Angela Brown is a soprano opera singer at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Although she started singing when she was young, she did not begin any formal training until 1986, well after going to vocational school and obtaining a degree in secretarial science. It was at this point when she began collegiate schooling at Oakwood College, studying music and bible instruction, with the intention of becoming a gospel singer. Her teacher at Oakwood, Ginger Beazley , believed in Brown's abilities as a classical singer above being a gospel singer. Brown recalls disagreeing with that suggestion. "I thought, 'Puh-leez, I am not an opera singer.'" She changed her mind when a friend and classmate said to her, "You can sing gospel and sing it well, but when you sing classical, you stand head and shoulders above everybody else," helping Brown feel "not feel so weird about singing classical."

After five years at Oakwood, Beazley took some of her students to Indiana University for a master class with her former teacher, Virginia Zeani, a world-renowned soprano. Zeani immediately observed Brown's skill and told her, "the blood of Verdi courses through your veins."

Brown was not totally convinced that she should go into full-time classical singing, however, until Zeani told her during her graduate studies in the 1990s at Indiana University, "If you want to be the next Aretha Franklin, go. You need no more lessons. But if you want to be the best Verdian soprano the world has ever seen, you have to work." A few years later in 1997, after finishing her master's degree and auditioning for the Metropolitan Opera three times, Brown made one more attempt at the Met Council auditions, which cost participants $10,000 for an attempt to be noticed by the Met's management. When she won this audition, it enabled her to audition for the Met's education fund three years later. To her surprise, she got a callback, leading to coaching. She was told, "Someone will be in touch." What really landed her a job in the Met was when she approached the Met's director of music administration, Jonathan Fisher , saying, "If you hire me, I'll make you proud." He responded, "You know, I think you might."

The Met soon offered her an understudy contract for its 2000-2001 season. Although she only managed to get to fill in during rehearsals. One day in 2003, the lead from Aida was sick, and Brown was asked to sing at the orchestral rehearsal. She soon was offered two performances and two covers in Aida for the 2004 to 2005 season. Her debut at the Met in late October of 2004 was so well received that an article about her appeared on the front page of the New York Times on November 8, 2004. The Met has scheduled more performances for her, and according to the Times, Brown "has received some 'significant offers' to perform at various houses, including the Met," also expecting "several companies to confirm offers that were conditioned on how Ms. Brown was received in Aida."

Brown recently released a new CD of spirituals, titled "Mosaic" (Albany Records ).

External link

• "For a Fill-in-Aida, A Triumph Long in Coming", New York Times, November 8, 2004.