KATHLEEN FERRIER, CONTRALTO, APRIL 22, 1912

Upon the shock announcement of her untimely death whilst at the height of her career in 1953, British contralto Kathleen Ferrier, was considered the most popular lady in Britain after the Queen. To this day the mention of her name garners great admiration and reverence amongst opera aficionados.

Ferrier grew up in the household of a school headmaster father. Her mother also possessed a strong contralto voice. Her musical aptitude was recognised at an early age, and she won awards and prizes for her piano playing, but at this stage her voice was not considered anything remarkable. When her father retired, the family were not able to afford to send her to attend music college.

On Ferrier’s career up to this point, the music biographer Humphrey Burton wrote in 1988: ‘For more than a decade, when she should have been studying music with the best teachers, learning English literature, and foreign languages, acquiring stage craft and movement skills, and travelling to London regularly to see opera, Miss Ferrier was actually answering the telephone, getting married to a bank manager and winning tinpot competitions for her piano-playing.’

But she was destined to receive much greater accolades and fame far from her initial success and become a living legend of her time with her contemporaries such as Marian Anderson claiming, ‘My God, what a voice — and what a face!’ In Vienna, the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was Ferrier’s co-soloist in a recorded performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor, with the Vienna Symphony under Herbert von Karajan. Schwarzkopf later recalled Ferrier’s singing of the Agnus Dei from the Mass as her highlight of the year.

Luckily her voice is well documented in recordings of her repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar. She created the role of Lucretia in Benjamin Britten’s ‘The Rape of Lucretia’ at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in 1946, and followed with Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice. These are the only operatic roles she chose to sing, though she performed operatic arias such as Adieu Fôrets from Tchaikovsky which she performed in recital settings.

To appreciate the beauty of her voice listen to her Ombra Mai Fu by Handel or the unaccompanied Northumbrian folk song Blow the Wind Southerly.

Sadly she finally succumbed to her breast cancer diagnosis despite working through radiation treatments and previous mastectomy, even stoically finishing what was to be her last ever stage appearance, when the femur of her leg gave way during the performance due to her effects of the radiation treatment. The audience was never aware of her condition.

She passed away not long afterwards and to this day it is still speculated as to how her career could have been even greater if she had lived longer. On the final page of Neville Cardus’ compilation of memoirs, after all the lists of recordings, there is a final last observation which simply states, ‘It is tragic that no recording exists of Kathleen Ferrier’s singing of the Angel in The Dream of Gerontius.

Ferrier was awarded the CBE in 1953 and a prestigious singing competition the Kathleen Ferrier Awards is held each April in the United Kingdom open to British and International singers under the age of 28 who have already completed a year of study in UK or the Republic of Ireland, to help further their studies as a legacy to her memory.

LILY PONS, APRIL 12TH, 1898

‘Really, what made the difference and turned a success into a triumph were the high notes. That is to say: the very highest, the Ds and E flats, the E natural that would stop the show at the end of ‘Caro nome’, the Fs which because of the keys used would elevate the final utterance of Lucia,’ wrote J.B.Stearne about the ‘X-factor’ of Lily Pons.

The extraordinary career of coloratura soprano Lily Pons seems graced by good fortune. Born to parents of French-Italian extraction on the 12 April 1898 in Draguignan near Cannes, she was a piano student at the Paris Conservatoire from the age of 13. As a budding pianist, she carried off first prize in a contest at the tender age of 15, against older competitors. Nevertheless when a friend heard her sing she was persuaded to approach a famous singing teacher, Alberti de Gorostigiaga who recognised her enormous potential.

In 1928 – aged 30 – she made her operatic debut in Mulhouse in the title role of Lakmé, which would remain one of the staples of her repertoire. Pons ‘learned her trade’ in various provincial opera houses in her native France until she sang in Montpellier and was noted by the retired tenor Giovanni Zenatello and his wife Maria Gay, who immediately recognising her vocal gifts, brought her to the attention of Giulio Gatti-Casazza, then Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Gatti-Casazza in his own memoirs recalled, ‘She came here – and gave us an audition. It was extraordinary. She sang the Bell Song from “Lakmé” and several other things, and we engaged her for the following season.’ Pons was in luck as Galli-Curci had left the Met the previous season and there was no coloratura soprano. Gatti-Casazza was well aware of the treasure that had been unearthed. Again in his own words, ‘I had given strict orders to the company that no word was to be uttered about her. I wanted her to make her debut without réklame and permit the public and the critics to judge from their own reactions, without preconceived prejudices, whatever they might be…. Unfortunately, however, the news leaked out to one of the papers after Lily Pons’s dress rehearsal.
Too late! The thing was done and it was not altogether to her advantage. Nevertheless, when Lily Pons made her debut on Saturday afternoon, January 3, 1931, in “Lucia di Lammermoor,” she became instantly a success. She sang throughout the remainder of the season in a number of different operas and, each time she sang, the theatre was full in spite of the financial depression.’ Apropos the debut in Lucia, after ‘Caro nome’ the applause went on for ten minutes and at the end of the opera she took thirty curtain calls.

Lily Pons sang at the Met throughout the rest of her long career. As well as Lakmé and Lucia, her other ‘signature roles’ included Violetta, Gilda, Mignon, and Amina in la Sonnambula, and Marie in La Fille du Regiment. Such was her success that Gatti-Casazza later wrote, ‘The personality of the singer has a powerful effect on the public mind. Witness our season of 1931-32. What was our most successful opera? Was it any one of the great masterpieces? It was a charming but not profound opera which brought the greatest receipts of all. That was Délibes’s “Lakmé,” with Miss Lily Pons, the justly popular young prima donna, in the title part.’ It was surely the case that when Pons sang the world stopped to listen.

