Camellia Johnson
American opera singer (1953-2015)
Camellia Johnson (September 15, 1953 – August 26, 2015) was an American concert and opera singer. She began her career performing works from the mezzo-soprano repertoire, but after encouragement from the staff at the Metropolitan Opera retrained her voice as a soprano. She successfully made that transition after winning the Young Concert Artists competition in 1993. She went on to perform as a leading soprano with orchestras and opera companies internationally.
Life and career
Born in Palatka, Florida, Johnson was the daughter of Bernice Baker and Emmanuel Johnson. She graduated from Central Academy High School in Palatka. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Bethune–Cookman University and a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music before winning a study grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation in 1990.
Johnson made her professional debut at the Metropolitan Opera on November 20, 1985 as Lily in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess conducted by William Vendice. She returned to the Met for more than 50 more performances over the next decade in roles like Serena in Porgy and Bess, the High Priestess in Aida, and Madelon in Andrea Chénier. Her last performance at the Met was in 1994 as the High Priestess.
The public source identifies “Camellia Johnson” as american opera singer (1953-2015). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Camellia, Johnson and American.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21997830. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 2015, 1993 and 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “Camellia Johnson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.