After a 1927 performance of "O Don Fatale" from Giuseppe Verdi's "Don Carlos" for the Dett Club Scholarship Fund at Pittsburgh's Grace Presbyterian Church , the columnist Sylvester Russell had this to say, "As a vocalist... Madam Rhea is a genuine contralto of wonderful range and power, hardly excelled in richness and as the star of the occasion she occupies a place among the greatest human voices produced." In the early 1930s Rhea toured the country with Ethel Waters in the stage production of "Rhapsody in Black", and was for a time the feature soloist of the Cecil Mack Choir.