought on the asthma the fact that I had this conflict madness, in _____singing and I didn't know what was going on at home. It was too bad. I was nervous and I was not at ease I was not at peace with my self and it was just very conflict.

S And your choice obviously was your family.
B My choice in this case was well perhaps I should be more honest, perhaps it would be more honest to say that I didn't have a choice that fate allied its self on the side of choosing the family. Perhaps that's more honest. Any way that's what I did. I started teaching, and I had success with my teaching, and it was after that I began to produce opera, both here and in France, and I have been very successful with the work I have done. I belong to a public theater group, for many years out on an island on Feurd. I both played as a puppeteer and help to stage direct the plays that were put on. More or less amateurs put it on. I have done that besides teaching.

S And writing a book.
B Oh yes.

S What are you, you mentioned this earlier in our interview, the intent to write and English version of that. Most autobiographies are written in the mother tongue, and you have written yours in Norwegian.
B No I wrote mine originally in English, and I together with a Norwegian a marvelous translator, translated it or she translated it with my help, so actually I have the original version in manuscript. But my book was for one or another reason geared to a Norwegian public, Norwegian reading public. It just happened that way.

S Well you have been here for how many years ?
B Thirty some years. I wrote a book for the Norwegians, and though many, a great deal of it could be just produced as it is published as it is in English, another great part of it I would have to rewrite and I haven't had the time or energy to do that, yet, but I am considering if I can find any one who would publish the book in America I might very well sit down and rewrite.

S I have another question which is a little bit time warn in its, a usual stock question that one asks in interviews of this sort. Of the rolls songs that you sang, in Porky and Bess, which of the ones which do you prefer or which is your favorite?
B The strange thing about Porgy and Bess, despite Gershwins having written the roll for me is that Bess had no single separate aria to sing.

S Oh she did not.
B With in the period of a half hour during the course of the running of the opera, performance, Bess sings three big duets first with Porgy then with Crown and then again with Porgy. They are as heavy as any aria would want to which you can refer. But um, what happened was that when the first records were made by Deca Company, I was asked to sing the arias of ______ and Clara. And Clara's aria was Summer time.

S Are you saying that Summer time was not originally written for Bess?
B No and that's a story (coughing).....when I met Gershwin as I told you he had just gotten it in manuscript, I 'm used to writing a book now so I talk about manuscript, but in

S A score
B Score. Thank you he had just written four or five pages, gotten it down on paper, a score, and soon after words I heard Summer time for the first. Soon after I met him, he was putting down Summer time on paper. And he tried he _______on my voice as he tried everything else out in the ______my voice. And I loved Summer time I thought it was one of the most charming melodic lines I had ever heard. And a lovely song, just hanging in the air as a lullaby should be doing you know? And I said oh that's for Clara oh that's too bad, why couldn't Bess have something. He laughed at me because Bess is merely a street woman why is going to sing a lullaby. But through the course of his writing, and long before we had started rehearsals or anything or anything of that sort, before the opera was finished, he telephoned me one day and said what do you think, Bess is going to get a chance to sing Summer time. (break in tape)

S So Summer time was not originally Bess. (break in tape)
B Of course I've ______my surprise and delight and then he said you see I should have thought of this all along. It just occurred to me. Clara goes out into the storm to look for her husband Jake whose boat she sees turned up side down in the water. She rushes out in to the storm and before leaving she gives her Bess to baby, gives her baby to Bess. (laughing) And in the next scene, Bess is seen in Porgy's window with the baby and that's the most natural and the logical place for Bess to sing Clara's lullaby. In that was Bess got to sing Summer Time, which I love so much.

S And that developed in a conversation between you and George Gershwin at your request.
B Yes oh I had said lots of times that I would love to sing this song why can't I sing this melody it is so beautiful, and that's how it turned out. Actually Summer Time thought I loved it very much, is not my favorite.

S Which is your
B My favorite is Serine's aria, My Man's Gone Now, and I sang that on the Deca recording I sang Summer Time and My Man's Gone Now and the Duets and all the things that Bess sang and these two soprano.