With such outstanding success Hollywood beckoned and she made several now mostly forgotten films. During the second world war she enthusiastically sang to servicemen across the world. In the judgement of Harold Simpson, ‘No other coloratura held the position of esteem Lily Pons gained in her hey-day, and it is not unlikely that she is infinitely more exciting in the flesh than her later records would convey.’ This somewhat ambiguous praise reflects a view that in her later years the recordings show a decline. We will not judge. We know that she is a superstar in the firmament of legendary singers.

Lauritz Melchior, Tenor, March 20, 1890

In Die Walküre Astrid Varnay wondered at the vocal prowess of Lauritz Melchior holding the ‘Wälse’ cries for a full twelve seconds. Varnay asked rhetorically, ‘…what tenor ever matched that? Maybe Melchior himself – he has been timed at eighteen!’

Such is the testimony of a great vocal colleague to a giant of a man and arguably the greatest of all Wagnerian tenors. But Lauritz Melchior was not always destined to be a tenor. He had started his professional career in his native Denmark at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen. Around 1916 Madame Charles Cahier, who had become by this stage a highly regarded vocal teacher, urged young Lauritz to consider switching to tenor. Madame Cahier heard something in the voice of the young baritone that indicated really a great tenor in the making. In 9 October 1918 he therefore commenced his career as a tenor with the role of Tannhäuser. Incidentally, Cahier herself had been a pupil of Jean de Reszke and in turn greatly influenced the career of Marian Anderson. We should also mention that the then well-known English novelist Hugh Walpole, supported Melchior throughout this period, arranging singing lessons with Victor Beigel in Vienna in 1922 with the purpose of ‘making him the greatest Wagner tenor in the world’, and opened the doors of society enabling him to sing before Queen Alexandra at Marlborough House. In 1924 he was engaged at Bayreuth in the Ring Cycle and proved an unforgettable Siegfried that members of the audience wept openly. Walpole had the satisfaction by 1925 of having his protege acclaimed ‘the greatest Heldentenor in the world.’

Allowing for this early adulation, Melchior remained a modest and generous colleague. Varnay later recalled her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1942. She was the novice, thrown in at the deep end with the a who’s who list of Wagnerian greats, to sing Sieglinde, as Lotte Lehmann had a cold. Melchior’s presence, supportive attitude, and reassurance, ‘“Verlass dich auf mich”. What a beautiful thing to tell a newcomer. This great artist and gracious gentleman was telling the new kid on the block to leave things to him, and he would take care of me.’ The experience of another Wagnerian great, Kirsten Flagstad, tallies as in her memoirs she wrote, ‘I met Mr. Melchior for the first time while was rehearsing Siegfried. I had attended the rehearsal, and we were presented to one another by the manager. He was very helpful and encouraging, and as usual in excellent humour.’

Melchior’s career centred on all the demanding Heldentenor roles and his activity throughout the 1920s and 30s are a testament to his capacity, reliability and sheer artistry. He appeared in each role over 100 times and Tristan over 200 times. Such was Melchior’s fame, he appeared in five Hollywood musicals from 1945 to 1953 which has somewhat impacted his reputation among purists. But listen to his recordings and be blown away by the power and beauty. Add to this the fact that throughout his heyday no Wagner opera at a major house could do without Melchior, and you have a rare testament to a unique talent and artist.

However, as fashions change with time, in 1950 the new director of the Metropolitan Opera, Rudolf Bing moved the repertoire away from Wagner. Lauritz Melchior, who had done so much was not included in the change of direction and he could not come to terms with the new manager. To add insult to injury, the greatest Wagnerian tenor of the age was later accused by Bing of being ‘a sloppy performer with a casual attitude toward rehearsals and a penchant for practical jokes…’ Setting the record straight, Astrid Varnay wrote, “I never once witnessed the kind of conduct that Bing and Mayer claimed was so deplorable. On the contrary, no soprano could have asked for a more professional and caring tenor by her side on the stage.’ To underscore his concern for young singers and professionalism, he set up the Lauritz Melchior Heldentenor Foundation to provide scholarships for gifted singers.

Born on the 20 March 1890 in Copenhagen, Lauritz Melchior passed away on the 18 March 1973 in Santa Monica, California. There are many recording of his singing, including some from 1913 prior to his switch from baritone to tenor. His final performance was with the Danish Radio Orchestra in 1960 in celebration of his 70th birthday.

GINA CIGNA, SOPRANO, MARCH 06, 1900

‘I always preferred temperament and interpretation to voice alone.’

A child of the nascent twentieth century, Gina Cigna was born on the 6 March 1900 in Angers to parents of Italian descent. Amazingly she saw the entire century out, dying on the 26 June 2001 in Milan. With such a well-timed entrance and exit, she was doubtless destined for the stage and as a great dramatic interpreter!

Cigna was one of the most prominent Turandots of the 1930s. She was in fact the first artist to record the role of Turandot. It is claimed that she performed Turandot a total of 493 times – truly a remarkable stamina and vocal power was required for this feat. She was also one of the yardsticks by which all subsequent Normas have been measured. Another notable role was Aida, in which her Ritorna vincitor was described as a ‘searing experience’. Further superlatives were lavished upon her performance of Aida at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, a ‘beautiful, clear, pure voice,…a marvellous musician…beautiful vocal control…’ And yet there were critics as well that noted,’The voice is full and has a great range, but the emission is uneven and the agility is heavy.’ What we can be sure of, is that Cigna gave her all to performing the role and her statement in favour of interpretation over vocal perfection is testament to this. How exciting her stage presence must have been.

