Todd Duncan

Robert Todd Duncan was born on the twelfth of February 1903 in Danville, Kentucky, the son of John C. Duncan and Letitia "Lettie" Cooper Duncan, a music teacher and church musician who first placed music in her son's hands. He earned a bachelor's degree in music from Butler University in Indianapolis and a master's from Columbia University's Teachers College, joining the faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C.

In 1935, George Gershwin chose Duncan personally to originate the role of Porgy in the premiere of Porgy and Bess. The part became inseparable from his name; he would perform it more than eighteen hundred times. When the touring company was booked into the segregated National Theatre in Washington, Duncan led the cast in refusing to play a house that would not sell him a seat — an early and principled stand for dignity on the American stage.

In 1945 he broke another barrier, becoming the first Black artist to sing with a major American opera company when he appeared as Tonio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with the New York City Opera. His voice carried across concert halls, Broadway, and film, and his stand against segregated theaters helped open doors that had long been closed.

For decades afterward he taught, mentoring generations of singers until his death in Washington, D.C., on the twenty-eighth of February 1998, at the age of ninety-five. Honored be Todd Duncan, who lent his voice to a role the world could not forget and would not bow to a stage that would diminish him.