Claudia Muzio
Encyclopedia
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic 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...
, whose international career was among the most successful of the early 20th century.
Early years
Born in PaviaPavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
, Claudia Muzio was the daughter of an operatic stage manager, whose engagements during her childhood took the family to opera houses around Italy as well as to Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in London and to the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York. She arrived in London at the age of 2 and went to school there, becoming fluent in English, before returning to Italy at the age of 16 to study in Turin with Annetta Casaloni, a piano teacher and former operatic mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
who had created the role of Maddalena in the world première of Verdi's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
. Muzio then continued her vocal studies in Milan with Elettra Callery-Viviani.
Career
Muzio made her operatic début in Arezzo (15 January 1910) in the title-role of Massenet's ManonManon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
, and despite her youth she made rapid progress in the opera-houses of Italy, leading to débuts 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 Milan in 1913 (as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
), in Paris (as Desdemona) and in London at Covent Garden (as Puccini's 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....
) in 1914; she stayed on in London to sing other roles including Mimì
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
and Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
(both with Caruso). She was invited to the Met in New York in December 1916 (for Tosca) and was so successful that she continued to appear there during six successive years. It was at the Metropolitan that Muzio created the role of Giorgetta in 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...
, in the world première of Puccini's triple-bill, Il trittico
Il trittico
Il trittico is the title of a collection of three one-act operas, Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi, by Giacomo Puccini...
, on 14 December 1918.
She established a special relationship with audiences at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, where she first appeared in June 1919 (in Catalani's Loreley
Loreley (opera)
Loreley is a three-act azione romantica opera by Alfredo Catalani, composed to a libretto by Angelo Zanardini, Giuseppe Depanis, Carlo D'Ormeville and others....
). From then until 1934 she sang there in 23 different operas, becoming known as "la divina Claudia".
Between 1922 and 1932, she also appeared regularly in Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
(after falling out with the management at the New York Met). On October 15, 1932, she performed the title role of Tosca to inaugurate the new War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Other notable roles in her career included the title role in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier
Andrea Chénier
Andrea Chénier is a verismo opera in four acts by the composer Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It is based loosely on the life of the French poet, André Chénier , who was executed during the French Revolution....
, and Leonora in Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
(all in New York), and also Violetta in La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
and Leonora in La forza del destino
La forza del destino
La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...
(in Chicago and Buenos Aires). Her last and according to some critics her greatest role was in Rome in 1934 as Cecilia in the opera of that name written for her by Licinio Refice
Licinio Refice
Licinio Refice was an Italian composer and priest. With Monsignor Lorenzo Perosi, he represented the new direction taken by Italian church music in the twentieth century....
. Her most popular role, however, was Violetta, in which she was considered unsurpassed throughout the Latin opera world (Italy, Spain, South America).
Claudia Muzio was noted for the beauty and warmth of her voice, which, although not particularly large, acquired a considerable richness of tonal colouring as she grew older. Her performances were sometimes criticised for excessive use of dynamic extremes, including her exquisitely expressive pianissimo singing. She had an impressive stage presence, being tall, elegant and full-figured. Her acting always conveyed an intense identification with the characters she portrayed. She was a dedicated and hard-working performer who remained modest and even reclusive despite her increasing fame and wealth. She regularly partnered some of the leading tenors of the day – Caruso, Gigli
Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism...
, Martinelli
Giovanni Martinelli
Giovanni Martinelli was a celebrated Italian operatic tenor. He was particularly associated with the Italian lyric-dramatic repertory, although he performed French operatic roles to great acclaim as well...
– and many of her fellow singers expressed the highest regard for her ability (including Ebe Stignani
Ebe Stignani
Ebe Stignani was an Italian opera singer, who was pre-eminent in the dramatic mezzo-soprano roles of the Italian repertoire during a stage career of more than thirty years.-Career:...
, Eva Turner
Eva Turner
Dame Eva Turner DBE was an English dramatic soprano with an international reputation. Her strong, steady and well-trained voice was renowned for its clarion power in Italian and German operatic roles.-Career:...
, and Alfred Piccaver
Alfred Piccaver
Alfred Piccaver was a British-American operatic tenor. He was particularly noted for his performances as Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème and other popular mainstream operatic roles.-Early years:...
