Denyce Graves retires from opera after final Metropolitan Opera performance

Denyce Graves gave her final performance at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday, appearing as Maria in the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess; it was the 158th time she had performed at the house. Peter Gelb introduced her during the matinee and she received a plaque commemorating her as one of “opera’s outstanding artists.”

Graves’s career nearly ended early: when she was 24 a doctor told her she would not sing again after an enlarged thyroid was discovered. A year later she auditioned for the Houston Opera’s Carmen and was cast as Mercedes, and over the following decades she persevered through health issues — including a hemorrhaging vocal cord, goiters and cluster headaches — to become a leading mezzo-soprano.

She is widely remembered for lead roles such as Dalila in Samson and Dalila and especially the title role in Bizet’s Carmen, which marked her Met debut in 1995. Raised by a single mother in southwest Washington, D.C., Graves has kept deep ties to the capital, singing at the National Cathedral after Sept. 11 and at the U.S. Capitol memorial for Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

After the Met performance Graves said she is retiring from the opera stage to focus on directing and on the Denyce Graves Foundation, devoted to social justice and the arts. She said she expects a few low‑profile appearances but is “really, really retired” from major stage work and looks forward to not having to worry about her voice.

Key Topics

Culture, Denyce Graves, Metropolitan Opera, Carmen, Denyce Graves Foundation, Kennedy Center