Music
Florence Cole Talbert
1890–1961 · operatic soprano, music educator
Detroit-born soprano who in 1927 became the first African American woman to sing Verdi's Aida in a European opera house, and one of the first Black classical singers on record.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Memphis, Tennessee
aged 70- Birth name
- Florence Cole
- Also known as
- Madame Florence Cole-Talbert · Florence Cole Talbert-McCleave
- Detroit years
- 1890–1898
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Florence Cole was born in Detroit in 1890 into a musical family: her mother, Sadie Chandler Cole, had toured as a mezzo-soprano with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and her father was a bass and a well-known dramatic reader. She began piano lessons at six in Detroit before the family moved to Los Angeles in 1898. As a teenager she accompanied the Detroit soprano E. Azalia Hackley, who urged her to train her voice. After graduating from the Chicago Musical College in 1916 she gave concerts in Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles and soloed with the Chicago Symphony. She recorded for Broome and Paramount in 1919–1924, among the first Black classical artists to do so. In March 1927 she sang the title role of Aida at the Teatro Comunale in Cosenza, Italy. Later she taught at historically Black colleges and encouraged the young Marian Anderson.
Highlights
- First African American woman to sing Aida with a European company (Cosenza, 1927)
- Born in Detroit to a Fisk Jubilee Singers mezzo-soprano
- Recorded for Broome and Paramount between 1919 and 1924
- Called 'Our Divine Florence' and 'Queen of the Concert Stage'