Ruby Elzy

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Ruby Elzy (February 20, 1908–June 26, 1943), was a pioneer African American operatic soprano who created the role of Serena in George Gershwin's folk opera Porgy and Bess and performed in it more than eight hundred times. Her big aria in the opera was My Man's Gone Now, Serena's lament after her husband is murdered in a crap game. But it was Anne Brown, and not Ruby Elzy who sang it on the so-called "original cast" album of selections from Porgy and Bess, made in 1940. However, Ms. Elzy can be heard singing it on a CD release of the 1937 Gershwin Memorial Concert, which took place three months after Gershwin's death, at the Hollywood Bowl.

Ruby Elzy also appeared on Broadway in the musical John Henry, in films (The Emperor Jones, Birth of the Blues), on radio and on the concert stage.

She entertained at the White House, December 15, 1937, for First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's luncheon for the wives of U.S. Supreme Court Justices. She appeared with Paul Robeson in the film of The Emperor Jones, and also with Bing Crosby and Mary Martin in Birth of the Blues, though neither of these were starring roles. She sang at Harlem’s Apollo Theater and in the Hollywood Bowl.

Born in Pontotoc, Mississippi, educated at Rust College, the Ohio State University and the Juilliard School, Elzy rose above poverty and prejudice to become one of the most acclaimed singers of her generation, but her career lasted barely a decade. She died at the age of thirty-five in 1943, just as she was reaching the peak of her powers as a singer and about to achieve her greatest dream: to star in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida.

[edit] References

• David E. Weaver, Black Diva of the Thirties: The Life of Ruby Elzy, University Press of Mississippi, September 2004.