Hendricks decided to attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studied mathematics and chemistry, subjects in which she had excelled during high school. Although she had a “gifted ” voice, she aspired to become a doctor or a lawyer. Her musical experience was limited to singing in the church choir, playing the piano, and singing hymns to her mother at night. The daughter of a Methodist minister and a schoolteacher, Hendricks grew up in segregated Stephens, Arkansas, in the 1950s. Hendricks is noted for her down-to-earth demeanor, which is often linked to her midwestern upbringing.

Hendricks is singing with the voice she was born with, not with the one she has made for herself. “What you hear is near perfect intonation, clear diction, and the lovely variety of colors that characterizes a pleasant speaking voice …. “When the lyric soprano Barbara Hendricks sings, the first word that comes to mind is not powerful but beautiful or even pretty, ” proclaimed Dennis McFarland in the New York Times.

According to Ebony, von Karajan compared Hendricks to the legendary Maria Callas “in passion and interpretive possibility. Though the modest artist has downplayed her fame, Hendricks has received worldwide critical acclaim for her voice, working with such noted conductors as Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Georg Solti, and James Levine. She has more than 50 recordings to her credit and has sung with almost all of the major orchestras in the world. Seven years later, Hendricks made an impressive Paris debut as the female lead in the opera Romeo et Juliette.Ī master at performing French art songs and classical German songs of the nineteenth century known as “lieder, ” Hendricks has become an international celebrity.

She began her voice training in 1968 at the relatively advanced age of 19 and went on to make her American opera debut with the San Francisco Opera in 1975. Although lyric soprano Barbara Hendricks stepped onto the opera stage later in life than most of her peers, her natural musical talent has made up for lost time.

With rare paris opera pulls