Initially she studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire but was heard singing by none other than the great Emma Calvé who arranged an audition with Toscanini. Remarkably, Cigna accompanied herself on the piano, playing and singing arias from Rossini and Verdi which resulted in an immediate engagement! Gina Cigna’s professional stage debut was at La Scala as Freia in Wagner’s Das Rheingold in January 1927.

Throughout the 1930s Cigna performed in Latin America, North America and Europe the many roles which she had made her own.

Tragically her career was cut short by a serious car crash in 1947 en-route to perform Tosca in Verona. She completed her performance and collapsed afterwards – she had suffered a heart attack. Cigna never sang again but began an illustrious career as a singing teacher.

ADELINA PATTI, SOPRANO, FEBRUARY 19, 1843

On the 19 February 1843 Adelina Patti was born in Madrid, the daughter of Sicilian parents, who were both professional singers, her father a tenor and her mother a soprano. With such a start no wonder the great composer Giuseppe Verdi was able to say of her, ‘She is perfectly organised. Perfect balance between singer and actress, a born artist in every sense of the word.’ Verdi when asked which three sopranos were his favourites, famously replied, ‘First, Adelina; second, Adelina; third, Adelina.’ Yet George Bernard Shaw when writing about Patti in 1888, noted that she would, ‘bow to you in the agony of stage death if you only dropped your stick accidentally.’

According to John Roselli, Patti was in real terms the highest paid opera singer in history. Patti commanded 10,000 francs per performance when average colleagues would make anything between 500 to 1,000 francs per month! She was gifted not only with a pure voice, doll-like looks and acting but, ‘a notable competence in running her career and a will of iron.’ In her heyday she was better paid than such notable thespian contemporaries, Sarah Bernhardt and Henry Irving, not to mention her operatic colleagues. What did she do with this fortune you may ask? Patti was able buy a Welsh castle, Craig-y-Nos, with her second husband and in her 150 seat private theatre perform for invited guests. This was inaugurated on 12 August 1891 with the first act of la Traviata and the third act of Faust. Patti’s husband sang the role of Mephistopheles in the latter. You can still see both the castle and theatre as its now a hotel. What is sadly also true is that although, ‘the best singers still earn well,.. the greater economic and social equality of our time is incompatible with fees at Patti level.’ But despite being lady of the manor in Craig-y-Nos, we must also remember that Adelina Patti sang an annual charity concert in Swansea

Yet it would be churlish to view Adelina Patti from the perspective of her success. In New York the conductor Giulio Arditi, in his memoirs noted the young girl, ‘first selected a comfortable seat for her doll in such proximity that she was able to see her while singing,’ and when young Adelina sang, I wept genuine tears of emotion, tears which were the outcome of the original and never-to-be-forgotten impression her voice made when it first stirred our innermost feelings…’ Whatever Patti possessed vocally, it was something any lover of classical singing must surely regret not having been able to hear. At her London debut in la Sonnambula in 1861 one critic wrote, ‘Mdlle. Patti is a triumphant refutation of the assumption that art and genius have deserted the operatic stage,’

Her career was guided from the start. Her first teacher, her brother-in-law, Maurice Strakosch, decided she must stop singing at age ten to allow her voice to develop. She did make her debut at age sixteen in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor!

A curious incident in San Francisco in 1884 is that the greatest operatic performer of her age survived an attempt to murder her with a bomb thrown from the gallery. The terrorist threw wildly though and the bomb exploded in a box. Consummate artist that she was, her courage never failed her. She never lost her nerve in a crisis and in New Orleans, as the overcrowded gallery was starting to sink, she calmed the audience by singing’ Home, Sweet, Home’ without accompaniment allowing a safe evacuation to take place! A similar event took place in Budapest where someone had screamed out, Fire!’ and Patti calmed the audience.

Perhaps we should finish with the judgement of Eduard Hanslick, arguably the greatest music critic of the nineteenth century, ‘he had heard more brilliant voices, seen more sophisticated actresses, and more beautiful women, but Patti’s appeal consisted in making him forget them.’

Maria Callas, Soprano, December 02, 1923

Of Greek emigré parentage, Maris Callas was conceived in Greece and born in New York. She was baptised Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria Callas, her namesake St.Cecilia the patron saint of music serving her in this case particularly well!

The actual date of birth is disputed, but considering this quote from the book by Stelios Galatopoulos, Maria Callas La Divina, Maria will have the final word. ‘The actual birth is uncertain. Maria Callas’ passport gives the date as the 2nd, and Groves dictionary the 3rd, but Callas’ mother remembers the 4th. Callas herself considers the 4th as her birthday primarily in order to agree, naturally, with her mother and also because St. Barbara is the patron saint of artillery for whom Callas says she has a special devotion.’ 

Simply said, Maria Callas was an amazing force of nature. Her instrument spanned many voice categories which she used with the greatest artistry and musicality over the diverse operatic repertoire she mastered and from all witness accounts in a most mesmerising way and utterly unforgettable.

If one had to classify her unclassifiable instrument it may have fallen into that of soprano dramatico d’agilitá, which is a voice of enormous range, capable of the florid style simultaneously accomplished with dramatic accentuations that gives it a very moving quality of tone. The voice possessed great volume compared with that, that a present-day dramatic soprano would legitimately exhibit as well as the extensive chest voice quality of a true mezzo-soprano.

When La Scala management eventually could no longer deny her a contract as a prima donna in her own right and not just as a jump-in substitution for their indisposed most popular and loved star at the time Renate Tebaldi, she rose to the dizzying heights of operatic stardom of world-wide fame and adulation.

La Scala had in Callas a singer capable of reviving the long neglected bel canto operas. So dependent was La Scala on Callas’ skills, that they could find no other living singer to sing the role of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena for the planned 1964-1965 visit to Russia which Callas declined to participate in, when she was not offered any other roles at La Scala for that season.

