Martina Arroyo
Martina Arroyo (born February 2, 1937 in New York ) is an American opera singer ( soprano ). Along with Leontyne Price and Grace Bumbry, Arroyo is considered the most important African-American opera singer of the 1960s and 1970s.
Life
In parallel to her vocal training, Arroyo studied languages and literature and initially worked as a teacher. In 1959 she won the singing competition of the Metropolitan Opera New York. Although the first prize was an engagement at this house, she initially only received smaller parts there. That is why she went to Europe in 1963, where she had great success at the Zurich Opera House , the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Vienna State Opera .
Arroyo experienced her breakthrough in 1965 when she stepped in at the Metropolitan Opera New York for the sick Birgit Nilsson as Aida in Giuseppe Verdi's opera . She performed there until 1987 and developed into one of the leading sopranos in the house. She was particularly valued as a Verdi interpreter.
In October 1983 she sang her first Turandot with the Canadian Opera Company (COC) under the direction of Nicola Rescigno. Her partners were Ermanno Mauro as Calaf, Phil Stark as Kaiser and Maria Spacagna as Liu. The Prince of Persia for this conception was the then unknown Ben Heppner . The performance was broadcast on the radio.
Guest performances the singer also at the Covent Garden Opera in London, at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Grand Opéra Paris , the Staatsoper in Hamburg , Munich and Stuttgart , the National Opera of Warsaw, Belgrade, Prague, the opera houses in Chicago and San Francisco. She worked with the most important conductors of her time, including Karl Böhm , Leonard Bernstein , James Levine , Riccardo Muti , Claudio Abbado and Colin Davis , with whom she also made CD recordings. Her colleagues on stage and in the recording studio included Plácido Domingo , Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau , Peter Schreier , Joan Sutherland , Kiri Te Kanawa and Mirella Freni . She was accompanied to her recitals by the American pianist Leonard Hokanson , among others .
In 1989 she retired from the stage and from then on worked as a singing teacher, a. a. at Indiana University School of Music. In 2003 she set up the Martina Arroyo Foundation, a foundation to promote young singing talents.
In 2000 she was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
Recordings
- Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana ; RCA
- Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots ; Decca
- Mozart: Don Giovanni ; Deutsche Grammophon
- Verdi: I vespri siciliani ; RCA;
- Verdi: Un ballo in maschera ; EMI
- Verdi: La forza del destino ; EMI
- Verdi: La forza del destino - original version; Opera Rara
- Verdi: Requiem ; Sony
- Schwetzinger Liederabend 1968, piano: Leonard Hokanson; Hänssler Classics / Naxos
literature
- Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Saur publishing house
- Fischer: Big voices. Suhrkamp Verlag
- Kesting: The great singers. Claasen Publishing House
Web links
- Martina Arroyo at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
- Martina Arroyo homepage
- Martina Arroyo Foundation website
Remarks
- ↑ Information on martinaarroyo.com . In the song dictionary, the year of birth is given as 1936.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Directory of members of the AAAS. Retrieved July 23, 2016 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Arroyo, Martina |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American opera singer (soprano) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 2, 1937 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York , USA |