S Why is My Man's Gone Now , why is that your favorite?
B Well it's such a perfect aria it has all the ____-that an aria should have. It has drama it has lyric quality at the same time. It has a wonderful line, and melodic line it has a, you have to use your low voice as well as well as a very highest the highest note is a high 'B' which we new called 'H'. And it's a wonderful aria, it's comparable to any aria you can find.

S I'd like to hear that, do you have a recording of that could hear that as we have the camera on you.
B Yes would you like to hear that....good (break in tape)

S Now what was the song again that we just listened to?
B That was My Man's Gone Now, which is Sernia's song sung at the wake of her dead husband who's been killed by Crown.

S Ahh I see.
B The pictures you took the photograph the picture on the wall, that's my daughter, Vour. My youngest daughter.

S I see, well now tell me since were back to the family, tell me more about your childhood and again what made you the Anne Brown that you are?
B (coughing) Well I always loved music. But I think that I really wanted to be an actress. Because I love the theater I love the theater in music I love the music purely, abstractly, some melody and every thing that music does to you and for you and what you experience when you listening to music, and all that, but I loved the drama of the music and I loved drama in it's self. And I think that when I was very small I wanted to be an actress. But when I discovered what sort of rolls a black women would have to play at that time, I just forgot it and decided that well I decided that actually that I would like to be an opera singer.

S Did it ever occur to you that you might be fare enough to pass in those days that was going on for pure financial reasons.
B I knew of people who did it, but I don' t have the ability to carry on such a roll for a long time. I would always have felt that I was being dishonest and even though I might have been justified, and everything else I would have been so uncomfortable that perhaps I would have asthma earlier then I did. The whole story...but when I thought about being an opera singer, I discovered that also opera was in ______to black women, black people as a whole men or women.

S Was Maryann Anderson in your childhood ...umm ...famous?
B Oh yes famous and well known in my childhood and well known and in my youth Maryann Anderson and Roland Hayes, who was even before Maryann Anderson, oh I admired them so much

S And of course you knew about the hard ships that they were experiencing even at there peak of there
B Well they as a matter of fact they had experienced many hard ships but when they became famous, then they just swept away as it were many of the restrictions which otherwise they would have to come up against. There were quite a few Negro artists that had made names for them selves, of course nobody on quite the scale as Maryann Anderson and Roland Hayes before her. But as I said (coughing) ...also closed to black people, then I decided tat I would sing in any place regardless of where I sang or how I sang, and that is to say I would try to be a real artist singing artist and sing where ever I could and the music I could and I went in for learning the classical and romantic reparatory of the singer, German, Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, French songs, Italian songs _______in six languages during the chores of my career.

S As a women who has accomplished some significant works in your life, what kind of words of wisdom or words of motivation would you give to young people, young woman especially, young black women especially who might see this tape?
B Well I would say, if you are going to be a musician, be a real musician, but our young singers and artists of today are doing that. And in that case all I can say is keep on. You know we have I have sung a Negro spiritual many times 'Hold On' that's is hold on, and don't let any body stop you, anything stop you retain your integrity as a human being and as an artist, and let the chips fall where they will.

S Is it good enough to be good? Especially as a singer in the classical music world where they're pianists and singers, or I apologist for saying this, almost a dime a dozen so to speak in terms of getting a break.
B Is it good enough to be good?

S Or is it good enough to be even superior?
B You know when I was young we used to hear an expression, very often, 'enough is never sufficient' . You must be very good. And ____in the world of really, really great artists. The trend today is to do the thing, do your thing as well as you can, and don't bother about the best. That's not my idea. I suppose I'm old fashioned and I don't know, but I think that you should give everything you've got if you're going to be an artist. And have real greatness as your goal. And if you don't, reach it you may come nearer to it then if you had just an ordinary career or what, usual point of view about it. Reach for the stars.

S And can you , some students don't settle results, they reach for the stars and they end up getting somewhere in between.
B Well that's all right too. If that's all you can do, or if that's as much as you can manage, well except that. The point is to except your self.

