Mezzo-Soprano Denyce Graves has built a remarkable career. Educated at Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory, she launched her professional journey through the training program of the Houston Grand Opera. In 1995, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the title role of Carmen—a performance so powerful that Plácido Domingo remarked, “She is so good that the world might want her exclusively for this role.”
Celebrated for her deep attention and care to character as well as her powerful voice, Graves has performed on the world’s most prestigious stages. She also became a public face for the arts, singing on television and, after debuting Gene Scheer’s song “American Anthem” in 1998 at the Smithsonian Institute, continued to do so at inaugurations and events for US presidents. She is also a sought-after stage director and is currently directing the world premiere of Loving v. Virginia with the Virginia Opera and Minnesota Opera.
In this interview, Graves shares her musical influences and what it means to bring a new opera to life.
# # #
What is your first musical memory?
I think it would probably be the sound of my mother’s voice—the music that’s in her voice. Not singing, although she loved singing, but when she would call me for dinner, it was the melody of her voice that I remember. That was how I could identify what music was.
My other big musical influence came from church. My father was a minister. I grew up to the sounds of Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland, Shirley Caesar, the Mighty Clouds of Joy. They were the soundtrack to my childhood, and, because I grew up in this incredibly religious background, no other music was allowed.
So, you could only listen to gospel music in your home?
That’s right. Oh, except the weirdest thing in the world. Somebody gave my mother a Perry Como album. That was the one exception, which was really great.
But the church was really my early musical education. I didn’t just go to church, I had to be involved in church. So, I sang in the church choir and I also ran something called the bus ministry. I picked up—I don’t know, 30 kids or so—for Sunday School on the church bus. And I would have to entertain them, sing for them.
They were your first audience?
Yes. I did something similar when I was doing my apprenticeship with the Houston Grand Opera, and they would send me out on a lot of educational outreach. But really, going back to the Bus Ministry, that was how I cut my teeth as a performer. I would sing “call and response” with them.
When you have to perform in front of seven- and eight-year-olds, or even worse, you know, the junior high school kids, I mean, that’s a tough audience, man. And if they believe you, if you’ve got them, then you may have something.
Was opera on your mind at that at that point?
Not at all. I had no clue about it.
How did you learn about opera?
I was 13 years old. I was at my locker and I was running to class, and a girlfriend of mine, Cassandra Cunningham said “Denyce, I just heard something. You’ve gotta hear it.” And I said no, because I was late to class, but she told me I had to hear it. So, we went to the listening library.
She had found a recording of Leontyne Price singing Puccini arias. We listened to the whole album. I said: “Play it again.” And we listened and listened. There was a knock on the door, and the library was closing. We had spent the entire day there. We didn’t go for water. We didn’t eat anything. We didn’t go to the bathroom. We just listened to Leontyne Price sing Puccini arias. And I, I just got chills from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.
I thought to myself, “What in the world is this strange kind of music?”
That day, my life changed. Immediately, I said, I know what I want to do. Whatever this is, whoever this is and whatever it is she’s doing, that’s what I want to do.
How did that go over with your family?
It fell on a lot of blank faces. I remember looks of consternation, wondering where I ever got that idea from. I mean, they knew I was a weird kid. I was the one who liked to read, who loved poetry and was always in the corner with my nose in a book. But where had I gotten this idea?
And it did not play well where I grew up. It was met with lots of ridicule and so much laughter. But I knew. I felt that I had found my purpose, hearing Leontyne Price sing and the way that her voice made me feel.
So, at 13, you decide you will be an opera singer. When did you attend your first opera?
I was born and raised in Washington D.C. and went to the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts and they had a relationship with what was then the Washington Opera, which is now the Washington National Opera. And they offered students tickets to rehearsals, and to the final dress rehearsal. The very first opera I saw on stage was Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Washington Opera.
And it was amazing seeing rehearsals, because they stopped and started and we really had the opportunity to look under the hood and see what was going on. I got to hear the comments from the singers and the conductor and from the stage director and all of the many voices that are in the room. It was amazing watching the art be created right in front of my eyes.
Didn’t you just perform Fidelio with the Washington National Opera?
