(Keiler 19ff).
Nevertheless, by the late 1920s, when Anderson was about 30 years old, she had still not undergone formal vocal training in the classical canon. From the perspective of 2002, when the careers of Kathleen Battle, Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, and Denyce Graves are noteworthy chiefly because of their performance record, that statement may not immediately make sense. What has to be understood, therefore, is that it was not until 1955, when she was 57 years old and a bit past her prime, that Anderson became the first black artist to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (Hunter-Gault). The fact that she performed to great acclaim must be set beside the fact that the South Philadelphia native had spent much of the previous 25 years in Europe, first studying in Germany and then touring Europe as a classical singer. Before the 1955 debut at the Met, there was another, rather more crucial incident that occurred in 1939 and that gave national scope to Anderson's American career. But it did much more for the careers of other African American artists. It is important to see these events in the larger context of American society, in order to appreciate Anderson's influence on the shape that society assumed.
Anderson appears to have been perfectly aware that she had achieved a "modest" career by the late 1920s. Her perfor
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