Luisa Tetrazzini

Luisa Tetrazzini

Luisa Tetrazzini (born June 29, 1871 in Florence , † October 2, 1940 in Milan ) was an Italian opera singer, one of the leading lyrical coloratura sopranos from the 1890s to the 1920s .

Life

Tetrazzini was the daughter of a uniform tailor and began to sing at an early age, initially taught by her sister Eva Tetrazzini (1862–1932), who also became a successful singer. She studied at the Instituto Musicale in Florence at Ceccherini and made her debut as an opera singer in 1890 in Florence, when she for the role of Inez in L'Africaine of Giacomo Meyerbeer stepped in.

During the 1890s she performed in Italy, in St. Petersburg , Spain and South America (Buenos Aires 1898). At first she was not invited to London, Paris and New York, as her role in coloratura was considered out of date. In 1905 she made her US debut in San Francisco . Her real breakthrough came after a very successful performance of La traviata in her debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in the fall of 1907. In 1908 she sang with great success in New York City in Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera Company - at the Metropolitan She only sang Opera in 1911 and 1912 (Toscanini refused to collaborate with her). After she was unable to sing in New York for a while due to contractual disputes, she caused a stir when she said at a press conference that she would sing on the streets in San Francisco for it, where people can still sing freely. She kept her promise at Christmas 1910. She sang at Lotta's Fountain on Market Street to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 spectators.

She was admired for her vocal technique and voice, not least by the famous soprano Adelina Patti . Many recordings for Victor and “His Masters Voice” have also been preserved. Tetrazzini was small and tended to be full, so that after 1912 she only appeared on the concert stage. She was fun-loving and of a lively temperament. In Covent Garden, she was involved in violent feuds with her competitor Nellie Melba . She was married three times. Since her third (much younger) husband made her fortune, she was later forced to appear in variety shows in the 1930s, when her voice had long since declined . She died impoverished in Milan. Tetrazzini also taught; among other things she discovered Lina Pagliughi .

Trivia

The dishes " Turkey Tetrazzini" ( Tacchino alla Tetrazzini ) and Spaghetti Tetrazzini are named after her. She appears in the novel “Where Angels fear to Tread” by EM Forster .

literature

• Charles Neilson Gattey: Luisa Tetrazzini - The Florentine Nightingale . Amadeus Press, Portland 1995
• Jürgen Kesting: The great singers of our century . Econ, Düsseldorf 1993
• Luisa Tetrazzini: My Life of Song . Dorrance & Co, Philadelphia 1922
• Luisa Tetrazzini: How to Sing . C. Arthur Pearson, London 1923