Elena Souliotis
Encyclopedia
Elena Souliotis was an opera
tic soprano
."
, Greece
of Greek and Russian parents but moved with her family to Argentina
at an early age. She studied with Mercedes Llopart
, who also taught Renata Scotto
, Anna Moffo
, Fiorenza Cossotto
, Ivo Vinco
, Alfredo Kraus
, and Francisco Kraus
. She made her debut in 1964 as Santuzza in Mascagni
's Cavalleria rusticana
in Naples. She made her United States
debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
during the 1965-66 season as Elena in Boito
's Mefistofele
; her colleagues in that performance were Renata Tebaldi
, Alfredo Kraus and Nicolai Ghiaurov
. Other roles that she went on to sing soon afterwards were Luisa Miller
, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera
and the title role of La Gioconda
. A partial list of other operas in which she sang during the first part of her career (1964-1974) include Verdi's Aida
and La forza del destino
, Donizetti
's Anna Bolena
, Puccini
's Manon Lescaut
, Catalani
's Loreley, Bellini
's La straniera
, Zandonai
's Francesca da Rimini
, and Susanna in Mussorgsky
's Khovanshchina
. She gave a recital at Carnegie Hall
in 1976 and disappeared from the scene shortly after that.
The role for which she is best known is Abigaille in Verdi
's opera Nabucco
. She made a recording of this role for Decca/London
in 1965 and gave a performance of the role on opening night of La Scala
's 1966-67 season. Within the next couple of years, she also recorded Santuzza and the title role in Norma
, the latter in an abridged recording that was much maligned when it was initially released.
A year or two afterward, she recorded Donizetti's Anna Bolena (a role she had sung at Carnegie Hall to open its 1967-68 season, and her interpretation of which was largely unchanged by the time she made the recording a few years later) and Verdi's Macbeth
. By the time of the latter two recordings, she had changed the spelling of her name from Suliotis to Souliotis. She also recorded arias from Un ballo in maschera
, La Gioconda, Luisa Miller, Anna Bolena and Macbeth (the last two before she had recorded the complete operas).
She made her London debut on 3 November 1968 when she sang Abigaille in a concert performance of Nabucco at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, an event mounted by the London Opera Society. The cast also included Piero Cappuccilli and Boris Christoff and the conductor was Mario Gusella. In June 1969 she made her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, singing Lady Macbeth for the first time.
Souliotis was scheduled to make her Metropolitan Opera
debut as Lady Macbeth during the 1969-70 season. However, due to a strike, the first few months of the season were canceled. Souliotis never sang at the Met.
She continued to sing the killer role of Abigaille in various venues and the difficulty of this role, which also damaged the voice of Verdi's wife Giuseppina Strepponi
, along with the many heavy dramatic soprano roles she had undertaken within five years of her debut, began to take a toll on her voice. She could be in excellent form one night and in near-disastrous form just a few nights later. When she recorded Macbeth, the producers chose to record her versions of "La luce langue" and the Sleepwalking Scene on the same day while she was in excellent form for the period. Evidence from live recordings and the later studio sets show her voice had dissipated rapidly. Its power remained, only the beauty of tone and control over pitch were damaged.
After an absence from the stage that lasted several years, she began a second career in comprimario
roles beginning in 1979, mostly in Russian operas. She sang Fata Morgana in Sergei Prokofiev
's The Love for Three Oranges in Chicago and Florence, and went on to sing in such operas as Prokofiev's The Gambler
and Puccini's Suor Angelica
, in the latter as the Zia Principessa. Her recording of this latter role in 1991 opposite Mirella Freni
is her final studio recording. Toward the end of her career, she sang the role of the Countess in Tchaikovsky
's The Queen of Spades
in several venues, and gave her farewell to the operatic stage in this role in Stuttgart in February 2000.
They say that Maria Callas, after she retired in the sixties, even owing to the greek origins they shared, made Souliotis her operatic heiress.
Elena Souliotis died of heart failure in 2004 in Florence
, Italy
, aged 61.
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...
."
Biography
Elena Souliotis was born in AthensAthens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
of Greek and Russian parents but moved with her family to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
at an early age. She studied with Mercedes Llopart
Mercedes Llopart
Mercedes Llopart was a Spanish soprano who later became a notable singing teacher in Italy.Mercedes Llopart studied in her native Barcelona and made her operatic debut there in 1915. She then went to Italy where she sang in many small theatres before making her debut at the Rome Opera in 1920...
, who also taught Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto is an Italian soprano and opera director.Recognized for her sense of style, musicality and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered one of the preeminent singers of her generation, specializing in the bel canto repertoire with excursions into the verismo and Verdi...
, Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
, Fiorenza Cossotto
Fiorenza Cossotto
Fiorenza Cossotto is an Italian mezzo soprano. She is considered by many to be one of the great mezzo-sopranos of the 20th century.-Life and career:...
, Ivo Vinco
Ivo Vinco
Ivo Vinco is an Italian bass who enjoyed a successful international career.Ivo Vinco first studied at the Liceo Musicale in Verona with Madama Zilotti, then at the opera school of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan with Ettore Campogalliani. He made his professional debut in Verona, as Ramfis in Aida,...
, Alfredo Kraus
Alfredo Kraus
Alfredo Kraus Trujillo was a distinguished Spanish tenor of partly Austrian descent, particularly known for the artistry he brought to opera's bel canto roles...