Her voice and mystique has resulted in many books, theories and films being made about her.

To give an idea of the sensation and impact she created we let others recollect who knew her and witnessed her performances.

Giuseppe di Stefano, friend and the other half of the operatic dream team he formed with Callas, when asked in an interview to compare his two leading ladies, replied, ’Tebaldi had the most beautiful voice in the world,” he says, “Maria had four different voices, but she was the most expressive singer I ever experienced. She was a true artist. She attracted news stories but she always only wanted to be treated like ‘The Other One’ (the common term used by the Tebaldi/Callas camps for the opposing diva).’

Madame Biki one of the most famous couturiers in Italy from the 1940s-1960s, designed for Maria Callas and played a part in Callas becoming a style icon of the time. Incidentally, the name Biki, was the nickname given her by step-grandfather who was none other than Giacomo Puccini himself. She wrote in the forward of Maria Callas La Divina, ‘Fashion: this is the reason Maria first came to me, and by no means a trifling or irrelevant reason. The elegance of Callas, both on the stage and in life, has been one of her many triumphs. Maria Callas is an outstanding character: a life lived at the summit. She is comparable to such figures of our time as Picasso, Cocteau and Chaplin, for in her art she has the same revolutionary and exciting influence they had and have in theirs. And, like all of them, she never judged art and life by two different standards. In art- as in life- there is no distinction between lesser and greater things. Everything is important.’

From Michael Scott opera director and Callas biographer, we find the following amazing anecdote, ‘The great turning point in Callas’ career occurred in Venice in 1949. She was engaged to sing the role of Brünnhilde in Die Walküre at the Teatro la Fenice, when Margherita Carosio, who was engaged to sing Elvira in I puritani in the same theatre, fell ill. Unable to find a replacement for Carosio, Serafin told Callas that she would be singing Elvira in six days; when Callas protested that she not only did not know the role, but also had three more Brünnhildes to sing, he told her “I guarantee that you can.” In Michael Scott’s words, “the notion of any one singer embracing music as divergent in its vocal demands as Wagner’s Brünnhilde and Bellini’s Elvira in the same career would have been cause enough for surprise; but to attempt to assay them both in the same season seemed like folie de grandeur”. Scott asserted that “Of all the many roles Callas undertook, it is doubtful if any had a more far-reaching effect.” This initial foray into the bel canto repertoire changed the course of Callas’ career and set her on a path leading to Lucia di Lammermoor, La traviata, Armida, La sonnambula, Il pirata, Il turco in Italia, Medea, and Anna Bolena, and reawakened interest in the long-neglected operas of Cherubini, Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini.’

It is well known that Callas worked with and admired the film and opera director Franco Zeffirelli. He summed her artistic character up with, ‘Maria is a common girl behind the wings, but when she goes onstage, or even when she talks about her work or begins to hum a tune, she immediately assumes this additional quality.

For me, Maria is always a miracle. You cannot understand or explain her. You can explain everything [Laurence] Olivier does because it is all part of a professional genius. But Maria can switch from nothing to everything, from earth to heaven. What is it this woman has? I don’t know, but when that miracle happens, she is a new soul, a new entity.’

Sir Rudolf Bing, Metropolitan Opera director expressed similar sentiments, ‘Once one heard and seen Maria Callas—one can’t really distinguish it—in a part, it was very hard to enjoy any other artist, no matter how great, afterwards, because she imbued every part she sang and acted with such incredible personality and life. One move of her hand was more than another artist could do in a whole act.’
The conductor Carlo Maria Giulini, recalled, ‘It is very difficult to speak of the voice of Callas. Her voice was a very special instrument. Something happens sometimes with string instruments—violin, viola, cello—where the first moment you listen to the sound of this instrument, the first feeling is a bit strange sometimes. But after just a few minutes, when you get used to it, when you become friends with this kind of sound, then the sound becomes a magical quality. This was Callas.’

Biographer Stelios Galatopolous who witnessed Callas’ Italian Debut in La Gioconda in Verona in 1947 and her Covent Garden debut as Norma in 1952, as well as over one hundred of her performances, recollected in his book, ‘On 8th November 1952 Callas made her London debut creating a sensation in Bellini’s Norma which was talked about many years after by those who saw the performances as the greatest thing they had ever heard on the operatic stage.’

‘Still there was one critic who would not surrender unconditionally. The late Ernest Newman, in the Covent Garden foyer after the performance, found himself surrounded by a crowd of people who wanted to hear his opinion. After all, [at that time] he was the eldest music critic in London, and the only one who had heard some of the great Normas of the past. Newman said very little: “She was wonderful, truly wonderful.” And then raising his umbrella and almost in a high pitched voice: “But she is not a Ponselle.”’

Even at the time of her final operatic performances when it was observed she was longer at her full vocal powers, she could still draw admiration from the highest level. In 1965 ‘Clarendon, possibly France’s most eminent music critic, described the performance an unforgettable theatrical experience. I have seen Puccini’s Tosca many times- hundreds, but last night I was convinced it was really the first time, he wrote.’

In 1969, the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini cast Callas in her only non-operatic acting role, as the Greek mythological character of Medea, in his film by that name. The film was not a commercial success, but as Callas’ only film appearance, it documents something of her stage presence.
From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes at the Juilliard School in New York. These classes later formed the basis of Terrence McNally’s 1995 play Master Class.
Callas staged a series of joint recitals in Europe in 1973 and in the U.S., South Korea, and Japan in 1974 with the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano. Critically, this was a musical disaster owing to both performers’ no longer being at their peak .
Nevertheless, the tour was an enormous popular success. Audiences thronged to hear the two performers, who had so often appeared together in their prime. Her final public performance was on 11 November 1974, in Sapporo, Japan. Callas and di Stefano were to have appeared together in four staged performances of Tosca in Japan in late 1975 but Callas cancelled.
Sadly after a relatively early retirement from the stage she died in Paris in 1977 at the age of 53 and her ashes returned to Greece and scattered in the Aegean Sea.

