\n Mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves is taking her final bow at the Metropolitan Opera on Jan. 24 after a career spanning more than four decades.
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Elias Williams for NPR<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Elias Williams for NPR<\/p>\n <\/span>\n<\/div><\/div>\n When Denyce Graves was 13 years old, she heard a voice that set her on a path to reach the world’s most prestigious opera houses. That incredible voice belonged to soprano Leontyne Price, the first Black opera singer to perform in a leading role in a televised opera.<\/p>\n “I had never heard many other genres of music and certainly not opera. That was as foreign and as strange as anything could possibly be,” Graves said in recalling that day she spent listening to Price recordings hours on end with a friend.<\/p>\n “But also to see this woman who looked like us, who looked like a queen… and we heard this type of singing that just split you in half… I was forever changed the moment I heard her.”<\/p>\n \n Graves’ last role is Maria in Porgy and Bess<\/em>. She’s shown here alongside Chauncey Packer as the Crab Man. Richard Termine\/Metropolitan Opera<\/p>\n <\/b> toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n Richard Termine\/Metropolitan Opera<\/p>\n <\/span>\n<\/div><\/div>\n Now, at 61, Graves is bidding farewell to the stage, taking her final bow on Jan. 24 at the Metropolitan Opera, in her turn as Maria in the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess<\/em>.<\/p>\n![\"Photo:](\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/4500x3000+0+0\/resize\/1100\/quality\/50\/format\/jpeg\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F27%2F6c%2Fce54764d481abf05de876dba5738%2F2025-11-28-porgy-bess-met-opera-rt-3160-copy.jpg\")
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