On this day, August 12, 1890, in Washington, D.C., Annie Wilson Lillian Evans, known to the world as Lillian Evanti, was born.
Evanti was born in Washington, D.C., to her father, W. Bruce Evans, who was the first principal of Armstrong Manual Training School; her paternal grandfather, Henry Evans, aided the Underground Railroad; and her maternal grandfather, John H. Brooks, served in the House of Delegates after unseating Frederick Douglass Jr.
Though musically gifted, Evanti first trained as a teacher at Miner Teachers College, where she connected with poet Georgia Douglas Johnson. Evanti tied the knot with Roy W. Tibbs, the former director of the Coleridge-Taylor Society, a celebrated D.C. chorus honoring composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. The couple made their home at 1910 Vermont Avenue in the historic Shaw neighborhood, a residence now recognized as the Evans-Tibbs House on the National Register of Historic Places.
She later earned her music degree from Howard University, stunning audiences at her 1917 commencement with songs in French, German, English and American styles. While the Black press celebrated her brilliance, the white media would not take notice for more than a decade.
Evanti’s path to the international stage began in the heart of the segregated capital. A masterful soprano and Howard University graduate, she left the U.S. to pursue opportunity abroad.
In the mid-1920s, she shattered those barriers overseas by becoming the first African American to perform with a major European opera company, debuting in Lakmé in Nice, France. Her crisp tone and technical ability drew acclaim from critics and audiences alike.
Back home, however, the doors of America’s most prestigious opera houses stayed shut. Evanti auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera as early as 1932, but no offer came. To combat this, Evanti toured extensively, performed for dignitaries and brought opera to audiences often overlooked by the classical establishment.
One of her most legendary performances came in August 1943, when she starred as Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata with the National Negro Opera Company, on a barge floating in the Potomac River. The Chicago Defender reported that “Miss Evanti expressed a desire to see more of her race become interested in opera. She explained that “La Traviata” is offering her an opportunity to translate the role of Violetta in English, in order that a better understanding will be afforded those witnessing the performance.”
Evanti would also leverage her influence to advocate for social justice. Evanti performed at the White House for President and First Lady Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in 1934, served as a cultural ambassador in Latin America for the State Department and advocated for a national performing arts center, work that would help inspire the creation of the Kennedy Center.
In her later years, she taught, composed and marched for civil rights, including attending the 1963 March on Washington alongside her friend, artist Alma Thomas.
Evanti sadly passed away on December 6, 1967, in a nursing home in Washington, D.C. She was 77.
