Opera soprano. She was mostly ignored in the U.S. but was a prominent success in Europe throughout her career. She grew up in the segregated South and gained a measure of fame in the 1950s, recording "A Drum Is a Woman" with Duke Ellington, singing heartfelt renditions of "Negro Spirituals" on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and appearing with Harry Belafonte in the musical "Sing, Man, Sing." She also sang at the funeral of musician W.C. Handy and toured the U.S.S.R. with Ed Sullivan's show in 1958. Her breakthrough in opera came in Europe in 1961, when she sang Salomé in Luchino Visconti's production at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. In the 1960s and '70s, she sang for seven seasons with the State Opera in Vienna, for eight seasons with opera companies in Prague and Budapest, and in Barcelona for another four. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1974, when she was 55, in a run of three performances as the title role in Janacek's "Jenufa," which began and ended her career there. Other roles she was known for included Lady Macbeth, Aida, Norma, Tosca, Salome, Liu in "Turandot," Leonora in "La Forza del Destino," Desdemona in "Otello"; oratorios and concert pieces including Verdi's Requiem, Brahms' Requiem, Mozart's Requiem, Britten's War Requiem, Strauss's Four Last Songs; Bess in "Porgy and Bess" at the New York City Opera for six years, "Amahl and the Night Visitors" on NBC, Broadway in "Lysistrata" with Sidney Poitier and in Finian's "Rainbow." She was unfazed by her shortened U.S. career, she said, because "the path to performance in Europe was so well paved, and you had to go to Europe because racism is real." She continued to perform into her 70s. Her nephew, Richard Roberts, a retired federal judge, said, "I never heard Aunt Margaret complain she had doors slammed in her face. I remember her saying she went from opportunity to opportunity."