Anna Moffo

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Anna Moffo 1962

Anna Moffo (* 27. June 1932 in Wayne or Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ; † 9. March 2006 in New York City , New York ) was an US -American opera singer (lyric soprano ) and actress .

Life

Anna Moffo was the daughter of the Italian-American shoemaker Nicolas Moffo and his wife Regina (Cinti). She also appeared as a singer in song recitals, at weddings, funerals and in choirs. According to Moffo, her parents wanted her to become a Catholic nun after graduating from school. Instead, she won a free place for a four-year course at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia after singing the only opera aria she knew: "Un bel di vedremo ..." from Puccini's Madama Butterfly . There she first studied literary history and music and came to Italy to complete this training in 1953. There she studied at the University of Perugia .

In 1954 she took part in a singing competition of the Philadelphia Orchestra , which she also won. Her prize was a Fulbright scholarship with which she went to Rome to the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia to study the Italian language and singing. During this time she was a member of the Italian national women's hockey team.

Anna Moffo (right) in Rome in 1954

In 1955 she made her operatic debut as Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale in Spoleto . Her breakthrough came the next year when she starred in Puccini's Madama Butterfly for a television broadcast directed by Mario Lanfranchi . Lanfranchi was also a producer for the RCA Victor record company and for the Italian television company RAI . In the same year she also made her first recordings at RAI ( Madama Butterfly , La sonnambula , La figlia del reggimento and Falstaff ). He and Moffo married in 1957. However, she later complained in an interview that he had used her in an average of twelve new roles each in the first four years of her career.

In 1957 she made her debut at La Scala in Milan , on August 10, 1957 at the Salzburg Festival and on September 15, 1957 at the Vienna State Opera as Nanetta in Verdi's Falstaff under the baton of Herbert von Karajan . At the State Opera she appeared as Gilda in Rigoletto , in the title role of Jules Massenet's Manon , as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's Faust , as Micaela in Georges Bizet's Carmen , as Mimì in Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème and as Violetta in La traviata .

Moffo made her US debut in 1957 in La Bohème at the Lyric Opera of Chicago . On November 14, 1959 her first engagement took place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Violetta in La Traviata , which would become one of her most important roles. She remained loyal to the Met for almost two decades and appeared there in 21 roles, including Lucia , Gilda, Adina , Mimì, Liù , Marguerite, Nedda , Pamina , Juliette , Manon , Mélisande and the four women in Hoffmann's stories . She had a voice crisis in the mid-1970s due to overstrained her voice, but was able to resume her career in 1976. That year she also had her last regular appearance at the Metropolitan Opera. She last sang there in 1983 at a gala.

Her role as Violetta Valéry in La Traviata deserves special mention , about which Michael Parouty summed up: “For a while it was good manners to look at Anna Moffo with condescension: star figure and cinema career, sensual, glamorous singing and a theatricality that was hers Proximity to Hollywood betrayed. But she is undeniably a skilful and intelligent performer of Violetta, her subdued charm is not without charm, and there is something truly radiant about her voice. "

In 1964 and 1967 she had her own TV show in Italy, the "Anna Moffo Show". She has worked in several feature films as well as in opera and operetta adaptations: La Traviata (1968), Lucia di Lammermoor (1971), Die Csárdásfürstin , The beautiful Galathée .

In 1972 she divorced Lanfranchi and in 1974 married the former RCA president and head of TV station NBC Robert Sarnoff, who died in 1997.

Gravestone of Anna Moffo Sarnoff in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla , NY

The opera diva, who last lived in Manhattan , died of a stroke, according to her stepdaughter Rosita Sarnoff.

