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As with all great performers, there is no false modesty about Price. A confessed "egomaniac," she has a firm sense of her own worth--and her place in opera. It is, after all, somewhat improbable that the daughter of a sawmill worker and a midwife who both sang in a church choir in segregated Laurel, Miss., could rise to the top of a profession historically dominated not only by whites but by Europeans. Yet as Price wrote on her entrance application to a predominantly black college in Wilberforce, Ohio, "I'm worried about the future because I want so much to be a success." In 1949 she won a scholarship to Manhattan's Juilliard School, where her teacher, Florence Page Kimball, economically taught her to "sing on your vocal interest, not on the principal." In 1952 she was discovered by Composer Virgil Thomson, who cast her in his opera Four Saints in Three Acts. That led to her first popular triumph, as Bess in a revival of Porgy and Bess. A great career was launched.
Price is especially proud of the part she has played in opening the world's stages to younger black singers like Sopranos Leona Mitchell and Kathleen Battle. "I am here, and you will know that I am the best and will hear me," says Price, summarizing her philosophy. "The color of my skin or the kink of my hair or the spread of my mouth has nothing to do with what you are listening to." She took particular satisfaction from singing with Bass Simon Estes in her farewell Aida: "It makes me feel just wonderful to have this black god standing behind me."
Price has been a shrewd judge of her limitations as well as her talents. With few exceptions, she sang only parts suited to her voice and physique. She never sang those consumptive lost souls Mimi in La Boheme and Violetta in La Traviata, accurately observing, "I'm just too healthy for coughing spells." Although she toyed with the idea of tackling the Marschallin in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, she rightly realized that "Verdi is definitely my friend."
In the '70s Price cut back appearances at the Met, angry over the lack of new productions staged for her. Instead, she concentrated on her "first love," recitals. She is booked on recital tours through 1987, allowing her to indulge a longstanding predilection both for spirituals and for songs by such contemporary composers as Samuel Barber, John La Montaine, Ned Rorem, Margaret Bonds and Dominick Argento. Price also is scheduled to give a series of master classes in San Francisco in 1986. When dealing with sopranos, retirement is a term best understood loosely: five days after her operatic farewell, Price rushes off to St. Paul to help inaugurate the Ordway Music Theater with a recital. "The legacy of the great ones you are trying to live up to takes time, energy, concentration, your life," she says. "I met the challenges. Why not have some fun now?"