On a cloudy January 7 in 1955, the golden-red auditorium glowed with expectation. On the dark, gaping stage beyond the proscenium, Marian Anderson took her position as the gypsy sorceress Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. The emotional power of this moment is not surprising. At the time of Anderson's debut, the Metropolitan Opera, the largest and most prestigious opera house in the United States, had been exclusively white for its entire seventy two- year history. Most people felt in 1955 that despite her brief tenure (only eight performances over two seasons) Anderson's hiring was a decisive moment on the path toward desegregating classical music; it was celebrated as a new chapter in American racial relations and policies. Many of the conditions that Anderson had to overcome to reach this pivotal moment gradually improved for later generations of African American singers. However, while the second half of the twentieth century saw American opera houses decisively integrated, the black performer is yet consistently viewed as peculiar. While descriptions of her visual appearance have been toned down through the decades, the timbre of her voice has routinely (if often admiringly) been characterized as "black."