Leontyne Price Net Worth

What Is Leontyne Price's Net Worth?

Leontyne Price is an American soprano who has a net worth of $2 million. Leontyne Price rose to fame internationally in the 1950s and 1960s. She was one of the first African Americans to perform as a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera. Time magazine described Price's voice as "rich, supple and shining." Price was a lirico spinto soprano and was well suited for the styles of Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, and many operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. She retired from opera in 1985 but appeared in orchestral concerts and recitals until 1997. Leontyne was honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, a Springarn Medal in 1965, Kennedy Center Honors in 1980, and the National Medal of Arts in 1985. During her career, she won 14 Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. Price has won more Grammys than any other classical singer. She received Opera Honors from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2008. Many of her recordings were released by RCA Victor Red Seal. Leontyne also performed on Broadway, starring as St. Cecelia in "Four Saints in Three Acts" (1952) and Bess in "Porgy and Bess" (1953).

Early Life

Leontyne Price was born Mary Violet Leontine Price on February 10, 1927, in Laurel, Mississippi. She was given the middle name Leontine in honor of her father's best friend, Leon. Price had a younger brother named George, who served as a brigadier general in the U.S. Army and died in 2024 at the age of 95. Leontyne's father, James, was employed in the timber industry and worked in sawmills. He was also a part-time carpenter. Price's mother, Katherine, was a midwife and practical nurse. Leontyne's parents were very religious, and her maternal and paternal grandparents were Methodist ministers. She was born during racial segregation, and her family lived on Laurel's south side, where all the Black residents of the town lived. Price began singing in the choir at Saint Paul's Methodist Church at a young age alongside her mother, and her father played the tuba in the church's band. Leontyne started taking piano lessons when she was three years old, and she later took voice lessons. At the age of nine, she went on a school trip to hear singer Marian Anderson perform, and she later stated, "The whole aura of the occasion had a tremendous effect on me, particularly the singer's dignity and, of course, her voice."

Price graduated from Oak Park Vocational High School (OPVHS) in 1944 as the salutatorian, and during her time at the school, she was a drum majorette and a member of the cheerleading squad. She performed in school choral groups and played piano for the OPVHS choir. Her first solo recital took place in December 1943 at the Sandy Gavin School Auditorium. Leontyne earned a full scholarship to Wilberforce University's College of Education and Industrial Arts, where she studied music education and vocal music. She graduated in 1948, then she was accepted into the Juilliard School in New York City. During her final year at the school, Price received a Fulbright Scholarship and planned to use the funds to study in Europe. However, she abandoned her fellowship due to performance opportunities.

Career

Price made her Broadway debut in a 1952 production of "Four Saints in Three Acts," then she starred as Bess in "Porgy and Bess" on Broadway in 1953. In January 1955, she became the first Black singer to star in an opera on TV when she played the title role in Puccini's "Tosca" during a live broadcast of the NBC Opera Theatre. This led to the San Francisco Opera offering Leontyne a contract, and after her 1957 debut in Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmélites," she signed a contract with the classical music label RCA Victor Red Seal. In 1959, she released her first album with the label, "A Program Of Song," and it won a Grammy for Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist. In the '60s, Price released the albums "Leontyne Price" (1961), "A Christmas Offering" (1961), "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" (1962), "Great Scenes from Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess'" (1963), "Strauss: Salome (Dance Of The Seven Veils, Interlude And Final Scene)/The Egyptian Helen (Awakening Scene)" (1965), "My Favorite Hymns" (1966), "Leontyne Price, Prima Donna: Great Soprano Arias from Purcell to Barber" (1966), "Leontyne Price, Prima Donna: Great Soprano Arias from Purcell to Barber" (1967), "Right As The Rain: Leontyne Price / André Previn" (1967), "Samuel Barber: Two Scenes from 'Antony and Cleopatra' / Knoxville: Summer of 1915" (1969), and "Leontyne Price Sings Mozart Operatic and Concert Arias" (1969). She won Grammy Awards for six of those albums.

In the '70s, Leontyne released the Grammy-winning albums "Leontyne Price Sings Robert Schumann" (1971), "Puccini Heroines" (1973), "and "Leontyne Price Sings Richard Strauss" (1974), followed by "Leontyne Price, Prima Donna/ Volume 5: Great Soprano Arias From Handel To Britten" (1980) and "Leontyne Price Sings Verdi" (1981). Price performed at the Metropolitan Opera more than 200 times, and in 1966, she starred as Cleopatra in an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra." She also played the title role in several productions of "Aida." Leontyne retired from opera in 1985, but she briefly came out of retirement to perform at a memorial concert for victims of the September 11th attacks, singing "This Little Light of Mine" and "God Bless America." In 2017, she was featured in the documentary "The Opera House," which is about "a remarkable period of the Metropolitan Opera's rich history and a time of great change for New York."

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Personal Life

Leontyne married her "Porgy and Bess" co-star William Warfield on August 31, 1952, at Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church. The couple separated in 1967, and their divorce was finalized in 1973. During their marriage, they lived in a Greenwich Village home that previously belonged to Vice President Aaron Burr. After her retirement, Price gave master classes at schools such as Juilliard, and in 1997, she published a children's book version of "Aida," which inspired a Tony-winning 2000 Broadway musical by Elton John and Tim Rice.

Awards and Honors

Price has earned more than 25 Grammy nominations, winning 13 of them in addition to receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. She won Primetime Emmys for  Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for "Live from Lincoln Center" (1983) and Outstanding Individual Achievement – Classical Music/Dance Programming for "In Performance at the White House" (1984), and she earned a nomination for Outstanding Classical Program in the Performing Arts for the "Price/Horne Met Gala Concert" (1983). San Francisco mayor George Christopher proclaimed April 16, 1961, "Leontyne Price Day" in the city. In December 1969, Leontyne attended the dedication of the new Leontyne Price Library at her mother's alma mater, Rust College. She held a benefit concert to raise money for the construction of the library. She later recorded an album of spirituals, "Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free" (1971), with the Rust College Choir and donated the profits to the school to fund scholarships.

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