Reri Grist (born February 29, 1932) is an American coloratura soprano, one of the pioneer African-American singers to enjoy a major international career in opera. Biography Reri Grist was born in New York City, grew up in the East River Housing Projects, attended the High School of Music & Art, majored in voice and graduated with a BA in Music from Queens College, City University of New York. In her early teens she performed on Broadway in small roles with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, including Robert Ardrey's 1946 play Jeb, and in musicals with Eartha Kitt, while taking voice lessons with her teacher, Claire Gelda. Her first opera engagement was as Madame Herz in a concert performance of Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor. Her first staged "operatic" engagement was in 1956 as Cindy Lou (Micaela) in Carmen Jones, Oscar Hammerstein's adaptation of Bizet's Carmen. She was Consuelo in the original production of Leonard Bernstein's musical West Side Story in 1957, introducing "Somewhere" to the public. One of her earliest breakthroughs in classical music came in 1960 when Bernstein engaged her to sing the soprano part in Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G major with the New York Philharmonic in a Young People's Concert at Carnegie Hall. In following years, Grist appeared with the orchestra under the batons of Bernstein, Nadia Boulanger, Pierre Boulez, and Michael Gielen. Her operatic debut was at the Santa Fe Opera in 1959, as Adele in Die Fledermaus, followed by Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Igor Stravinsky attended the performance and invited her to perform his Le Rossignol with him conducting at the Washington Opera Society. Her first European appearance was at the Cologne Opera in 1960 as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute. From 1960–1966 she was a member of the Zurich Opera, where she first performed Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Adina in L'elisir d'amore, and Gilda in Rigoletto. After her successes in Zurich, she found herself much in demand, leading to her debuts at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in Le Coq d'Or and at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1962, followed by the Vienna State Opera in 1963, where she performed for twenty-five seasons. In the same year, Grist first sang at the San Francisco Opera as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Throughout twelve consecutive seasons there, she added to her