S I am going to mention some names very rapidly and if you could just give me the fact that you know them and fact that you might have done one of two things with them I'd like to know that. Emma Lotan
B Well you know Emma Lotan followed me on Broadway when I left Porgy and Bess to go on concert tour. And amazing part about it was that one of the amazing things was she was marvelous as Bess and she's always been a marvelous artist was that the theater guild suddenly wrote in there programs that actually George Gershwin has written the roll for Emma Lotan. He had met her many years before while he was writing it. And that was to give her a little extra publicity. But that which was really ridiculous and that was that the roll had to be transposed to a lower key because she was a mezzo-soprano, and I was a soprano, it wasn't written for a mezzo-soprano at all but she was wonderful in the roll.

S Matta Wilderdobs
B Matta Wilderdobs came long after my time in America, but I heard her in Europe and I've heard her records and fine singer she was really a fine singer. Is she still singing? S Yes she is still performing and I believe she is a professor at one of the Universities.
B I haven't heard much about her concretizing in a few years.

S Leontine Price
B Oh Leontine Price, (laughing) well that was another Bess should say another Bess that was one of the great Bess' Leontine Price I didn't' meet her until oh six or seven years ago until she sang 'Iada' in Hamburg and I happen to be passing though at the time, and I saw her performance and got to know her and we had a wonderful immediate contact. It's another great singer.

S Grace Bombree
B Grace Bombree I have never met, but I heard her records and I've seen the film of her _____but I studies with lots of laymen,

S Oh I see and so did Grace.
B In California for many years she studies with _______ too.

S Are you familiar with Camille Williams?
B I met her, I know her less.

S Willis Patterson who was ___________?
B No I didn't.

S He's currently dean at the School of Music at the University of Michigan.
B Oh I see. I did a _______with ______mother too here in Norway.

S Oh I see
B I did lots of menote operas here.

S Why I should run out of names all of a sudden. Who were some of your accompanists?
B (coughing) My accompanists were people who were picked out or selected by my agents ______in New York. They were all good accompanists. I had Paul Renompski, who was also ______accompanist. I had him many years. I had a wonderful accompanists who lived in California Harry Coffman. Who's wife I got to know and we've remained friends through all the years and we still correspond. Lillian Coffman.

S Do you know Yuve Blake and Maryann Blake?
B Oh yes, I met them and I have admired them for years.

S Were you able to
B Yuve Blake was in Oslo a few years ago, and I regret very much that I wasn't here when he was here. He's about nintey-five years old.

S He is eighty-six or seven. Were you able to see any of the productions of 'Shuffle along' or any of the other Yuve Blake?
B No they will probably appear on Norwegian television or on Swedish television which we also come in to, you know, sooner or later. We haven't seen them yet.

S Catherine Denim
B Oh Catherine Denim I haven't her lately , but I used to see her in New York. _______marvelous dancing.

S Um there is one opera Scott Joplin's opera 'Truent issue' (?) have you read or heard
B I have heard about it, I think it was an opera that Betty Allen Lee , do you know Betty?

S No I don' t but I know the name.
B There's a good friend of mine, and another marvelous singer and a wonderful voice. A tremendous voice. Betty I believe, Betty did a part in that opera's. S Well time flies and of course talking with Anne Brown time flies even quicker. Um
B Am I in on this. This is a great pleasure.

S Well it had been my pleasure also being here in the home of Anne Brown.
B Well I must tell you another thing, I really must write re-write my book given the American version of it, because we've touch really on so little on my life there's so much more that I can tell. I would like so much to tell about my childhood, in Baltimore and the teachers and the friends that I had there and all that. Either you have to do another one of these programs, or I'll have to write that book.

S We since you mentioned your teachers, we didn't even give credit to your first and maybe your um, your initial in _____ I think that should be done.
B Well after my mother, I had at the Institute of Musical Art, Lucia Dunham. Who was great influence in my life, who was a very good teacher I believe, gave me a very through technical background.

END OF INTERVIEW