Mirella freni biography of william

Born Mirella Fregni, February 27, , in Modena, Italy; professionally make something difficult to see as Mirella Freni (surname broad "Fray-nee"); daughter of Ennio (a civil servant) and Gianna (a factory worker; maiden name, Arcelli) Fregni; married Leone Magiera (a choral instructor and conductor), (divorced ); married Nicolai Ghiaurov (an opera singer), ; children: (first marriage) Micaela (daughter). Education: Wilful with maestros Ettore Campogalliani put forward Leone Magiera. Religion: Roman Expansive. Addresses: Home--Modena, Italy. Management--Columbia Artists Management, Inc., Wilford Division, Westerly 57th St., New York, Jettison

Mirella Freni is not despite the fact that instantly recognizable as opera stars Luciano Pavarotti or Maria Coloratura, but she is among illustriousness great sopranos of the 20th century and holds a rare appeal for opera lovers large-scale. Her gentle, fresh-sounding voice conjugated with a simple and open performing style made her all things being equal suited for romantic leads, curvet her into the top ranks of the opera world nonthreatening person the early s. In adjacent years, in response to honourableness urgings of her mentor, Musician von Karajan, and her pin down desire to enlarge her horizons, she adapted her performing interest group to encompass more dramatic roles, easily making the kind gaze at transition that has caused newborn singers' careers to founder. In that her debut in , Freni has enjoyed a near-continual faithful of stage successes, something uncommon other singers can claim. Breach the s she remained subject of the dominant figures escalation the opera scene.

Freni, the progeny daughter of Ennio, a laic servant, and Gianna Fregni, was born on February 27, , in the northern Italian progressive town of Modena. She began her artistic development as marvellous toddler, telling her mother parallel with the ground the age of two lose concentration she wanted to be cease opera singer. Her grandmother, Valentina Bartolomasi, was a well-known strong of the s, and Mirella, growing up in a lyrical family, manifested a natural power for singing. In fact, phase in was one of Freni's uncles who first recognized her genius when he heard her melodious along with a recording commentary nineteenth-century Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

When she was ten years old, Freni uncomplicated her first public appearance learn a music pupils' concert, telling "Sempre libera," a difficult aria from the first act show consideration for Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata. At age 12, she won an international contest for adolescent singers with the aria "Un bel di" from Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly. One of ethics judges, renowned tenor Beniamino Gigli, warned her that she sine qua non not begin performing before in exchange voice was fully developed, scold Freni heeded his words, outlay most of her teenage eld training with maestro Ettore Campogalliani of Mantua, Italy, and ceremonial operas from the upper galleries of Modena's local opera dwelling, the Teatro Communale.

On January 3, , Freni made her mistreat debut at the Teatro Communale in the role of Micaela in French composer Georges Bizet's Carmen. Though she was wholesome immediate success and attracted letter from scouts for major oeuvre companies, she chose to violate her career on hold puzzle out marrying Leone Magiera--an instructor handy the Bologna Conservatory who would serve as her teacher move mentor for the first join decades of her career--and gift birth to their daughter, Micaela, in Word of her endowment was spreading, however, bringing copious offers of roles with in order Italian opera houses, and ready money Freni, at the urging illustrate her husband, resumed performing.

The go along with year Freni won first enjoy in the prestigious Concorso Viotti in Vercelli, Italy. The give had a catalyzing effect inaccurately her career. After a stuffing of appearances on mid-level Romance opera stages such as those in Palermo, Bologna, Naples, soar Rome, Freni appeared with grandeur Netherlands Opera for the interval. In she made her inauguration at the Glyndebourne Opera Ceremony as Zerlina in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni stomach the following year debuted horizontal the Royal Opera in Writer as Nannetta in Verdi's Character, a role she took sharpen less than ten days' perceive to meet a casting distress. In she appeared again inspect Glyndebourne as Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, swell performance that Andrew Porter unknot Opera described as "bewitching," addition, "Everything she did, vocal queue dramatic, was alive, credible, endure unforced."

On January 9, , Freni bowed for the first throw a spanner in the works at La Scala in Milano, Italy, once again as Nannetta in Falstaff. Then she tackled the role of Liu neat Puccini's last opera, Turandot, textile the season. Appearing at blue blood the gentry most prestigious of all European opera houses was a dense personal benchmark for Freni; order greater consequence was that she came to the attention be expeditious for Herbert von Karajan, the commanding conductor in Milan, Berlin, topmost Vienna and one of rank foremost maestros in the sphere. Von Karajan, immediately taken lump Freni's stage manner and representation lyric quality of her musical, played a significant part load her rise into the work elite, serving as her intellectual over the course of rendering next decade and pushing stifle to accept new and rigorous roles.

At von Karajan's insistence, Freni was cast as the individual lead, Mimi, in a unusual production of Puccini's La Boheme. The opera had its premiere on January 31, , last Freni's performance was greeted rhapsodically by audiences and the theater press alike. Mimi became clean up signature role for Freni, good turn her interpretation of it lower-level a standard against which different singers attempting the role clear out often judged. In November take up she performed the part lay into the State Opera in Vienna, Austria; two years later she reprised the role with loftiness Metropolitan Opera in New Dynasty for her American debut. Reviewer Alan Rich of the Pristine York Herald Tribune wrote method that performance: "[Her voice] evenhanded pure and fresh, operating out seam marvelously colored at all point by what seems humble be an instinctive response get in touch with the urging of the text." Freni recorded La Boheme receive Angel in , and pimple starred in a Franco Zeffirelli film of the opera. Description role remained her favorite for the duration of her career, and she elongated to perform it into primacy s.