In 2007, Callas was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In the same year, she was voted the greatest soprano of all time by BBC Music Magazine.

More recently Callas still continues to fascinate the world. In 2017 the film director Tom Volf made the French documentary Maria by Maria based on interviews, letters and performances to tell her story and in 2024 the biopic Callas played by Angelina Jolie and directed by Pablo Larraín had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival where Jolie received an eight minute standing ovation reminiscent of ‘La Divina’s’ at the height of her fame.

Alfredo Kraus, Tenor, November 24, 1927

Alfredo Kraus was born on this day in 1927. It is not difficult to acknowledge that he was deserving of the title Tenore di grazie by the way he sang and conducted his life.

Born to an Austrian father and a Spanish mother in the Canary Islands, Alfredo and his older brother Francesco Kraus Trujillo, a baritone, were given a solid musical education starting with piano lessons from an early age and went on to study music and opera alongside each other.

In 1948, the twenty-one year old Alfredo left for Barcelona where he studied singing for two years under a Russian teacher, Gali Markoff, who applied a rigorous and scientific method to his natural but light weight voice. He was also a pupil of Francisco Andres, who taught him a singing technique similar to that imparted by Mercedes Llopart, the great Spanish singer and teacher. Then in Milan, both he and his older brother studied with Mercedes Llopart herself. Under her guidance, he learnt the correct positioning of sound in the “mask” (the facial cavities of resonance), how to lean on the diaphragm, and in fact compress the breath between diaphragm and mask. All these are elements of the famous Lamperti-Garcia singing technique of the mid 1800s.

Like many Spanish singers, he started his career singing Zarzuela on stage in Madrid and Barcelona.

At the age of 29, in 1956 after winning the silver medal at the Geneva International Singing competition he was engaged to make his operatic debut in Cairo as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto.

After his successful Cairo debut, he was invited to sing Alfredo, in Verdi’s, la Traviata. Firstly, in Venice and subsequently in Turin and Barcelona during 1957, and at the Stole Theatre in London in 1958, where his partner, was the then equally unknown young soprano, Renata Scotto.

By 1958 he was singing along side Maria Callas in the legendary La Traviata performance at the Teatro Nacional de Sāo Carlos in Lisbon of which a live recording was later released. Of his experience singing opposite Maria Callas in Lisbon, he recalls, with gratitude and special satisfaction.
Overawed by Callas’ fame and reports of her difficult temperament, offstage and on, he was understandably nervous. To his surprise, she proved an outstandingly supportive and sympathetic colleague, whose stimulating presence was a contributing factor to his own success.

Subsequent debuts followed in 1959 as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at Covent Garden and Elvino in La Sonnambula at La Scala in 1960. His American debut took place in Chicago in 1962 as Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, followed by his debut at the Metropolitan in New York in Rigoletto where audiences celebrated his finely honed technique, impeccable diction and mastery of the bel canto repertoire.

Kraus managed his career very carefully and ‘stuck to his guns’ so to say. He avoided ever singing outside of his lyrical tenor voice repertoire, though offers to do so were forthcoming and frequent.

He was especially known for his interpretation of Massenet’s Werther, Gounod’s Faust and roles requiring extreme high notes such as Bellini’s i Puritani which the conductor Tulio Serafin thought that the role was made for him, with its fiendishly difficult Tessitura, culminating in a series of D naturals. It goes almost without saying, he sang La fille du Régiment with its nine high C’s. He still sang this aria masterfully at the Gala Lirica in Seville in 1992 even at the age of sixty five years. His superlative technique and determination never to sing beyond his capabilities enabled him to sing and perform into his seventies.

Of his Art and his life philosophy Kraus said: …for the artist has a duty to be a teacher, an educator, beyond popular tastes and fashion. Instead of singing to the gallery, we should sing for that section of the public, be it 50, 20, 10 or even 1%, who really understand. I deeply believe in elitist standards, not from the snobbish social aspect, but from the point of view of quality and excellence. In singing for this minority of the public, capable of truly appreciating what you do, we also help raise the level of understanding of the majority, who have now heard and will know the difference between excellence and mediocrity. Maybe not today, but certainly tomorrow, or the day after. What does it matter if one’s temporary antagonised? I give my art, it is the public who should come to me, not vice versa. This is the way of the bequeathing something valid and worthwhile to the future of our art.’

From a technical point of view, he gave variety to his voice using piani, pianissimi, smorzature, rinforzati and top notes with color bursting into a head squillo, which Mr. Gualerzi, a top Italian critic, felt it was a falsetto. In a Spanish magazine, Ritmo, of March 1978, Kraus responded to Gualerzi’s criticism by saying: ‘I never attempted the falsetto technique. I never felt the need for it, and further, I do not know how to do it. Maschera and falsetto are two wholly different emission techniques. If you do one you cannot do the other. It is not easy to shift the voice from one position to the other.” He reiterated this view in his interview with Bruce Duffie in 1981.
Kraus’ discography is extensive making many full opera recordings with EMI and he was involved with a recording label. Les Pêcheurs de Perles featured in long playing operatic records, later marketed by a record company, Carillon Records, and distributed in Italy by the House of Giancarlo Bongiovanni.

