Camilla Willams,First African-American Woman To Appear in U.S Opera Dies

    

   Camilla Williams, believed to be the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S.opera company, has died. She was 92.

    Williams died Sunday at her home in Bloomington, Ind., according to her attorney, Eric Slotegraaf. She died of complications from cancer, said Alain Barker, a spokesman for the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where Williams was a professor emeritus of voice.

   Williams' debut with the New York City Opera on May 15, 1946, was thought to make her the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company and came nearly nine years before Marian Anderson became the first African American singer to appear at New York's more prestigious Metropolitan Opera.