Selected discography

  • 1956 - Verdi - Falstaff - Tito Gobbi , Rolando Panerai , Elisabeth Schwarzkopf , Nan Merriman, Fedora Barbieri , Anna Moffo, Luigi Alva - Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Herbert von Karajan
  • 1957 - Puccini - Madama Butterfly - Anna Moffo, Cesare Valletti , Rosalind Elias , Renato Cesari - Choir and Orchestra of the Roman Opera , Erich Leinsdorf
  • 1960 - Anna Moffo - Arias from Faust , La bohème , Dinorah , Carmen , Semiramide , Turandot , Lakmé - Roman Opera Orchestra, Tullio Serafin.
  • 1960 - Verdi - La traviata - Anna Moffo, Richard Tucker, Robert Merrill - Roman Opera Orchestra, Fernando Previtali.
  • 1961 - Puccini - La bohème - Anna Moffo, Richard Tucker, Mary Costa, Robert Merrill, Giorgio Tozzi, Philip Maero - Roman Opera Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf.
  • 1962 - Pergolesi - La serva padrona - Anna Moffo, Paolo Montarsolo - Roman Philharmonic Orchestra, Franco Ferrara.
  • 1962 - Recital of Verdi Heroines - The RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra, Franco Ferrara.
  • 1963 - Verdi - Rigoletto - Robert Merrill, Anna Moffo, Alfredo Kraus, Rosalind Elias, Ezio Flagello - The RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Georg Solti.
  • 1963 - Puccini - Manon Lescaut (highlights) - Anna Moffo, Flaviano Labò, Robert Kerns - The RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra and Chorus, René Leibowitz.
  • 1963 - Massenet - Manon (Highlights) - Anna Moffo, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Robert Kerns - The RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra and Chorus, René Leibowitz.
  • 1964 - Canteloube: Songs of the Auvergne / Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras / Rachmaninoff: Vocalise - Anna Moffo - American Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski.
  • 1964 - Verdi - Luisa Miller - Anna Moffo, Carlo Bergonzi, Shirley Verrett, Cornell MacNeil, Giorgio Tozzi, Ezio Flagello - The RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Fausto Cleva .
  • 1965 - Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice - Shirley Verrett, Anna Moffo, Judith Raskin - Polyphonic Chorus of Rome, I Virtuosi di Roma, Renato Fasano.
  • 1965 - Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor - Anna Moffo, Carlo Bergonzi, Mario Sereni, Ezio Flagello - The RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Georges Prêtre.
  • 1966 - Puccini - La Rondine - Anna Moffo, Daniele Barioni, Graziella Sciutti, Piero de Palma, Mario Sereni - The RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli.
  • 1974 - Massenet - Thais - Anna Moffo, Gabriel Bacquier, José Carreras - Ambrosian Opera Chorus, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel.
  • 1976 - Montemezzi - L'Amore dei tre re - Anna Moffo, Plácido Domingo, Pablo Elvira, Cesare Siepi - Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Nello Santi.

Filmography

  • 1956: La sonnambula (TV movie)
  • 1960: Austerlitz - splendor of an imperial crown (Austerlitz)
  • 1965: Menage all'italiana
  • 1967: La Traviata
  • 1969: The Beloved (Una storia di amore)
  • 1970: Il divorzio
  • 1970: The girl Julius (La ragazza di nome Giulio)
  • 1970: Playboys and Adventurers (The Adventurers)
  • 1970: Solo concert for a pistol (Concerto per pistola solista)
  • 1971: Lucia di Lammermoor
  • 1971: Die Czardasfürstin (TV movie)
  • 1974: Die Schöne Helena (TV movie)

literature

Web links

Commons : Anna Moffo  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anna Moffo on discogs.com, accessed March 2, 2014.
  2. ↑ Interview in 1990 ( YouTube video; accessed July 24, 2011)
  3. ↑ a b c d Anna Moffo died in New York on faz.net, accessed on March 2, 2014.
  4. ↑ a b c Artist Biography by Joseph Stevenson on allmusic.com, accessed March 2, 2014.
  5. ↑ Anna Moffo in the Munzinger archive , accessed on March 2, 2014 ( beginning of the article freely accessible)
  6. ^ "Anna Moffo, 73, a Star at the Met Opera, Is Dead," Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times , March 11, 2006
  7. ↑ Moffo, Anna. In: Kutsch / Riemens: Großes Sängerlexikon , p. 16805 (see Singer Lexicon Volume 4, p. 2401), Verlag KG Saur, electronic edition of the third, extended edition, digital library Volume 33.
personal data
SURNAME Moffo, Anna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American opera singer
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Wayne , Pennsylvania , United States
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 2006
Place of death New York City , New York , United States