Black & White Aïda
Usually, when an opera company puts on Aïda, singers have to don blackface to play Aïda and her father Amonasro, King of the Ethiopians. Last week, for its first production of Verdi's masterpiece, Manhattan's City Opera Company didn't have to bother: there were two first-rate Negro singers in the company.
Pert little Soprano Camilla Williams, a City Center veteran (who paints her face to sing Madame Butterfly and La Bohéme) was a natural for Aïda. Amonasro was a newcomer. But by the time the curtain slid down last week on Aïda, 6 ft. Harlem Baritone Lawrence Winters, 32,...