Throughout his career, Alfredo Kraus received numerous distinctions and awards, including Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X the Wise; Order of Isabella the Catholic, Commander by Number; Knight of the French Legion of Honour; Austrian Grand Cross of Honour for Science and Art; Enrico Caruso Prize, Italy; Metropolitan Opera House Prize, New York; and the title of Kammersänger from the Opera of Vienna. He also received awards in the islands of his birth, including Canary Islands Gold Medal; distinction as Favourite Son of the City of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; the Can de Plata and Can de Oro Awards for the Arts, from the Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria; and the Canary Islands Fine Arts and Performance.
One of his most cherished projects was the establishing in 1990 of an international biannual singing competition and continues in his name to help young opera singers of all nationalities.
Three auditoriums, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Majadahonda (Madrid) and Aspe (Alicante), and two cultural centres, in Mirasierra-Fuencarral (El Pardo, Madrid) and Tejeda (Gran Canaria) have been named after Alfredo Kraus. A primary school in Lomo Los Frailes (Tamaraceite, Gran Canaria), the Chair of singing at Barcelona’s Liceo Conservatory, and the Aula Cultural (cultural department) of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria are also named after him. In 2000, the Opera Season in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, organised by Amigos Canarios de la Ópera, took the name Alfredo Kraus, the same year that the Spanish postal service highlighted his career with a stamp in its Personajes Populares (Popular Figures) series.
He died in Madrid in 1999 of a prolonged illness at the age of 71 two years after the death of his wife Rosa whom he married in 1956.

From the Los Angeles Times obituary, it was written that Kraus maintained that it was emotion, not precision, that made an opera singer great. ‘For me, to live and breathe a role is far more important than singing it to perfection, because a perfect voice can be as dull as dishwater,’ he has said. ‘What the public must understand is that singing is a matter of musicality, sensitivity, personality, and above all, maturity.”

Amelita Galli Curci, Soprano, November 18, 1822

Galli Curci was born in Milan, Italy into an upper middle class family of Italo-Spanish heritage. Her musical prowess was evident at an early age graduating from the Milan Conservatorium and winning the first prize as a pianist in 1903.

We have the opera composer Piero Mascagni to thank for encouraging her to have some vocal lessons with Carignani and Sara Dufes, but apparently she remained mainly self taught as she began her career using piano exercises and treatises available from the former greats to hone her vocal skills. Later in New York she coached with coloratura soprano Estelle Liebling.

She debuted as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto at the age of 24 and became increasingly more successful over the next eight years in the coloratura repertoire not only in Italy but in Spain, Egypt, Russia and Central and South America. During this time in Buenos Aires she sang two performances of Lucia di Lammermoor with Enrico Caruso.

Having only been offered a contract for minor roles at La Scala in Milan, she vowed never to sing there in the future. Looking for more opportunities he sights were set across the Atlantic. She married the aristocrat Marchese Luigi Curci an aspiring painter architect, costume and set designer and they became the toast of Italian society.

In New York, Galli-Curci hoped to be engaged by the Metropolitan Opera, but Maestro Gatti-Cassazza had already hired his wife, Maria Barrientos, to sing all the coloratura soprano roles that season. Fortunately, Cleofonte Campanini, of the struggling Chicago Opera, was in town looking for singers and was willing to give the diva a chance. Against Luigi’s (her husband) wishes, the Curci family packed their bags and moved to Chicago.

Her much-anticipated Met debut in the same opera was slated for Opening Night, November 14, 1921, alongside two fellow Italians, tenor Beniamino Gigli, who inherited much of Caruso’s lyric repertory, and baritone Giuseppe De Luca. The new production, designed by Joseph Urban and conducted by Roberto Moranzoni, did not disappoint. Max Smith reviewing for the Herald American wrote:
“How fascinating is Amelita’s impersonation of Violetta, already made familiar during her association with the visiting Chicago Opera Company! How imaginatively vivacious in the first act; how pathetic in the second; how tragic in the last. It was fitting, indeed, that Giulio Gatti-Casazza should bring forward his latest “star” in Traviata. For surely no other role reveals her own peculiar powers, histrionic as well as vocal, to greater advantage: None permits her to disclose more affectingly the characteristic delicacy of her art, the essentially feminine charm of her persuasions.”
Comparisons with the greatest coloraturas of the recent past—Adelina Patti, Marcella Sembrich, Luisa Tetrazzini—followed in the press, proving that even for those who found faults with the new diva, she had clearly joined an illustrious line of bel canto virtuosos. In addition to her appearances in opera and numerous recital tours, Galli-Curci’s fame rested equally on her best-selling recordings. Sales for her records rivalled those of Caruso, and she often recorded popular or light songs as well as opera arias. Her distinctive vocal timbre—soft-grained, velvety, and pure—transferred well to records even by the crude technology of the time.”

Her fame and popularity spread. 1918 was a pivotal year in Galli-Curci’s development as an international star. In addition to being followed by paparazzi (which she adored), Amelita became a celebrity endorser for RCA Victor’s “Talking Machines,” appearing in full-page ads in the New York Times in glamorous outfits throughout 1918 and 1919. She also extolled the virtues of cosmetics, furs, and automobiles.

After the Armistice in 1918, Luigi begged Amelita to return to Italy to save their marriage, but Amelita refused to give up stardom and her affair with Homer Samuels, her rehearsal accompanist in Chicago.

Luigi demanded a divorce, and a public scandal ensued, appearing in the society pages of Chicago papers for almost a year.

Amelita Galli-Curci and Homer Samuels were married in Homer’s parents’ home in Minneapolis on Jan. 15, 1921, and Amelita became an American citizen. She never returned to Italy.

The couple bought a country home in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York. They called their getaway “Sul Monte” and escaped the stress of Galli-Curci’s career whenever possible.

