Clara Petrella was an Italian operatic soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, an outstanding singing-actress nicknamed the "Duse of Singers".

Born in a musical family, she was a descendant of composer Errico Petrella

Errico Petrella

Errico Petrella was an Italian opera composer.Petrella was born at Palermo. A conservative of the Neapolitan school, he was the most successful Italian composer, second only to Verdi, during the 1850s and 1860s. He also earned the latter's scorn for his compositional and dramatic crudities,...

, and the niece of soprano Oliva Petrella. She studied first with her sister Micaela, and later with Giannina Russ

Giannina Russ

Giannina Russ was an Italian operatic soprano, particularly associated with the Italian repertory.-Life and career:Russ studied piano and voice at the Milan Music Conservatory with Leoni....

. She made her debut in Alessandria, as Liu

Turandot

Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...

, in 1939.

She quickly sang throughout Italy, making her debut at La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

 in 1947, as Giorgetta

Il tabarro

Il tabarro is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on Didier Gold's play La houppelande. It is the first of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...

, she sang there regularly until 1962. She was particularly admired in the verismo

Verismo

Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....

 repertory and contemporary works. She created many roles in opera by the following composers; Lodovico Rocca

Lodovico Rocca

Lodovico Rocca was an Italian composer.A pupil of Giacomo Orefice, his operas, written in late verismo style, met with some success in Italy but have been little performed elsewhere...

, Ildebrando Pizzetti

Ildebrando Pizzetti

Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...

, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna...

, and Renzo Rossellini.

Petrella had a beautiful spinto

Spinto

Spinto is a vocal term used to characterize a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large musical climaxes in opera at moderate intervals...

 voice, combined with an explosive dramatic temperament, she was compared to the great Italian actress Eleonora Duse

Eleonora Duse

-Life and career:Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, and began acting as a child. Both her father and her grandfather were actors, and she joined the troupe at age four. Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently...

. In the early 1950s, she made several recordings with Cetra

Cetra

Cetra Records was an Italian company which produced opera recordings from the 1930s onwards. Its roster of artists included Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Lina Pagliughi, Ebe Stignani, Carlo Bergonzi, Galliano Masini, Giovanni Malipiero, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Carlo Tagliabue, Rolando Panerai,...

, notably; Manon Lescaut

Manon Lescaut (Puccini)

Manon Lescaut is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story is based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost....

, Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...

, Il tabarro

Il tabarro

Il tabarro is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on Didier Gold's play La houppelande. It is the first of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...

, L'amore dei tre re

L'amore dei tre re

L'amore dei tre re is an opera in three acts by Italo Montemezzi. Its Italian-language libretto was written by playwright Sem Benelli who based it on his own play of the same title.-Performance history:...

, Zazà

Zazà

Zazà is an opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo, with the libretto by the composer. Its première at the Teatro Lirico di Milano on November 10, 1900, starring Rosina Storchio as Zazà, Edoardo Garbin as Milio, Mario Sammarco as Cascart and Clorinda Pini-Corsi as Anaïde, and conducted by Arturo Toscanini,...

, and for Decca

Decca Records

Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

, she recorded Pagliacci

Pagliacci

Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...

. She also appeared on Italian television productions of Manon Lescaut and Il tabarro, in 1956.

Sources

• Le guide de l'opéra, les indispensables de la musique, R. Mancini & J-J. Rouvereux, (Fayard, 1986), ISBN 2-213-01563-6