Biography
Lenora Gwendolyn Lafayette was born on July 6, 1926 to Howard and Lena Lafayette. Lenora was the youngest of three children and showed a fighting spirit from the moments of her birth. At a young age, Lenora overcame a diagnosis of diphtheria to her family’s astonishment. After this season of her life, the Lafayettes moved to Baton Rouge from their home in West Feliciana Parish for the whispered promise of economic and educational opportunities.
Music was a consistent component in Lafayette’s youth. Her family enjoyed music at home and both parents were invested in the arts. Her parents were active members in their church choir and “from the time their daughters were toddlers, they made sure that the girls listened to a great deal of music.”1 Between attending piano lessons and hearing radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, Lenora developed a genuine appreciation for classical music.
In the spring of 1943, Lafayette auditioned for the Music Discipline and began her studies at Fisk. In her second semester, she received a full scholarship because of her talent and musical promise. Her time at Fisk pushed her to strive for excellence and tap into her innate resilient spirit. This aptitude manifested in her academic studies and stage performances. During her sophomore year, Fisk Music professor, Dr. Denton Rossell, produced Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck. Lafayette’s role as Hansel allowed her to establish a stage presence that would continue to grow after her undergraduate career. At Fisk she went on to star in two major productions, The Marriage of Figaro and Madame Butterfly, which featured “an elaborate set covered with beautiful cherry blossoms.”2 Her senior role as Madame Butterfly foreshadowed the many times she would perform this part in future years at home and abroad.
After her years at Fisk, Lafayette decided to move to New York City to continue pursuing music. She stayed in touch with her Fisk professors, who agreed to support her application for a Rosenwald fellowship. To Edwin Embree, the head of the Rosenwald Fund, Lafayette confessed: “It is my greatest ambition to become a concert singer.”3 On April 20, 1948, Lafayette was informed that she would receive $2,000 for a twelve-month period of study at Juilliard beginning June 1, 1948.
Three years later, Lafayette traveled to Basel, Switzerland by ship to continue her work in vocal performance. It was her voice teacher, Madame Giannini, who encouraged her to audition with the Basel Stadt Opera, where she landed a role as lead of Aida on May 27, 1951. Her outstanding performance won her a one-year contract with the opera.4 But Lafayette did not stop there. After being awarded second place in the Concours de Genève––in spite of a recent surgery for appendicitis––she acquired increasing engagements in Switzerland.5
However, it was her last-minute decision to perform for the famed Hallé Orchestra of Britain that gained her serious notoriety. When the Hallé Orchestra’s lead soprano fell ill with a throat infection, the conductor contacted Lafayette to inquire about her immediate availability. Lafayette agreed and promptly boarded a plane from Switzerland to London. In spite of the fact that she sang in Italian in an English-language performance of Aida (traditional for Covent Garden), the audience raved over her performance.6 As Kyla D. Pitcher notes in her study of Lenora G. Lafayette’s life and career, the Covent Garden performance marked a historic event: “What Lenora and those at Covent Garden came to realize was that she had done more than accomplish the feat of flying across the country on short notice to save a performance. She had also become the first Negro singer to perform in an English opera house."7 Like many other Rosenwald fellows, Lafayette was making history and opening doors for other women of color through her engagement in the Arts.
Lafayette continued to perform at Covent Garden, which led to engagements in a number of other operas including the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the State Opera of Hamburg, the Netherlands Opera, the Opera Houses of Belgrade and Zagreb, the Municipal Theatre in Zurich, the German Opera of the Rhine in Dusseldorf, and the Opera House at Tel Aviv. Like her voice coach, Madame Giannini, Lafayette worked as a free agent.8
Having established a successful career in Europe, Lafayette stayed active throughout the 1950s and 60s. However, in 1968, she discovered that she had breast cancer. Lafayette remained very private about her illness, and in 1974 an onstage fall resulted in a pathological fracture from metastasized cancer in the bone.9 Unfortunately, Lafayette’s career ended as a result of her injury. After a visit from her niece, Frances Floyd, Lafayette died on October 23, 1975.
Lafayette maintained connections with the Fisk community long after her undergraduate studies. The university followed her career and invited her to return to her performative roots on multiple occasions, as they considered her to be a "daughter" of the institution. After reporting Lafayette's successful performance as Aida in London's Covent Garden, a press release from Fisk University's Office of Publicity proudly notes that: "Miss Lafayette received her first operatic experience in a production of 'The Marriage of Figaro' presented by Fisk Music Department in 1946."10
For Fisk, Lafayette's success was a way of giving back to her community by carrying on the university's reputation and history.
Though Lafayette had been close with her family in Louisiana and had strong emotional ties to her hometown, she ultimately pursued her career long-term in Europe, where she was able to escape the environment of segregation in the United States. In the conclusion of her study of Lafayette, Pitcher rightfully insists on Lafayette's importance “among African-Americans because she operated as a pioneer, traveling uncharted territory for her race and then making a significant impact.”11
*Co-written by Dartisha L. Mosley and Raquelle K. Bostow
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1. Kyla Dean Pitcher, "The Musical Journey of Opera Singer Lenora Lafayette: A Louisiana Treasure" (DMA diss., Louisiana State University, 2006), 4.↩
2. Pitcher, "The Musical Journey," 10.↩
3. Letter, Lenora G. Lafayette to Edwin Embree, 28 October 1947, Rosenwald Collection, Box 427, Folder 11, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library Special Collections, Fisk University.↩
4. Pitcher, "The Musical Journey," 19.↩
5. Pitcher, "The Musical Journey," 22.↩
6. Pitcher, "The Musical Journey," 23-5.↩
7. Pitcher, "The Musical Journey," 25.↩
8. Pitcher, "The Musical Journey," 28-9.↩
9. Pitcher, "The Musical Journey," 32-3.↩
10. Press Release, Office of Publicity, Fisk University, 12 February 1953, Rosenwald Collection, Box 427, Folder 11, Fisk University.↩
11. Pitcher, "The Musical Journey," 72.↩