“When we were little babies, we stayed for a long time. Freni was a favorite from the very beginning and eventually became an important number of “firsts” for me. Her verismo aria concert at Avery Fisher Hall that same autumn of 1991 was lustily cheered if frustratingly brief as she sang just a handful of 3-minute arias and even one of her encores was a repeat of something heard earlier. “She knew how to phrase musically and naturally the Italian melodies without exaggerating, without superficiality,” Muti said. Shockingly, the event sold only a few hundred tickets, leaving enormous Music Hall nearly empty. Log in to your WTOP account for notifications and alerts customized for you. Bayerische Staatsoper 26 January 1978 In-house recording, Mimi – Mirella Freni Musetta — Renate Holm Rodolfo – Luciano Pavarotti Marcello — Wolfgang Brendel Schaunard – Raimund Grumbach Colline – Nikolaus Hillebrandt Benoit – Ferry Gruber Alcindoro – Gerhard Auer, Cio-Cio-San — Mirella Freni Suzuki — Wendy White Pinkerton — Plácido Domingo Sharpless — Vladimir Chernov. It is quite cloudy in the world of opera.”, When Freni made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Mimi in Puccini’s “La Bohème” on Sept. 29, 1965, at the old house, Zinka Milanov went backstage and told assistant manager Francis Robinson: “She’s so wonderful, this girl, she sounds like a young me.”. A decade after the Chicago gala I finally got to hear Freni and Pavarotti in a complete Bohème when I visited for Kleiber’s Met debut in January 1988, one of the most exciting performances I’ve ever attended. Notable videos from her career include Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s movies of “Madama Butterfly” and Mozart’s “Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)”, and John Dexter’s Met production of “Don Carlo” with Freni as Elisabetta. She banished Ghiaurov to a different part of the house. Freni returned to the Met the following year for a farewell gala. The archive listing all “Trove Thursday” offerings in alphabetical order by composer will be updated to include all material as of early February 2020. To be a gifted artist, you have to be able to interpret in a certain way. At the time Freni was in Chicago for Faust (which was later televised), her first opera with a US company in more than a decade due to a long-running tax issue. Thursday, November 19, 2020 7:30 PM (EST). In the evening, when the mammas finished the work, they brought us home.”, Freni and Pavarotti traveled together to Mantua to study with Italian composer and teacher Ettore Campogalliani, who also taught Tebaldi, Renata Scotto and Carlo Bergonzi.
Freni didn’t seem to notice and performed graciously (with, I believe, her husband Leone Magiera) in a rare US recital appearance. All rights reserved. Throughout her career Ruth Bader Ginsburg worked tirelessly to promote equal justice under the law. Their mothers worked in the same factory, and Freni said they sometimes dressed young Mirella and Luciano in identical clothing.
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From her professional debut at Modena’s Teatro Municipale as Micaëla in Bizet’s “Carmen” on March 3, 1955, to her opera finale as Joan of Arc in Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans” at the Washington National Opera on April 11, 2005, Freni chose roles with care and caution. Karajan would become a significant supporter of the Italian singer. The obituary was featured in New York Times on February 10, 2020, and New York Times on February 10, 2020. She and Gianni Raimondi made their Met debuts on the same night in a performance led by Fausto Cleva. “It’s not enough to have a beautiful voice,” she said. We will hear La Bohème with Luciano Pavarotti conducted by Carlos Kleiber and her only onstage appearance as Cio-Cio-San in Act III of Madama Butterfly. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. She was clearly the first lady on the stage,” said Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti, who conduced Freni many times at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. She spent the remainder of her life teaching master classes and living in Modena. Live with Carnegie Hall: Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Freni is survived by her daughter, Micaela Magiera, author of a book about the lives of her mother and Pavarotti, “La Bimba sotto il pianoforte (The Little Girl under the Piano)”; stepson Vladimir Ghiaurov, a conductor; stepdaughter Elena Ghiaurov, an actress; two grandchildren; and sister Marta. I would have gone to her farewell in 2004 but I was out of the country, and although she made a brief appearance at Volpe’s 2006 Gala, she simply gave a touching speech. After her debut at age 20, she married her teacher, the piano player and conductor Leone Magiera, in 1955. It’s puzzling though that it took more than three years after Faust for her to return to the Met in 1983 as Elisabetta in Don Carlo. I inevitably traveled to New York for the Verdi, but I had managed with far less effort to hear her again before then. Her Nozze Susanna dominated the very first reel-to-reel “pirate” I purchased during high school. I’m glad to be here again, La Scala is like home to me. I remember vividly also her Lisa in Pikovaya Dama at Carnegie Hall, an electric evening opposite Vladimir Atlantov and Dmitri Hvorostovsky in his NYC opera debut. Mirella Freni, an Italian soprano whose uncommon elegance and intensity combined with a sumptuous voice and intelligence to enthrall audiences…. “It’s another big piece of the chain of great Italian singers that is disappearing, and the future is not very beautiful. Freni married renowned Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov in 1980. Freni gained attention at England’s Glyndebourne Festival, where she sang Zerlina alongside Joan Sutherland’s Donna Anna in a 1960 staging of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Adina two years later in a Franco Zeffirelli production of Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore (The Elixir of Love).”.
Mirella Freni, an Italian soprano whose uncommon elegance and intensity combined with a sumptuous voice and intelligence to enthrall opera audiences for a half-century, has died at age 84. And she was one of the stars of the first “big-league” event I ever attended: the 25th Anniversary Gala of the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1979. Ghiaurov died in 2004. Many memorable Freni encounters at the Met followed that extraordinary Bohème: a remarkable gala honoring the 25th anniversary of her, Alfredo Kraus’s and Ghiaurov’s debuts; her only US Desdemona (the third-act only) during 1991’s Opening Night; Falstaff; Adriana Lecouvreur; and Fedora followed by just a single act of Fedora on Opening Night 2002, the last time I heard her sing. I now have time for myself, I have time for my family, I have time for my garden.”. A presenter who had brought Pavarotti to Cincinnati with much success wanted to try again, so he arranged a recital for Freni at Music Hall in March 1980.
She debuted at London’s Royal Opera on May 10, 1961, as Nannetta in Verdi’s “Falstaff” and at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala as Mimi on Jan. 31, 1963, with Herbert von Karajan conducting in the premiere of the Zeffirelli staging. As video became increasingly important during the second half of her career, she thrived for her ability to connect as expressively with viewers at home as she did with the “loggionisti” up in La Scala’s gallery. She was the last in a line of Italian sopranos who prompted ovations with their entrances alone, a link to singers from the golden era and earlier such as Renata Tebaldi, Licia Albanese, Magda Olivero, Maria Caniglia, Amelita Galli-Curci and Luisa Tetrazzini. Somewhere I remember reading that the Met return was to be a new production of Mascagni’s Il Piccolo Marat with Plácido Domingo and Nicolai Ghiaurov, but that of course never happened. The relationship led to Freni exploring Russian roles.
But she chose never to sing a complete “Butterfly” on stage, though she performed the third act at a 1991 Met gala; she turned down Karajan’s entreaty to sing the title role in “Turandot” and limited a full performance of Puccini’s “Tosca” to a recording.
“She will still live with us, here, where she was born and chose to live, where she gave so much and taught talented young people from the world,” Modena Mayor Gian Carlo Muzzarelli said. Copyright © 2020 The Associated Press. Born Mirella Fregni on Feb. 27, 1935, in Modena, she changed the spelling of her stage name, thinking it would be easier to pronounce.
website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area. All rights reserved. I want to have a normal life. In a 2002 interview with The Associated Press, she recalled telling students during master classes to be wary of thinking solely about the notes on the score. She took a break after marriage to start a family and resumed her career in 1958 as Mimi the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy. This All rights reserved.
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