).
Last years
In her later years, Muzio experienced some financial anxiety after losing money through the extravagance of a manager/rumoured lover and then in the Wall Street crash. She married in 1929 Renato Liberati, seventeen years her junior. In 1930 she started to experience some health problems, but continued singing and recording. On 24 May 1936, after a short illness, she died in a Rome hotel of what was officially described as heart failure, aged 47. There was much speculation about other possible causes of death, including suicide. The correspondent for The Times (London) commented: "Her death has been received here with the utmost consternation, as she was highly valued for her gifts both as a vocalist and as an actress."She is buried in the Cimitero del Verano in Rome.
Recordings
Claudia Muzio is represented by recordings from various stages of her career, but unfortunately few of them are from the period of her greatest successes in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She also had the bad luck to record primarily for two companies whose distribution was limited and erratic: PathéPathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
and Edison
Edison Records
Edison Records was one of the earliest record labels which pioneered recorded sound and was an important player in the early recording industry.- Early phonographs before commercial mass produced records :...
. Muzio's Pathé discs are of mixed quality due to Pathé's problematic recording process – artists recorded to cylinder
Phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinders were the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity , these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was...
masters which were then pantograph
Pantograph
A pantograph is a mechanical linkage connected in a special manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen...
ically transferred to disc masters for making stampers, and frequency range loss and distortion often occurred during the cylinder-to-disc processing. Her Edison recordings, however, represent not only some of the best operatic recordings released by that company, but also Muzio's power and ability to project her personal intensity through the difficult acoustic recording process. She was aided at Edison by chief recordist Walter Miller's exceptionally good engineering and accompaniments directed by Edison's gifted staff conductor Cesare Sodero
Cesare Sodero
Cesare Sodero was an Italian conductor who spent much of his career working in the United States.Born in Naples, Sodero studied with Giuseppe Martucci, and graduated from the Naples Conservatory at fourteen...
.
- 1911. HMV. Muzio recorded two arias, including "Sì, mi chiamano Mimì" from La bohèmeLa bohèmeLa bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, when she was only 22 and her voice and technique were still relatively immature. [Included on CD transfer Romophone 81005-2.] - 1917–1918. Pathé. 43 titles recorded. [Transferred to CD on Romophone 81010-2.]
- 1920–1925. Edison. 37 titles recorded. [Transferred to CD by Pearl, GEMM CDS 9072, and also on Romophone 81005-2.]
- 1932. In October, Muzio appeared in the opening production of Tosca at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera HouseSan Francisco OperaSan Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
; the opening night was recorded for radio, and act 1 has been issued on CD (in very poor sound quality). [Available on Minerva MN-A76, as part of a collection of Muzio's Puccini performances.] - 1934–1935. ColumbiaColumbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. Muzio personally produced and financed a set of 26 recordings for Columbia in 1934 and 1935. By 1935, there is some noticeable weakening of the top of her voice but her expressive powers are well-displayed, especially in a much-admired interpretation of "Addio del passato" from Verdi's La traviata. The sound-quality of these is fairly good, and they are the recordings by which she has been best remembered. [Transferred to CD on Romophone 81015; 19 titles, along with her 1911 La bohème track, are also on Nimbus NI 7814.]
Sources
- Douglas, Nigel. [1994]. "Claudia Muzio", in More legendary voices, pp. 183–206. London, André Deutsch. ISBN 0233988890.
- Richards, J. B. [1968]. "Claudia Muzio". Record Collector, XVII (1968) nos. 9–10, pp. 197–237; no. 11, p. 256 (with discography by H. Barnes). [Not consulted.]
- Steane, John. [1989]. "Claudia Muzio: a centenary tribute". The Musical TimesThe Musical TimesThe Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
, v. 130, no. 1752 (Feb.1989), pp. 72–73, 75.
External links
– Offers a downloadable version of Tatiana's letter scene from Eugene OneginEugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
, sung in Italian under the title "Sei forse l'angelo fidele"; recorded by Edison in 1920.
- Profile at www.cantabile-subito.de – Gives a brief biography with several pictures.