A Harlem social worker who once mistook the Metropolitan Opera’s call for a prank went on to become one of opera’s great trailblazing voices.
Martina Arroyo, the American soprano who sang nearly 200 times at the Metropolitan Opera, died Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, at her home in Manhattan.
She was 89 or 90; sources conflict. Her representative, Miracle Management, confirmed the death to The New York Times. Arroyo was one of the first Black singers to build a major operatic career, and she was closely tied to the Metropolitan Opera through the 1960s and 1970s.
She first sang at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1968, as Aida, with the mezzo-soprano Shirley Verrett as Amneris. Told that Charles was in the audience, she replied: “That’s nice. Charles who?”
From a Caseload of 110 Families
Arroyo was born in Harlem on Feb. 2, 1936 of 1937, the younger of two children. Her father, Demetrio Arroyo, was a Puerto Rican mechanical engineer at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Her mother, Lucille Arroyo, née Washington, was African American and taught her the piano. She sang in the Baptist church choir and took ballet classes.
Hollywood musicals of the 1940s pulled her toward the stage, as did the Broadway shows she saw as a child. At Hunter College in New York she studied Romance languages, not music, and joined the opera workshop run by Joseph Turnau. Turnau put her in touch with Marinka Gurewich, a Slovakian-Jewish émigrée who stayed her teacher for her entire career. Her Harlem peers shunned her for wanting to sing. She taught high school for a year, then worked as a social worker. Her caseload numbered 110 families.
A Phone Call From Rudolf Bing
In 1958 she auditioned successfully for the Met, as did Grace Bumbry, and made her Carnegie Hall debut in the U.S. premiere of Ildebrando Pizzetti’s “Murder in the Cathedral.” Her Met debut, in 1959, was the off-stage Celestial Voice in “Don Carlo” — so brief that her mother, listening on the radio, missed it because she was in the bathroom.
Her career grew in Europe, in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich. In 1963 she joined the Zurich Opera, debuting in the title role of Verdi’s “Aida,” and stayed as a resident artist until 1965.
That February, Met general manager Rudolf Bing telephoned and asked her to step in at short notice for an ailing Birgit Nilsson in “Aida.” Arroyo took the call for a prank and played along, saying she was headed to a film matinee. The night was a triumph, and the Met offered her a contract. In that same year she sang Elisabetta in Verdi’s “Don Carlo,” Leonora in “Il Trovatore” and Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” and she took part in the premiere of Stockhausen’s “Momente II” in Germany.
She was thought to be the first Black singer to play Elsa in Wagner’s “Lohengrin.” Because of a mix-up, she once sang Amelia in “Un ballo in maschera” in Italian for a Prague audience while the rest of the cast sang in Czech. In the early 1970s she starred in three season-opening nights at the Met.
Pavarotti, a Strike and a Royal Farewell
Her British debut was as Valentine in a concert performance of Meyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots” with Joan Sutherland at the Royal Albert Hall. She returned to Covent Garden in February 1970 for “Il Trovatore,” reunited with Verrett and singing Leonora. On the same visit she sang Verdi’s “Requiem” with Leonard Bernstein and the London Symphony Orchestra at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall.
Bernstein later chose her as a soloist in Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony for his 1,000th concert with the New York Philharmonic, in December 1971.
Through the 1970s she sang at the Prague National Opera, the Royal Opera House and the Opéra National de Paris. Back in London in 1976, she played Amelia to Luciano Pavarotti’s Gustavus in “Un ballo in maschera.” A strike canceled “Macbeth” at the 1980 Proms; the next summer she sang “La forza del destino.” Her last major British performance was “Aida” at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre before the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1988.
The Diva Who Traded Jokes With Johnny Carson
She made more than 20 appearances on “The Tonight Show,” trading jokes with host Johnny Carson. In a 1975 episode of “The Odd Couple” she played herself, introduced by Felix Unger (Tony Randall) to sportscaster Howard Cosell.
Health problems forced her to scale back. Her final Met performance came in a 1986 production of “Aida,” and in 1989 she announced her retirement from public performance. She founded The Martina Arroyo Foundation in 2003 to nurture young opera singers, taught masterclasses, served as a Trustee Emerita of the Hunter College Foundation and sat on the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Hall. Her honors included an honorary doctorate from City University of New York, a 2010 Opera Honors Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and induction into both the Academy of Vocal Arts’ Hall of Fame for Great American Opera Singers and the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.
NBC’s “TODAY” also aired a remembrance of Arroyo.
In 2013 the Kennedy Center honored her alongside Billy Joel, Shirley MacLaine, Carlos Santana and Herbie Hancock. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor introduced her at the ceremony. “Now that’s the kind of diva I’m talking about — that’s Martina Arroyo,” Sotomayor told the audience.