The rigours of being in such demand and popularity in both two major opera houses Chicago and New York started to tell in her voice, and in 1935 after refusing to acknowledge an ever increasing growth in her neck and the subsequent pain it caused her, she agreed to have the goitre caused by thyroid disjunction removed by a doctor who was not perturbed by operating on such a famous golden throat. On the contrary he apparently bathed in the glory and many photo opportunities were made with his famous patient. However, the operation was not without consequences, and she was never able to move into the lyric and dramatic soprano repertoire that the doctor had led her to believe would be awaiting her after she healed. The dubious honour of having the damaged nerve, the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve named after her ensued, and is still referred to as the “nerve of Galli Curci” up until this day.

In their retirement years Galli Curci and her husband Homer became interested in Eastern spirituality and were active members of the Yogananda Society. Galli Curci wrote the forward to Paramahansa Yogananda’s 1929 book Whispers from Eternity. Yogananda’s most famous book being Autobiography of a Yogi, a work known to have inspired many people worldwide, including George Harrison and Apple founder Steve Jobs.

In a video recording Joan Sutherland recounts how she and her husband Richard Bonynge were very excited to have the opportunity to meet their vocal heroine, and apart from exchanging Coloratura talk, she reminisced on how she was very taken by the style and presence of the diva when she opened the door to greet them completely dressed in matching pink apart from a tortoise shell comb in her hair. Sutherland lovingly ordered pink note paper in her honour which always made her remember her.

She was also appreciated and honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Galli Curci died eight days after her 81st birthday at her home in California.

From the forward of Whispers of Eternity she wrote:
“The followers of all religions can drink from this fountain of universal prayers. These invocations are the answer to the modern scientific mind, which seeks God intelligently. The prayers in this book are presented in great variety, and therefore enable each one of us to choose those prayers best suited and helpful to his own particular needs.

My humble request to the readers is expressed in the following lines:

Pass not by, with hurried intellectual reading, the mines of realization hidden in the soil nourishing the word plants in this book. As the author tells us, dig into them deeply, daily and repeatedly, with a pickaxe of attentive, reverential, and meditative study. Then you will find the priceless gem of Self-realization.”

YouTube video with an array of photos including Galli Curci on her Australian tour pictured with a Kookaburra (another famous bird with an amazing trill!)

JON VICKERS, TENOR, OCTOBER 29TH, 1926

Born in 1926 in rural Saskatchewan, Jon Vickers was a very private man. Indeed as one of the greatest tenors of the twentieth century, his reticence comes as a surprise until one recognises he harnessed his emotions, dynamism, and single-minded professionalism for his stage performances. No greater tribute can be given than that of his ideal partner in so many Wagnerian roles than that of Birgit Nilsson who wrote, ‘..I have had many wonderful tenors on stage. … But Jon Vickers was different, very different, both as an artist and as a human being. He looked neither right nor left; his opinions were as strong as the rock of Die Walküre. He had to have it his way, no matter what.’ His amazing dedication to his art can be heard in his performances and his statement that, ‘No matter what we did in this pursuit of excellence, we did it for the glory of God. I have never lost that.’ His sense of religious purpose gave his performances an unforgettable and thrilling tension, that made him a superlative singer, without pretensions and total immersion in the character and drama.

His early upbringing was marked by the depression, labouring in the family fields, which sometimes is attributed to his strength and stamina. His family, who were all enamoured of music and singing, listened to the radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons and this meant young Jon heard the very best of the best. Young Jon was in great demand as a church singer, and he performed frequently, but he observed years later, ‘To begin with, I sang because I had to sing. It was part of me … an absolute necessity, fulfilling some kind of emotional and even physical need in me.’

His singing in churches eventually brought him to the notice of George Lambert who scouted Canada for fresh young talent, and although Jon was 25 at the time, Lambert offered him a scholarship to Toronto Conservatory. In later years, Vickers acknowledged Lambert as the sole teacher he had.

His first professional performance was a concert in Toronto on 17 April 1951. Throughout the years 1952 to 1956 he was performing in Canada. At this point, even though regularly performing, he was having doubts about a career as it was difficult for him to provide for his growing family and he had set a deadline to quit singing for June 1956. At this crucial point gate stepped in when Regina Resnik recommended Vickers to her agent. International attention meant that by 1957 he made numerous appearances in London singing Verdi and French repertoire. But it was in the performance of Wagner that he truly made his mark, and his legend. His first Bayreuth appearance was as Siegmund in Die Walküre on 28 July 1958. Thereafter Siegmund was his domain. He sang the heavy Verdi roles, and his Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio and Britten’s Peter Grimes of the eponymous opera are the standard by which all others are measured against. His final performance was typical of the great but publicity shy man, a concertina performance of Act 2 of Parsifal in Kitchener, in rural Ontario.

His huge and powerful voice may be heard in the classic recording of Tristan und Isolde, under the baton of Herbert von Karajan. Despite Vickers’ reputation as a challenging colleague, he was one of Karajan’s favourite singers. It is regrettable that we can no longer observe him live on stage. In the words of one critic, Vickers ‘dominated the stage from first to last. In ringing voice, the tenor created a tragic figure of terrifying strength and heart-rending poignancy, shaped with the full range of hues, from the arrogant military man to the whimpering creature on the floor of his cell.’ It is interesting to note that such was the intensity and excitement of his stage persona, that other singers were allegedly fearful of him.

The most heroic of tenors, Jon Vickers passed away on 10 July 2015. His signature role, is arguably Peter Grimes.

