Conchita Supervía

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Conchita Supervía

María de la Concepción Supervía Pascual (born December 8 or 9, 1895 in Barcelona , † March 30, 1936 in London ) was a Spanish opera singer ( mezzo-soprano ).

Life

youth

Supervía was born in Barcelona into an old Andalusian family and was baptized with the full name María de la Concepción Supervía Pascual (Catalan Concepció Supervia i Pascual ), the Concepció (n) being shortened to Conchita (Catal .: Conxita ). She received her first lessons in a local convent, but at the age of 12 she moved to the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu in Barcelona to study singing.

Career

In 1910 she made her debut with a Spanish touring company at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires . There she sang in the opera Bianci di Beaulieu by César Stiattesi . She also sang in Tomás Bretón 's Los Amantes de Teruel and as Lola in Mascagni 's Cavalleria rusticana . In 1911 she attracted attention when she took on the role of Octavian in the Italian premiere of Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss in Rome . Not even sixteen years old, she physically corresponded to the portrayal of 17-year-old Octavian. A few months later she sang Carmen in the opera of the same name by Georges Bizet in Bari and the following year at the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona) . A character who would become the most important role in her life.

In 1930 she first appeared in London in the Queen's Hall . There she married the English industrialist Ben Rubenstein the following year and moved to London with her son from a previous connection. She adopted her husband's Jewish faith. In 1934 she played alongside Fritz Kortner in the English music film Evensong . She died in March 1936 at the age of only forty after giving birth to her child.

It was a special historical achievement that Supervia sang various Rossini parts for coloratura mezzo-soprano again in the original position, including Rosina in the Barber of Seville , which in its time had only been sung by high coloratura sopranos. In doing so, she also helped forgotten works such as La Cenerentola or L'italiana in Algeri to a renaissance.

Between 1927 and 1933 she recorded over 200 records. The most famous are her excerpts from Carmen and the arias from operas by Gioachino Rossini.

death

In 1935 she had to cancel her planned performances for the fall because of a pregnancy that had occurred. On March 30, 1936, she gave birth to a dead child in a London clinic. A few hours later she died too. She was buried with her daughter in a grave designed by Edwin Lutyens in Willesden Jewish Cemetery in north-west London.

The grave fell into disrepair over the decades, but was restored in October 2006 by a group of her supporters.

voice

It had a powerful chest voice register combined with a flexible head voice that could easily handle more complex passages. The voice was characterized by great individual musicality and an infectious flair. What is striking, however, is a strong and fast vibrato , which the music critic Philip Hope-Wallace compared in the deeper part of her voice to a machine gun rattle, 'as strong as the click of ice in a glass or dice in a box' . Many who saw them live said that this vibrato could be heard more clearly on the recordings than on stage, and that this was just one example of how a microphone can amplify a singer's mistakes.

The fact remains, however, that Supervia's vibrato does not meet the classic standards of bel canto . Unfortunately, your recordings are therefore primarily of interest as historical documents from the 1920s and 30s, but not as a model for an authentic or ideal interpretation of Rossini or Bizet.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "CONCHITA SUPERVIA - MEZZO SOPRANO 1895-1936: liner notes: Conchita Supervia (1895-1936) - Opera And Song Recital" , ArkivMusic. Retrieved June 3, 2016
  2. ↑ Newspaper note on her funeral of April 1, 1936, in JTA (English)
  3. ^ The movie Evensong on IMDB
  4. ↑ Julia Keld, "Conchita Supervia Rubenstein" , Find A Grave , July 31, 2009. Retrieved on June 3, 2016
  5. ^ Steane, JB, (1993), "The grand tradition: seventy years of singing on record", ISBN 978-0931340642
  6. ↑ Steane, JB, (2003), "Singers of the Century Vol II", ISBN 978-1574670400
personal data
SURNAME Supervía, Conchita
ALTERNATIVE NAMES De la Concepción Supervía Pascual, María
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish opera singer (mezzo-soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1895 or December 9, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Barcelona
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1936
Place of death London