Grace Bumbry cause of death

Grace Melzia Bumbry, an American opera singer who was a prominent soprano and a top mezzo-soprano of her day, died on May 7, 2023, at the age of 86. Bumbry’s death was confirmed by her publicist, David Lee Brewer. A cause of death was not stated. Nevertheless, Bumbry suffered a stroke in October 2022.

Ms. Bumbry had a remarkable range of roles over her nearly 40-year stage career. Notwithstanding her Bayreuth performance, she did not consider herself a Wagnerian vocalist, and she stated that the works of 19th-century Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi were her “heart and soul.”

She made her Paris Opera debut in 1960 as Amneris, the jilted Egyptian princess in Verdi’s opera “Aida,” reputedly thanks to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s intervention.

Ms. Bumbry was invited to play at a state dinner two years later, which served as another high-profile exposure of her ability.

In her prime, she also possessed good agility and bel canto technique (see, for example, her versions of Verdi’s Don Carlo’s ‘Veil Song’ in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as her Ernani from the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1984).

She had just gained recognition as a recitalist, lieder translator, and teacher. She focused her career in Europe rather than the United States beginning in the late 1980s.

She was a long-time Swiss resident who lived her final years in Vienna, Austria.