Warfield, William Caesar

▪ 2003

      American concert and opera singer (b. Jan. 22, 1920, West Helena, Ark.—d. Aug. 25, 2002, Chicago, Ill.), had a powerful warm and elegant bass-baritone voice that he employed to dramatic effect in the concert hall, on the opera and musical theatre stage, on recordings, on television, and in film. He was best known for his portrayal of Porgy in countless productions of Porgy and Bess and for his heartfelt rendition of “Ol' Man River” in the film Show Boat (1951), a song that became his trademark. Warfield, having won (1938) first prize—and thus a scholarship to any American university—in a competition held by the National Music Educators League, earned (1942) a bachelor's degree at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N.Y. He then saw service in World War II as an intelligence officer in the army. Because concert and opera career opportunities for black singers were limited, Warfield originally planned to be a music teacher. Some who had found success, including Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson, persuaded him to pursue a stage career, however. Warfield toured with the road company of Call Me Mister in 1946–47 and made his first Broadway appearances in the drama Set My People Free (1947) and the opera Regina (1948–49), but it was the acclaim following his recital debut (1950) at New York City's Town Hall that really launched his career, gaining him a concert tour of Australia in 1950 and then the role of Joe in Show Boat. He first sang the role of Porgy when the opera toured Europe in 1952–53, with the role of Bess sung by Leontyne Price, to whom Warfield was married from 1952 to 1972. Besides Warfield's numerous performances of Porgy over the years, his career highlights included a multitude of performances as a soloist in concerts, on television and radio, and with symphonies; his portrayal of De Lawd in a 1957 TV production of Green Pastures; several stage productions of Show Boat; and narration of Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait, a recording of which won him a Grammy Award in 1984. In 1974 he became a professor of music at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and from 1994 he was on the faculty of Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. Warfield continued to perform, however, and included “Ol' Man River” among the numbers in his final concert in Cambridge, Mass., in July 2002.

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