'Aida' was dream role for Roxbury girl

When Cynthia Miles Gray was 15, she found her heart's desire.

As a member of America's Youth in Concert, her participation underwritten by Roxbury's Freedom House, the young woman was touring six European countries.

"When we came to Italy," she describes, "we attended a performance of 'Aida.' The opera was completely staged with animals and fabulous costumes.

"It was my first introduction to opera. I was bowled over," she recalls.

From that day, Gray has longed to sing that opera, "hoping, wishing," she says. "It's been a deep down desire."

This Friday at Jordan Hall, you can hear Gray in the title role in Verdi's most popular opera. As Aida, the enslaved Ethiopian princess held captive by the conquering Egyptians, she finds love in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Tenor Marshall Hughes, who also directs the Opera UnMet production, sings the role of the commander of the Egyptian forces Radames. He falls madly in love with Aida much to the ire of his betrothed, the Egyptian princess Amneris, sung by Mauri Wheeler. The Feb. 4 concert at 8 p.m., which will be sung in Italian but narrated in English, also features Eric Sosman as the high priest and Andrea Bradford as the narrator.

The soprano Aida is a role with a strong black lineage in opera. First sung by white sopranos, Florence Cole Talbert was the first to break the color bar with her performance in 1927 in Italy. La Julia Rhea is another famed early black Aida.

It was Leontyne Price, however, who made the role hers', in the minds of opera lovers. "In 'Aida' my skin is my costume'" says Price about her favorite character. And because she had already sung other roles, Price didn't feel typecast but honored to take the part which she played with modern day implications. "She is where I am often as a woman," Price has said. "There's something about her that's provocative."

Leontyne Price wrote the opera up as a children's book which was illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. The beautifully depicted version was the inspiration for Tim Rice and Elton John's pop version of "Aida," which has been one of Broadway's top draws.

"We don't have the animals or the costumes," notes Gray about the Opera UnMet concert version of Verdi's "Aida," but we do have the music.

Gray, who grew up in Sharon, is the daughter of the late Edna and Benjamin Miles. Her parents supported her dreams. "When I sing the aria 'O Patria Mio,' (Oh, Fatherland Mine)," says Gray about that moment in the opera, "It's all I can do to say that. I think of my mother and father and the efforts they put forth on my behalf and how they were so very proud of me."

David Jackson

Musical stage singer David Jackson does his first straight role in "The Moonlight Room," a SpeakEasy Stage Company production currently at the Boston Center for the Arts. It's a new experience "not to have my attention split between the musical numbers and the play. I find I'm a little more focused," he says.

For the New England premiere of Tristine Skyler's drama that takes place in a waiting room of a hospital, Jackson plays the father of a teen who is in a coma from a drug overdose.

The part drains the emotions but Jackson comments that "it's rewarding to do a play.

"My voice is still good but it's a relief not to worry if I'm going to hit that F tonight," he said.

Article copyright The Bay State Banner.

Photograph (Cynthia Gray, Eric Sosman, Mauri Wheeler and Marshall Hughes)