March
25, 1910, Saluzzo, Italy — September 8, 2014, Milan
“One has to find the exact facial expression
for what one is saying and singing. If one just sings, without putting in any
heart or soul, it remains just beautiful singing and not a soul that sings!”
~Magda Olivero
Magda
(Maria Maddalena) Olivero was born on March 25th 1910 in Saluzzo (near Turin).
Magda Olivero, whose career spanned five decades of the twentieth century and
established her as an important link between the era of the verismo composers
and the modern opera stage.
Often
referred to as “the last verismo soprano,” Magda Olivero was an artist whose
total immersion in her roles combined with astounding vocal longevity to earn
her legendary status among lovers of expressive singing. Young Magda (short for
Maria Maddalena) studied piano, harmony, counterpoint and then voice,
auditioning at Turin’s EIAR radio for conductor Ugo Tansini, whose appraisal
has become part of the Olivero legend: “She possesses neither voice, musicality
nor personality!... She should look for another profession.” A second audition
produced the same response, but also aroused the interest of voice teacher
Luigi Gerussi, who offered to train her.
After a period of arduous vocal study, Olivero
made her major-role stage debut in Turin as Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi in
1933, the same year bowing at La Scala as Anna in Nabucco. Her easy high notes
and impeccable coloratura led to roles such as Gilda, Manon and Sophie, and she
was encouraged by Tullio Serafin to specialize in bel canto repertoire. But
Olivero’s heart was in verismo, and she had the opportunity to work closely
with a number of composers, including Giordano, Alfano, Mascagni and Cilèa,
sometimes creating roles for them, always gaining their admiration. (Thirty-one
of the forty-four composers whose operas Olivero sang during her career were
still alive when she began to study.)
 |
|
Young
Magda Olivero
|
In
1938, Olivero sang Liù in the world-premiere recording of Turandot, one of her
few commercial recordings, and in 1939 she sang her first Adriana Lecouvreur,
the role with which she became most identified. Olivero married industrialist
Aldo Busch in 1941, abandoning her career for a decade, singing only occasional
concerts to aid charities during the war.
Francesco
Cilèa, who considered Olivero the greatest interpreter of his Adriana, finally
persuaded the soprano to return to the stage. Writing to her, Cilèa insisted it
was Olivero’s duty “toward her public and her art.” The elderly composer was
dying and wanted to hear Olivero as Adriana one last time. When she worked on
the role with him, Cilèa declared Olivero had “gone beyond the notes” to what
he felt when he created Adriana. Two weeks after returning to the stage as
Mimì, on January 20, 1951, Olivero sang Adriana; sadly, Cilèa had died months
earlier, but he was the catalyst for an astounding second Olivero career phase,
lasting four more decades.
Although
Olivero kept singing Manon and Violetta (an early recording of “Sempre libera”
attests to her agility and rock-solid high E-flat), this second career focused
mainly on verismo heroines, Suor Angelica, Butterfly, Fedora, Manon Lescaut,
Margherita (Mefistofele), Iris, Minnie, Giorgetta (Il Tabarro) and Tosca. She
also continued to participate in premieres of new works, by Renzo Rossellini,
Ottorino Gentilucci, Flavio Testi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. Olivero won
acclaim in Menotti’s Medium and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites (Mother
Marie) and La Voix Humaine, and as a hair-raising Kostelnička in Jenůfa at La
Scala.
By
the mid-1960s Olivero was known in the U.S. through performances on “pirate”
LP’s. Her career expanded beyond Italy, and a U.S. debut took place in Dallas
in 1967, where, she was persuaded, after some hesitation, to sing Cherubini’s
Medea. Her reticence, based on the success of Maria Callas in the role in that
city, proved unfounded; the performances were a sensation. New York area
performances began in 1969, in Hartford Connecticut, with her legendary
Adriana.
The
enterprising Maestro Alfredo Silipigni then brought Olivero to his New Jersey
State Opera; local opera lovers journeyed to Newark for unforgettable Olivero
evenings of Tosca, Fedora, and Mefistofele. In the meanwhile, a Philharmonic
Hall debut in 1971 featured the soprano in a recital coupled with La Voix
Humaine in the same evening.
But
it was not until 1975, at the instigation of her great admirer Marilyn Horne,
that the Met finally invited Magda Olivero for three performances as Tosca. She
made her debut soon after her sixty-fifth birthday. Although the audience was
wildly demonstrative, this was no mere nostalgia event. After a few minutes to
warm up and conquer nerves, Olivero’s voice was astonishingly fresh, shedding
decades by Act II. At the second performance, this listener was treated to the
most touching, spectacularly sung “Vissi d’arte” of his experience.
During
Act III, Olivero’s ascent to a spectacular, lengthy high C and plunge down two
octaves into chest voice on the line “Io quella lama” earned her a spontaneous
ovation. This old-school audience response was inspired by the artist’s
old-school stage deportment; it was an evening that, in the best sense, turned
back the clock whenever she was onstage. Olivero’s total belief in the reality
of the drama prevented her performances from ever being reduced to shtick. And
her prodigious technique and breath control spoke of a bygone era, but one in
which she was unique among veristas, none of whom matched her vocal
capabilities.
Olivero
continued to sing, albeit with less frequency, until 1983, when the death of
her husband caused her to retire with no fanfare or farewells. However, in
1993, at eighty-three, Olivero recorded excerpts from her beloved Adriana
Lecouvreur, making a final artistic statement on the role, still able to offer
passages of ethereal beauty and expression. Her art is extensively documented
in live-performance audio recordings and a handful of video documents, everyone
a lesson.
She
died on September 8, 2014 at Milan. She was 104.
MAGDA OLIVERO Perfomance
(click to view)
No comments:
Post a Comment