maria caniglia
soprano
may 05, 1905

 ‘I think she will do.’

So spoke the composer Mascagni, when Maria Caniglia auditioned before him as an emergency replacement for the role of Rosaura in Le Maschere. Maria was 24 years old and in her first season at La Scala and the year was 1930. The audition took place two days before the dress rehearsal.^[1]

The triumphant outcome of this rather off-hand praise depended upon the character and determination of the young singer. She learned and mastered the role in those two days, and throughout her long career Caniglia was noted for her outgoing and engaging personality. We would now recognise her as a team-player who would give all for her side. Indeed she told interviewer Lanfranco Rasponi, ‘I belong to a group of singers,…, who gave too much of themselves.’ She further, with characteristic honesty said, ‘I suffered a great deal in the theatre, for every time I conferred all my heart and soul. If toward the end my vocal resources were no longer what they had been, the public respected and loved me, because instinctively it recognised I did not spare one ounce of my being.’^[2]

Maria Caniglia was born in Naples in 1906 and studied singing at the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella. Although engaged at La Scala for the 1930-31 season, her first professional performance took place in Turin in 1930. as Chrysothemis in Strauss’ Elektra.^[3] She sang most of the Verdi lyric-dramatic heroines, but Caniglia made her mark especially in the verismo operas which were being composed throughout this period. However, she was not confined to Italian repertoire. Early in her career she performed Senta in Der Fliegender Holländer and spoke glowingly of Wagner, ‘How marvellously Wagner wrote for the voice! But a lot of breath control is needed for the legatos and the poetical phrasing.’^[4]

She was continuously at La Scala until 1943. In the same period Maria sang at Covent Garden and New York’s Metropolitan Opera. She returned to La Scala between 1948 and 1951 after which Caniglia left for Rome as the realised that two other great sopranos were engaged for the same roles ahead of her. In Rome, such was the calibre of her performances ‘she became as big an attraction at the Opera as the Sistine Chapel was at the Vatican.’ ^[5] However, she never regretted the years at La Scale and noted that, ‘In my epoch there, if we made a mistake, the conductor never called us to task but rather reprimanded the assistant who had prepared us: ‘Why didn’t Signorina Caniglia hold that breath five seconds longer?’ or something of that sort.’^[6] Does this still happen anywhere? It seems a very different world.

Her voice was noted for its sensuous and warm timbre, which made her an ideal verismo heroine. There are a number of recordings of complete operas with Beniamino Gigli, most significantly a Tosca, Un ballo in maschera, Aida, and Andrea Chenier. According to the Grove Book of Singers, her most representative recording is in the role of Leonora in La forza del destino, ‘where her gifts as a genuine lirico spinto soprano’, are displayed.^[7]