Shirley Verrett is one of opera’s genuine heroines, both onstage and off. She is a graduate from the Juilliard School of Music in New York and has several honorary doctorates. With a beautiful and expressive voice, she forged one of the most distinguished international operatic careers of the second half of the 20th century. Shirley Verrett became one of the first African-American artists to achieve and sustain such success, and her indelible performances on the opera, recital and concert stages have been acclaimed all over the world. In a career that embraced an uncommonly wide and varied repertoire, Shirley Verrett won enduring acclaim in the world’s greatest opera houses: New York’s Metropolitan Opera, London’s Covent Garden, Milan’s La Scala, the Paris Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago, to name only a few. Her remarkable voice allowed her to sing both leading roles in Verdi’s Aida as well as Bellini’s Norma. She triumphed in the title roles of Puccini’s Tosca, Cherubini’s Medea, Bizet’s Carmen, and as Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth, Azucena in Verdi’s II Trovatore, Dalila in Saint-Saens’ Samson et Dalila, and Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio, among many others. In Berlioz’s monumental five-hour epic Les Troyens, Shirley Verrett made operatic history in 1973 in the Metropolitan Opera’s first staging of the work, singing both leading roles (Cassandra and Didon) in the same performances. Shirley Verrett performed regularly with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors. Her autobiography, I Never Walked Alone: The Autobiography of an American Singer (with ChristopherBrooks) was published by John Wiley and Sons in 2003.