Haymon, Cynthia
Haymon, Cynthia
Haymon, Cynthia, black American soprano; b. Jacksonville, Fla., Sept. 6, 1958. She was educated at Northwestern Univ. In 1984 she made her operatic debut at the Santa Fe Opera in the U.S. premiere of Henze’s We Come to the River, returning there to sing Xanthe in the U.S. premiere of Strauss’s Die Liebe de Danae in 1985. That same year, she created the title role in Musgrave’s Harriet, the Woman Called Moses at the Norfolk (Va.) Opera. In 1986 she made her European debut as Gershwin’s Bess at the Glyndebourne Festival. In subsequent years, she was engaged with opera companies on both sides of the Atlantic, including London’s Covent Garden, the Hamburg State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Canadian Opera, the Baltimore Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Opéra de la Bastille in Paris. She also appeared as a soloist with notable orchs. Among her other roles are Gluck’s Amor, Mozart’s Pamina and Susanna, Bizet’s Micaëla, and Puccini’s Liù and Mimi.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire