Soprano Lucine Amara Celebrates 90th Birthday Today

Lucine Amara in the title role of Aida

Lucine Amara turns 90-years old today. She began her career as a chorister with the San Francisco Opera. After starting out as a contralto, she switched to soprano and by 1946 was making her debut at the War Memorial Auditorium. The biggest part of her career was on the East coast at The Metropolitan Opera where she sang from 1950-1991 in 748 performances. She debuted as the Celestial Voice in Verdi's Don Carlo with a cast that included Jussi Björling, Delia Rigal, Robert Merrill, Fedora Barbieri, Cesare Siepi, and Jerome Hines. Her roles at the beginning of her career in New York tended to be mostly comprimario: First Lady (Die Zauberflöte), Ines (Il Trovatore), Wellgunde (Götterdämmerung), Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Priestess (Aida), Countess Ceprano (Rigoletto), Frasquita (Carmen), Serving Woman (Elektra), Leaders of the People (Alceste), Flower Maiden (Parsifal), Annina (La Traviata). Rare exceptions in the first two years of performing at the MET were the roles of Nedda in I Pagliacci and Micaela in Carmen. By 1953 she was singing Mimì in La Bohème under the baton of Alberto Erede. She would go on to sing Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Countess Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Desdemona (Otello), Antonia (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), Leonora (La Forza del Destino), Liù (Turandot), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos), Marguerite (Faust), Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes), Luisa (Luisa Miller), Maddalena (Andrea Chénier),  Alice Ford (Falstaff), Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly), Elsa (Lohengrin), Amelia (Un Ballo in Maschera), and the title roles in Aida and Tosca. Her final roles at the MET were Mother Marie (Dialogues des Carmélites), Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), Gertrude (Hänsel und Gretel), and Madelon (Andrea Chénier). [Source] Be sure to visit the birthday tribute page for more photos and audio clips. More images after the jump.

What The Deaths Of Magda Olivero & Licia Albanese Mean For Opera

The latin term trado has been translated into a multitude of definitions: to hand over, give up, deliver, transmit, surrender, impart, entrust, confide, leave behind, bequeath, propound, propose, teach, to hand down, narrate, recount. It served as the basis for the word we now know in the English language to be tradition. With the recent passing of Magda Olivero (age 104) and Licia Albanese (age 105), the opera world loses yet another link to the composers of the past. These were the last remaining sopranos that originated the 20th-century's verismo period and served as an essential connection to the past for future opera audiences. Once upon a time, singers worked directly with composers to tweak the characterization and often had music written specifically for their vocal capabilities. There was something almost sacred that was being passed down for safekeeping to the following generation. Looking back over the history of slightly more than 200 years reveals a great deal about the relationship with the soprano and composer.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had soprano Caterina Cavalieri. A singing student of rival composer Antonio Salieri, Mozart wrote the role of Konstanze in his Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail for the soprano which she premiered on July 16, 1782. On May 7, 1788, Cavalieri sang the role of Donna Elvira in the Vienna premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Other works by Mozart written for her are Davide penitente (1785) and the role of Mademoiselle Silberklang in Der Schauspieldirektor (1786). Gioachino Rossini had Isabella Colbran. Born in Madrid, she studied under Girolamo Crescenti in Paris. The dramatic coloratura soprano first met Rossini in Naples where he composed the title role of Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra especially for her in 1815. She went on to sing the lead roles in his operas Otello, Armida, Mosè in Egitto, Ricciardo e Zoraided, Ermione, La donna del lago, Maometto II, and Zelmira. He eventually married the soprano in 1822 when they moved to Bologna and she sang the last role composed specifically for her, the title role in Semiramide, before the couple split in 1837. After her death, Rossini continued to credit her as being the greatest interpreter of his music. Gaetano Donizetti had Giuditta Pasta. Italian by birth, Pasta studied in Milan with Giuseppe Scappa, Davide Banderali, Girolamo Crescentini, and Ferdinando Paer, among others. She sang regularly in London, Paris, Milan and Naples between 1824 and 1837. Donizetti wrote two roles specifically for the soprano: the title roles in Anna Bolena and Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula (Vincenzo Bellini even wrote Norma for the soprano). She later taught singing with such notable students as Emma Albertazzi, Marianna Barbieri-Nini, and Adelaide Kemble. Pasta retired at her Lake Como villa and in Milan, where she devoted herself to advanced vocal instructions until her death in 1865. Giuseppe Verdi had several leading ladies to premiere his works, including Marcella Lotti della Santa (Aroldo), Teresa Stolz (La Forza del Destino, Aida), Marie Sasse (Don Carlos), Fanny Salvini-Donatelli* (La Traviata), Antonietta Marini-Rainieri (Oberto, Un giorno di regno), Teresa Ruggeri (I Lombardi), Marianna Barbieri-Nini (I due Foscari, Macbeth, Il corsaro) and Sophie Cruvelli (Les vêpres siciliennes). Many of these women were either his mistresses or, in the case of Giuseppina Strepponi (Nabucco), his wife.  Richard Wagner had Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. The German soprano combined a rare quality of tone with dramatic intensity of expression, which was as remarkable on the concert platform as in opera. She created several roles for Wagner Adriano (Rienzi), Senta (Der Fliegende Holländer), and Venus (Tannhäuser). She was to have also done a premiere turn as Elsa (Lohengrin) in 1849, but politics intervened. After her death, a two-volume work entitled Memoiren einer Sängerin was released that were reportedly her erotic memoirs. Then came the verismo composers: Giordano, Alfano, Mascagni and Cilèa. Magda Olivero often had roles created for her by these composers. Thirty-one of the forty-four composers whose operas Olivero sang during her career were still alive when she began to study. Licia Albanese sang the role of Cio-Cio San in Puccini's Madama Butterfly in over 300 performances. One of her early teachers, Giuseppina Baldassare-Tedeschi, was a contemporary of the composer. "In opera, verismo (meaning 'realism', from Italian vero, meaning 'true') was a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers. They sought to bring the naturalism of influential late 19th-century writers such as Émile Zola and Henrik Ibsen into opera. The style began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s. The style is distinguished by realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes. It by and large rejects the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism. The Italian verismo composers comprised a musicological group known in its day as the giovane scuola ('young school'). The most famous composers who created works in the verismo style were Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and Francesco Cilea. There were, however, many other veristi: Franco Alfano, Alfredo Catalani, Gustave Charpentier (Louise), Eugen d'Albert (Tiefland), Ignatz Waghalter (Der Teufelsweg and Jugend), Alberto Franchetti, Franco Leoni, Jules Massenet (La Navarraise), Licinio Refice, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (I gioielli della Madonna), and Riccardo Zandonai." Today we have a singer like Dawn Upshaw who has championed the composers of the late 20th-century and nurtured the type of relationship with them that harkens back centuries. Many of the composers include Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Adams, and Kaija Saariaho, Henryk Górecki, and David Bruce. Some have even written works specifically for her throughout the last decade. But what of the Mozart, Puccini, Donizetti, Rossini, and Bizet, works that remain the most performed in United States opera companies today? Who is left among the living, that is the closest connection to these composers, that can pass on the tradition to future opera singers? On December 2, the great Maria Callas would have turned 91. As the younger generation seeks out advice from living sources that either worked with composers or had teachers that were living at the time 19th and 20th century music was written, it's easy to see the list is quite extensive. Imagine Patricia Racette working characterization on Carlisle Floyd's Susannah with the originator of the role Phyllis Curtin; Christine Goerke coaching the title role of Strauss's Elektra with Inge Borkh; Anna Netrebko seeking advice from Leontyne Price who sang the role of Leonora in Il Trovatore around the world; Pumeza Matshikiza having a working session with Mattiwilda Dobbs about her early studies with Pierre Bernac and his work with Reinhold von Warlich; or Kathleen Kim asking about the over 60 roles that coloratura Renée Doria performed during her career. Check out the formidable soprano legends that new singers should be clamoring to work with on music, after the jump. [Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source]

*also sang the following Verdi roles during her career: Mina (Aroldo), Gulnara (Il corsaro), Lucrezia (I due Foscari), Elvira (Ernani), Giovanna (Giovanna d'Arco), Giselda (I Lombardi), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Amalia (I masnadieri), Desdemona (Otello), Gilda (Rigoletto), Violetta (La traviata), and Leonora (Il trovatore).

Metropolitan Opera Guild Luncheon to Honor Marilyn Horne

The lady of the hour: Miss Horne

77th Annual Guild Luncheon
Jackie! Celebrating Marilyn Horne

October 31, 2011 12:15 PMWaldorf-Astoria

The honoree of this year’s Annual Guild Luncheon is the legendary Marilyn Horne. Join us as we salute one of the greatest singers of our time, with appearances by her colleagues and friends, video performances and a vocal tribute by Stephanie Blythe. Guests at the luncheon will include June Ander­son, Lucine Amara, Mar­tina Arroyo, Har­o­lyn Black­well, Judith Ble­gen, Richard Bonynge, Nedda Casei, Barbara Cook, Frank Corsaro, John Corigli­ano, Dwayne Croft, Tyne Daly, Ray­mond Gniewek, Florence Henderson, Martin Katz, Jean Kraft, Shir­ley Love, John Mac­urdy, Spiro Malas, Terrence McNally, Marnie Nixon, Betsy Norden, Roberta Peters, Eve Queler, Samuel Ramey, Regina Res­nik, Ren­ata Scotto, Rita Shane, Bryn Ter­fel, Ben­ita Valente, Deborah Voigt, Fre­der­ica von Stade and Robert White.

TICKETS
Regular Tickets: $250 ($125 tax-deductible)
Benefactor Tickets: $475 ($350 tax-deductible)
President’s Circle Tickets: $750 ($625 tax-deductible)
Benefactor Tables for Ten: $4,750 ($3,500 tax-deductible)
President’s Circle Tables for Ten: $7,500 ($6,000 tax-deductible)

Buy tickets for the event by clicking here.

Lucine Amara Carries on the Tradition in Her Home

Lucine Amara rehearsing Aida in the living room
(Photo: William Perlman/The Star Ledger)

"It’s business as usual with the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera, which has long rehearsed in the home of its artistic director, Lucine Amara, an 86-year-old soprano who sang at the Metropolitan Opera for more than 40 years. 'The better the singers are, the more the neighbors complain,' says director Evelyn la Quaif, Amara’s daughter, who is helping stage a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida — in the living room. As part of the company’s mission to train young singers, operas like Aida — which will be performed Sunday afternoon at bergenPAC — can have 10 weeks of rehearsal, with intense coaching sessions almost every day. 'I love singing, and I love to pass on what I have learned to other young singers,' Amara says...Amara and la Quaif express continued frustration with donors who focus solely on the Met. 'What they spend on a production we could use for four years," la Quaif says. 'It’s heartbreaking for us. We go out of our pockets constantly and we have a couple board members who go into their pockets big-time. We would love to have rehearsals in a rehearsal studio instead of here — but here we can save money.' Amara has been the artistic director of the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera since 1993. The company is one of the few opera presenters left in New Jersey." [Source]

Happy Birthday: Lucine Amara

"Qual fiamma...Strido lassù"
I Pagliacci (Leoncavallo)

Born Lucine Armaganian on March 1, 1924 in Hartford, Connecticut, the soprano of Armenian descent was raised in San Francisco, Calfornia. After learning to play the violin she switched over to singing and studied at the San Francisco Community Music School under Stella Eisner-Eyn and sang in the chorus of the San Francisco Opera, 1945-46. She began as a contralto but as the years went on her voice naturally ascended to soprano. In 1946, Amara made her concert debut at the War Memorial Opera House. Continuing her studies at the Music Academy of the West with Richard Bonelli in 1947, she won a contest to appear at the Hollywood Bowl in 1948. She continued as a student at the University of Southern California and as a soloist for the San Francisco Symphony for the following two years. She appeared in the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos and

"Parle-moi de ma mère!"Carmen (Bizet)
with Mario del Monaco

as Lady Billows in Britten's Albert Herring in 1949. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as the Celesital Voice in Verdi's Don Carlos, the opening night of Sir Rudolf Bing's inaugural season as general manager, on November 6, 1950. She continued at the MET over the course of 41 seasons until 1991, singing 56 roles in 882 appearances, nearly 60 of which were broadcast on radio and television. Appearing regularly as Micaëla in Carmen, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Antonia in Les contes d'Hoffmann, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Nedda in Pagliacci, Mimi in La bohème, her repertoire also included Leonora in Il Trovatore and Aida. In the mid-1970s, she was given only a cover contract and was scheduled for fewer and fewer performances. In