, and Francisco Kraus
Francisco Kraus Trujillo
Francisco Kraus Trujillo is a Spanish baritone.He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria , Spain, on October 21, 1926. His father, Otto Kraus, was born in Austria and Francisco was the first born of the Kraus-Trujillo family; soon would follow Alfredo, Enriqueta Lola, and Carmen...
. She made her debut in 1964 as Santuzza in Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
's 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...
in Naples. She made her United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
debut at the Lyric Opera of 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...
during the 1965-66 season as Elena in Boito
Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito , aka Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito, pseudonym Tobia Gorrio, was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele...
's Mefistofele
Mefistofele
Mefistofele is an opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito.-Composition history:...
; her colleagues in that performance were Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period...
, Alfredo Kraus and Nicolai Ghiaurov
Nicolai Ghiaurov
Nicolai Ghiaurov was a Bulgarian opera singer and one of the most famous bass singers of the postwar period. He was admired for his powerful, sumptuous voice, and was particularly associated with roles of Verdi.Ghiaurov married the Italian soprano Mirella Freni in 1978...
. Other roles that she went on to sing soon afterwards were Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich von Schiller. The first performance was given at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on December 8, 1849...
, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
and the title role of La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
. A partial list of other operas in which she sang during the first part of her career (1964-1974) include Verdi's 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...
and 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...
, Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...
, Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
'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....
, Catalani
Alfredo Catalani
Alfredo Catalani was an Italian operatic composer. He is best remembered for his operas Loreley and La Wally...
's Loreley, Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's La straniera
La straniera
La straniera is an opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini, from a libretto by Felice Romani, based on L'étrangère by Charles-Victor Prévot, vicomte d'Arlincourt...
, Zandonai
Riccardo Zandonai
Riccardo Zandonai was an Italian composer.-Biography:Zandonai was born in Borgo Sacco, Rovereto, then part of Austria–Hungary....
's Francesca da Rimini
Francesca da Rimini (Zandonai)
Francesca da Rimini is an opera in four acts, composed by Riccardo Zandonai, with libretto by Tito Ricordi, , after a play by Gabriele D'Annunzio. It was premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on February 19, 1914, and is still staged occasionally.This opera is Zandonai's best-known work...
, and Susanna in Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
's Khovanshchina
Khovanshchina
Khovanshchina is an opera in five acts by Modest Mussorgsky. The work was written between 1872 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto based on historical sources...
. She gave a recital at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in 1976 and disappeared from the scene shortly after that.
The role for which she is best known is Abigaille in Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's opera Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
. She made a recording of this role for Decca/London
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....
in 1965 and gave a performance of the role on opening night of 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...
's 1966-67 season. Within the next couple of years, she also recorded Santuzza and the title role in Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
, the latter in an abridged recording that was much maligned when it was initially released.
A year or two afterward, she recorded Donizetti's Anna Bolena (a role she had sung at Carnegie Hall to open its 1967-68 season, and her interpretation of which was largely unchanged by the time she made the recording a few years later) and Verdi's Macbeth
Macbeth (opera)
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...
. By the time of the latter two recordings, she had changed the spelling of her name from Suliotis to Souliotis. She also recorded arias from Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, La Gioconda, Luisa Miller, Anna Bolena and Macbeth (the last two before she had recorded the complete operas).
She made her London debut on 3 November 1968 when she sang Abigaille in a concert performance of Nabucco at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, an event mounted by the London Opera Society. The cast also included Piero Cappuccilli and Boris Christoff and the conductor was Mario Gusella. In June 1969 she made her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, singing Lady Macbeth for the first time.
Souliotis was scheduled to make her 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...
debut as Lady Macbeth during the 1969-70 season. However, due to a strike, the first few months of the season were canceled. Souliotis never sang at the Met.
She continued to sing the killer role of Abigaille in various venues and the difficulty of this role, which also damaged the voice of Verdi's wife Giuseppina Strepponi
Giuseppina Strepponi
Clelia Maria Josepha Strepponi was a nineteenth century Italian operatic soprano of great renown and the second wife of composer Giuseppe Verdi...
, along with the many heavy dramatic soprano roles she had undertaken within five years of her debut, began to take a toll on her voice. She could be in excellent form one night and in near-disastrous form just a few nights later. When she recorded Macbeth, the producers chose to record her versions of "La luce langue" and the Sleepwalking Scene on the same day while she was in excellent form for the period. Evidence from live recordings and the later studio sets show her voice had dissipated rapidly. Its power remained, only the beauty of tone and control over pitch were damaged.
After an absence from the stage that lasted several years, she began a second career in comprimario
Comprimario
A Comprimario is a supporting role in an opera. Derived from the Italian "con primario", or "with the primary", the term refers to a performer who sings small role pieces....
roles beginning in 1979, mostly in Russian operas. She sang Fata Morgana in Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
's The Love for Three Oranges in Chicago and Florence, and went on to sing in such operas as Prokofiev's The Gambler
The Gambler (Prokofiev)
The Gambler is an opera in four acts by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer, based on the story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky....
and Puccini's Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...
, in the latter as the Zia Principessa. Her recording of this latter role in 1991 opposite Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni, birth name Mirella Fregni, is an Italian opera soprano whose repertoire includes Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Tchaikovsky...
is her final studio recording. Toward the end of her career, she sang the role of the Countess in Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (opera)
The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The premiere took place in 1890 in St...
in several venues, and gave her farewell to the operatic stage in this role in Stuttgart in February 2000.
They say that Maria Callas, after she retired in the sixties, even owing to the greek origins they shared, made Souliotis her operatic heiress.
Elena Souliotis died of heart failure in 2004 in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, aged 61.