Aida for a Night

Among London's shortages last week was an acute dearth of sopranos able to sing the demanding lead in Verdi's Aida. At noon on the day of a performance, Covent Garden learned that Soprano Gre Brouwenstijn had a case of laryngitis. By 1:30 Conductor Sir John Barbirolli and the opera management had made a quick canvass of the countryside without flushing an available soprano, finally began calling the Continent.

In her Amsterdam hotel, Lenora Lafayette, 26, American Negro soprano, stopped to answer the phone before going out for some lunch. Could she get to London by 7 p.m. prompt? Soprano Lafayette said yes: "And then they told me I had to leave the hotel by 2 to catch a plane. You know, I was so excited when I put the phone down, I just ran around the room for ten minutes."

For Lenora Lafayette of Baton Rouge, La., the role of the dusky Aida was the chance of a lifetime. The daughter of a bricklayer who worked his way up to manager of a contracting company, Lenora made up her mind at 17 to be a singer. With her father backing her to the limit, she went to Tennessee's Fisk University, then to Manhattan's Juilliard School of Music. Three years ago she won a traveling scholarship to Europe. She had mastered the leads in Butterfly and Aida.

Arriving at Covent Garden by 5:30, she spent an hour and a half, while her costume was being cut down to size, talking to Conductor Barbirolli and the cast. She was the only one singing in Italian (Covent Garden's performances are traditionally sung in English), but Barbirolli told her not to worry: "I'm going to take good care of you." When she made her entrance her knees were shaking, but "directly I started I knew I was singing well. The only bad moment I had was when Amo-nasro first comes on to the stage. I turned around and sang 'Che veggo? Egli--mio padre [What do I see? It's he--my father]!' and then I couldn't find him. He was still in the wings."

Covent Garden gave Lenora an enthusiastic welcome, and the applause at the end was not just for a brave try. Lenora had stage presence, and her voice reached to the farthest tiers of the opera house. Since it was not a first-night performance, few critics were on hand. But the Daily Express' Cecil Smith, often a carper, came and was conquered. Wrote Smith: a voice of "exceptional beauty and vitality."

Lenora Lafayette would like to crash the U.S. musical world as a lieder singer after another year in Europe. "Opera," she says, "is so limited for me."

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