JENNY LIND, SOPRANO, OCTOBER 6TH, 1820

Jenny Lind 1820

Coined the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, Jenny Lind was born in Stockholm in 1820. Her exceptional voice was noticed at age ten, and as even as a young girl she was enrolled in the Royal Opera School in Stockholm. In 1838 she made her debut at Agathe in Der Freischütz. Early demands and success overtaxed her voice and this led her to travel to Paris to seek consultation and tutelage from Manuel García the younger, who immediately prescribed some time of vocal rest before taking her on as a student. In 1842 upon returning to Stockholm her much improved voice was apparent when she appeared in the title role of Norma.

When touring Denmark, in 1843, she met the writer Hans Christian Andersen who fell in love with her. The two became good friends but his romantic feelings were not reciprocated. She is believed to have inspired three of his fairy tales: “Beneath the Pillar”, “The Angel” and “The Nightingale” and possibly the “Snow Queen”, after what was perceived as an icy rejection from Lind. He wrote, “No book or personality whatever has exerted a more ennobling influence on me, as a poet, than Jenny Lind. For me she opened the sanctuary of art.”
Among her early admirers were Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz and, most importantly for her, Felix Mendelssohn. The pianist and composer, Ignaz Moscheles wrote: “Jenny Lind has fairly enchanted me… her song with two concertante flutes is perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that can possibly be heard”.
The character of Vielka, from Meyerbeer’s Ein Feldlager in Schlesien (The Camp of Silesia) 1844, was a role specifically written for Lind but not premiered by her. Nevertheless the Gypsy Song from the opera became one of the arias most associated with Lind, and she was called on to sing it wherever she performed in concert. Her operatic repertoire included the title roles in Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria di Rohan, Norma, La sonnambula and La vestale as well as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Adina in L’elisir d’amore and Alice in Robert le diable.
Mendelssohn who was greatly enamoured with Lind wrote the soprano part of the Oratorio Elijah with her voice in mind, apparently giving great attention to the tessitura of the aria around the note F-sharp (F#5), which was a note in her range that Mendelssohn supposedly found irresistibly charming. Devastated by Mendelssohn’s early death, Lind felt unable to perform the piece at its premiere.
Her fame had spread and when she arrived in England, she took the English audiences by storm. Queen Victoria herself attended all sixteen of Lind’s premiere performances.
Of her performances at Her Majesty’s in London it was written by the reviewer in The Sun, on 5 May 1847, ‘So highly had Jenny Lind’s musical powers been praised, that we went almost prepared to be disappointed. We expected to find her a second Sontag from the descriptions we had read, but we certainly were not prepared to find, as we did find, the beautiful tones of a Sontag, united to the powers of a Grisi, the compass of a Malibran, the more than flexibility of a Persiani, and the correctness of intonation of the most perfect of musical instruments. It is impossible by language to convey any idea of what the voice of Jenny Lind really is, because it is so surpassingly beautiful – so superior to any other voice, uniting, as it does, the perfection of all voices, that there is no standard to which it can be compared. It is, in fact, itself the standard, as being the nearest approach to perfection of any voice ever heard, and hence the difficulty, nay, the absolute impossibility of doing justice by description to the powers of Jenny Lind. Truly has she been called the nightingale, for she possesses in the utmost perfection the “jug” note of the bird, and also that marvellous power of throwing, as it were, the warble into the distance – now dying away, and now swelling again, even as an organ does – a power possessed by no other human voice that we have ever heard.’
In 1849 after performing at two successful seasons at Her Majesty’s in London and an extensive tour of Great Britain she gave her final performance at Her Majesty’s and from the retired from the opera stage.

A next chapter was to open with a collaboration in America with the entrepreneur and showman B.T. Barnum of ‘Barnum and Bailey’s Circus’. Before her arrival, Barnum had managed to whip up a fever by an immense publicity campaign, which resulted in what was known in the press as, Lindomania. The eight months of concert tours were a huge success, and by the end of the New York engagement, the Lind concerts had generated some $87,055.89, which would be over three million dollars in today’s money. The total receipts for the concerts amounted to $712,161.43, being in 2020 the equivalent of $24.5 million.
Lind commanded a guaranteed fee $1,000.00 per performance. Later, as a result of Lind tiring of Barnum’s relentless promotion, she invoked a clause in her contract to terminate the agreement and continued to tour under her own management.

Her devotion and generosity to charitable causes remained a key aspect of her career and greatly enhanced her international popularity, even among the unmusical, as she chose to give most of it away to charities she loved—primarily music scholarships and private schools. Some of the recipients were in the United States and the rest were mostly in England and Sweden.

During the American tour she met her husband, pianist and conductor, Otto Goldschmidt. In 1852 they returned to Europe where they initially lived in Dresden Germany. It was in Dresden that her first child was born. Later, in England, two other children were born to Jenny and Otto. She refused requests to return to the opera stage but continued to give concerts.

The critic H. F. Chorley, who admired Lind, described her voice as having “two octaves in compass – from D to D – having a higher possible note or two, available on rare occasions; and that the lower half of the register and the upper one were of two distinct qualities. The former was not strong – veiled, if not husky; and apt to be out of tune. The latter was rich, brilliant and powerful – finest in its highest portions.”
In 1883, at the request of the Prince of Wales, “she accepted the post of first Professor of Singing in the Royal College of Music”.

She believed in an all-round musical training for her pupils, insisting that, in addition to their vocal studies, they were instructed in solfège, piano, harmony, diction, deportment and at least one foreign language.
Among the numerous recognitions of her remarkable career and vocal art still visible more than 130 years since she died in 1887; there are streets named for Jenny Lind in a dozen or more American cities – but two towns bear her name as well: Jenny Lind, Arkansas and Jenny Lind, California! Her name is honoured at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and her image adorned the Swedish 50-krona banknote. Another interesting fact is an Australian schooner was named Jenny Lind in her honour. In 1857, it was wrecked in a creek on the Queensland coast; the creek was accordingly named Jenny Lind Creek.