{"id":2520,"date":"2023-11-12T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/der-bussard.de\/en\/?p=2520"},"modified":"2023-11-12T11:19:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-12T10:19:36","slug":"victoria-de-los-angeles-an-angelic-voice-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/der-bussard.de\/en\/2023\/11\/12\/victoria-de-los-angeles-an-angelic-voice-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles: An angelic voice (2.)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Continued from part one<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In his biography of Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles, Peter Roberts explains the great contrast between the worlds from which the singer came and into which she entered with her first opera debuts: Class consciousness was enormously pronounced in the thirties and forties \u2013 in this world, Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles was the daughter of a janitor who pursued a profession as a singer. But what set her profession apart from most professions of the time was the fact that her first opera engagements brought her into contact with social classes that she would never normally have encountered in the world of the time: the typical clich\u00e9 of the well-heeled opera audience was completely fulfilled in Barcelona at the time. But Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles was by no means unwelcome in this world: on January 13, 1945, the singer appeared on an opera stage for the first time in the role of Countess Almaviva from Le nozze di Figaro<\/em> (Mozart) at the Conservatorio del Liceo<\/em>. She also shone in La Boh\u00e8me<\/em> (Puccini), an opera whose aria S\u00ec, mi chiamano Mim\u00ec<\/em> she had already sung when she won the R\u00e0dio Barcelona singing competition a few years earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that time, winning a singing competition in Switzerland was an opera singer’s ticket to an international career.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Singing competition in Switzerland<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles soon became well known on the Iberian peninsula thanks to her first opera engagements: the engineer Lama\u00f1a continued to be her manager and patron, accompanying her in her burgeoning career as an opera singer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Lama\u00f1a heard about a singing competition in Switzerland in 1947, the Concours Internationale d’Ex\u00e9cution Musicale du Conservatoire de Gen\u00e8ve<\/em>, he knew immediately: his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Victoria had to take part in this competition. In his biography of de los \u00c1ngeles, Peter Roberts emphasizes that musical competitions enjoyed an enormous reputation in Switzerland at the time: This had not least to do with the fact that Switzerland had remained neutral during the Second World War and consequently the Swiss cultural world enjoyed an unbroken international reputation even after the Second World War. At that time, winning a singing competition in Switzerland was an opera singer’s ticket to an international career. 
Consequently, Lama\u00f1a saw participation in the singing competition as a springboard for his prot\u00e9g\u00e9’s future career \u2013 even in the event that she did not emerge victorious. Every participant in this singing competition received a certain amount of coverage, which often attracted the attention of major opera houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Competition for the first time <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles had previously been a “big fish in a small pond” in Barcelona, as her biographer Peter Roberts later noted: Now, however, the young singer was competing with 100 talented singers from all over the world \u2013 at the time, the most promising young opera singers traveled to Geneva to take part in the competition. For the first time in her career, De los \u00c1ngeles found herself in an environment where she had to compete against other singers of her caliber. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her trip to Switzerland for the singing competition was a completely new experience for the young opera singer: in Switzerland, she bought herself some opera scores \u2013 scores that she kept as lucky charms for the rest of her life. It was not  easy for the young singer to hold her own in a field that consisted in part of very experienced opera singers: when there was a knock at the door one morning during her stay in Geneva and a hotel employee called her to the phone, she was initially completely perplexed and wondered who it could be at that hour. Then she remembered that the winner of the singing competition had been announced the previous night \u2013 de los \u00c1ngeles hadn’t even heard who had won yet. On the phone was her pianist Sofia Puche, who was also in Geneva: visibly irritated that her friend de los \u00c1ngeles had slept through her big moment, she announced to her that she had been featured on the front pages of all the newspapers that morning as the winner of the Concours Internationale d’Ex\u00e9cution Musicale\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International spectrum<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After this sensational success, de los \u00c1ngeles received a call from the extremely renowned Teatro alla Scala<\/em> in Milan asking if she would like to make a stopover in Milan on her way back to Barcelona to audition there: However, the then general director of La Scala, Luigi Oldani, received a rebuff from the young singer \u2013 something Oldani did not experience very often. The young singer’s rejection was of a personal nature: she simply wanted to return to her family and her home in Barcelona as quickly as possible. If her manager Lama\u00f1a had been present during this phone call, he would certainly never have allowed his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 to turn down this offer \u2013 nevertheless, her debut at La Scala in Milan was not long in coming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her patron Lama\u00f1a had calculated correctly: Winning the Swiss singing competition opened up an international spectrum for the young singer. Over the next few years, Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles toured South America and Spain, among other places.\u00a0She made her long-awaited debut at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala <\/em>on November 17, 1950: such a debut at La Scala has a special significance in the career of every opera singer. Often this debut is even more important than the one at the Metropolitan Opera in New York \u2013 de los \u00c1ngeles made her La Scala opera debut in the opera Ariadne auf Naxos (Strauss).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles remains unforgotten as Madama Butterfly in particular.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Madama Butterfly<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles first appeared on the stage of the New York Metropolitan Opera on March 17, 1951 in the opera Faust (Gounod): This opera had a rich tradition at the Met, as the Metropolitan Opera was opened with this opera in 1883. Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles celebrated one of her greatest triumphs in the role of Madama Butterfly from Puccini’s opera of the same name: the opera singer later described the role of Madama Butterfly as the role with which she could identify most. In a way, Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles became Madama Butterfly \u2013 this was also noticed by the New York critics, who even applauded wildly after the performance, which is not something that happens very often among critics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles often sang together with the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano<\/a>: De los \u00c1ngeles later said that di Stefano was the first opera singer of her generation to go to New York. There he spoke so often about Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles’ extraordinary, angelic voice that she was eventually also brought to the Metropolitan Opera.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her very own interpretations<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

“I never wanted to make an opera recording in my life. It was always like torture for me. (…) I never listen to my own recordings,” Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles later said, looking back on her career: future generations can consider themselves lucky that numerous opera recordings were nevertheless made with Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles. From the point of view of the recording industry, the opera singer is regarded as one of the most successful opera singers of the post-war world. Her repertoire spanned countless operas and songs from the Italian, German, French, Spanish and English repertoire: Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles remains unforgotten as Madama Butterfly in particular. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

De los \u00c1ngeles once said that one must sing an opera role exactly as one imagines it oneself: that is why de los \u00c1ngeles never listened to other interpretations of the roles she played. She never wanted to risk copying another singer \u2013 and thus created her very own interpretations, which still set standards today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon von Ludwig<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Main source: Roberts, Peter: Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles, 1982 Weidenfeld and Nicolson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cover picture: Victoria de los \u00c1ngeles 1963 at Amsterdam Schiphol airport
Picture credit: Fotograaf Pot, Harry \/ Anefo, Nationaal Archief, CC0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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