I did! In 2024.
You’ve been directing for some time, even while you were singing, but when was your first full professional directing experience?
That would have been Carmen with the Minnesota Opera, back in 2022. I have to say, being on the other side of the proscenium arch was a completely new and different experience. It really was.
How does being a director differ from singing?
When you are singing, you have to be concerned about your part and your part only. Well, at least primarily. Being a director, you have to look at the entire picture. Not just everyone’s singing parts, but you also have to consider the other creative voices.
In April, you directed the world premiere of Loving v. Virginia. How did this opera come about?
The Virginia Opera wanted to do something big to commemorate this milestone for them, so they wanted to commission a world premiere. They’ve never done that in their history. And they also wanted a Virginia story, and a Virginia composer. They picked Damien Geter, who is a brilliant up-and-coming composer.
And this opera is glorious. It’s beautiful. Damien and Jessica Murphy Moo [the librettist] handed us a masterpiece. Jessica really did the research, visiting the prisons in Bowling Green and Central Point and all the places where Mildred and Richard lived to tell the story.
In Loving v. Virginia (1967), the U.S. Supreme Court established the right to marriage for the first time by striking down a Virginia statute that forbade interracial marriage. How does the opera tell the story?
We told it as a love story. I mean, there are a thousand different ways of telling this story, and there have been two movies, an HBO documentary and songs and song cycles, but never an opera.
And it really is a love story. Mildred and Richard Loving, all they knew is that they loved each other. They didn’t think their love should be a problem for the world. They didn’t set out to change the constitution. What they wanted to do is what so many of us take for granted—to have the opportunity and the privilege to love whomever our hearts feel called to love and they wanted to do that in peace. They wanted to raise their family. That’s all they wanted to do. They didn’t set out to become firebrands and these media darlings that they later became.
And I am very proud of what we’ve created. It is really beautiful. It will break you into a million pieces.
Talk a little about the directorial process, especially how it works for a world premiere, which must be different from directing a piece from the canon.
Well, you always have to remember that there are many different creative voices involved, because opera is a collaborative art form. So, the idea you have at home, when you are alone with the literary sources, you have to remember that there will be other voices to consider. You want to create a certain effect on the stage, but then you find out that the singer can’t be in a certain spot, or that it doesn’t work with the lights, or in a particular space.
You have to be malleable; you have to be able to pivot.
But I assume as a director you still need to maintain a strong artistic vision.
Of course. But, to give you an example, Loving v. Virginia had to travel to different opera houses for performances. We needed six different iterations of set design, and we had to scale the set design to the smallest house. So, my vision as director has to contend with that reality.
Your career has taken you as a performer to stages all over the world, and now you are doing the same as a director. What is it about opera that animates you so much?
I think one of the reasons that opera is such a great art form is that it is a culmination of all the refined arts, but each element of it could exist on its own as a full work of art. Jessica Murphy’s libretto of Loving v. Virginia exists as a work of art in spoken word. It’s beautifully poetic. It’s melodic, even before you sing it as music. You could take the orchestral part on its own and you can hear every single character. Damien Geter was so thoughtful in his composing—his score could be played on its own as an orchestral work, and you’ll hear and see Mildred and Richard Loving.
What advice do you have for young artists today?
Listen to your inner voice. Trust yourself. Opera is a profession built on a lot of tradition and convention. Certainly, as an African American woman deciding to go into what’s considered to be a European art form, it was not an easy road. At that point in my life, there were not a tremendous amount of faces that looked like mine. But my soul felt that this was absolutely my home and where I was supposed to be.
I think that you get a lot of push back from the world that says, “You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be like this.” And that is when you need to trust yourself. Because in the end, it is just you. Yes, we invite people into our lives to walk with us. Some stay for a long time. But we are born alone, and we die alone and in the center of that, is you. You have to develop a relationship with who you are.
And in a culture of distraction—where we are today—we might confuse taking selfies with developing that relationship. That’s not it. We all have the same experience and the privilege of figuring out who we want to be in this life and how we want to spend our precious time. It’s all necessary, and it’s all designed to be different. You have a unique voice in the world, and your work is finding what that voice is.