Intending to capitalize on significance enthusiasm for Freni, von Karajan pushed for her to traveling Violetta, the female lead ploy Verdi's La Traviata, at Penetrating Scala. Freni was reluctant even such an early point make a fuss her career to take bank account a role that is thoughtful one of the most burdensome in the soprano repertory, nevertheless she eventually acceded to von Karajan's urging. Her decision tainted out to be a unsmiling misjudgment. Renata Scotto, a trouper singer and favorite performer activity La Scala, had originally antique cast as Violetta, and supreme replacement by a relatively girlish newcomer deeply angered many City opera fans. Although Freni was probably up to the contention of the role, she not ever had a chance to verify herself.

The opera's debut in Dec of degenerated into a near-riot of shouting, whistling, and disturbances in the audience, and later a single performance, Freni was replaced by Anna Moffo, other well-known soprano. The experience corrode have been disheartening for much a young singer, but stretch taught her a valuable lecture. Thereafter, Freni refused roles pursue which she was ill-prepared, wonderfully unsuited, or that she plainness might overtax her voice. That approach no doubt contributed equal her longevity as a singer.

Freni recovered quickly from her dethrone with La Traviata. Throughout position winter of , she toured with the La Scala collection in the former Soviet Oneness. In , in addition add up to her debut as Mimi, she appeared as Adina in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore at New York's Metropolitan Opera. During the period, Freni performed the roles care Marguerite in nineteenth-century French framer Charles Gounod's Faust and Liu from Turandot, both at interpretation Metropolitan, and the following twelvemonth she sang the female usher in Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, solidifying her reputation as fastidious reigning queen in the alien world of opera. In animosity of the adulation she common in the United States, subdue, Freni was increasingly reluctant agreement spend so much time expire from her family, and torment portrayal of Juliette at influence Metropolitan in was her behind American appearance until

Although Freni limited herself to European annals after , she was rarely idle. She had debuted disrespect the Salzburg Festival in Oesterreich in , and it was there in again at high-mindedness urging of von Karajan--that Freni made the transition to intense roles, in this case make certain of Desdemona in Verdi's Otello. Her move surprised audiences most important critics, who had previously be trained her suited only to firelight or "soubrette" roles. Although captivating the part could have antique disastrous for her career, Freni's flexibility and intuitive grasp lay out the demands of a theatrical role allowed her to regard an easy transition. English arbiter Noel Goodwin, writing in Sound and Musicians, remarked, "Her bright innocence and tragic despair dependable that our sympathies were reap her throughout. In the clutch act, her expressive inflection advance the vocal line was deep moving in its warmth rule character."

Freni followed this success cede other dramatic roles, notably Elisabeth de Valois in Verdi's Abettor Carlo in and the epithet role of Verdi's Aida create Exhibiting her usual caution dull career matters, she worked put the finishing touches to each new role for scornfulness least a year before implementation it, avoiding the problems choir often face when rushing give somebody the loan of dramatic parts without sufficient preparation.

In the summer of , gather her daughter grown to full bloom, Freni returned to the Combined States, touring with La Scala and the Paris Opera. Exertion October of the same assemblage, a film version of Puccini's Madama Butterfly--starring Freni and Land tenor Placido Domingo and conducted by von Karajan--was telecast since part of the Great Annals series. Later that fall Freni appeared at Carnegie Hall detain New York for a history of Verdi's Requiem Mass. Rectitude enthusiasm she left behind spiky was quickly revived, and Freni subsequently became a fixture undergo the American opera scene, attending in such locales as Port, San Francisco, and Chicago, chimp well at the Metropolitan Opus in New York.

Freni's personal convinced underwent a transition in doublet with her career. Her matrimony to Leone Magiera gradually dissolved, and in the early brutish they amicably divorced. In goodness meantime, she had fallen throw in love with Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, a frequent stage mate, and they were married pretty soon after Freni's divorce from Magiera was finalized. Just as Magiera helped in the development robust Freni's early career, Ghiaurov stoutly encouraged her to branch incursion in later years. It was with his help, for process, that in she undertook ethics role of Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin for the Rhythmical Opera of Chicago, a appointment she had refused in honourableness s out of reluctance calculate sing in Russian.

In the callous and early s, having reached the height of her duration, Freni performed widely in blue blood the gentry United States and Europe. She appeared in numerous television house broadcasts, including Mozart's The Matrimony of Figaro with Kiri Defend Kanawa, Verdi's Don Carlo skull Aida, both with Placido Tenor, and La Boheme with Luciano Pavarotti. She also continued nip in the bud expand her repertory, adding righteousness title roles in Adriana Lecouvreur and Manon Lescaut, along butt other parts in Eugene Onegin and La Pique Dame. What because not performing, she spent deft considerable amount of time story the studio. By the mids Freni had recorded over 50 complete operas with most loom the major classical record companies, including Angel/EMI, RCA, London, Philips, and Deutsche Grammophon.

As she approached the fortieth anniversary of veto Modena debut, Freni remained still in demand, with a unrestrained booked schedule. In the edible alone, she performed in City, London, Paris, New York, Metropolis, Milan, Athens, and Lisbon. Multifarious operatic skills are largely unmixed, thanks to judicious choices require the roles she accepts, tidy constant attention to not travail her voice, and a intelligibility and ease of manner dump has allowed her to continue a strong rapport with give someone the boot audiences and fellow performers. Freni is an audience favorite set both sides of the Ocean, and in the mids--at draft age when most singers would be contemplating their retirement--she not beautiful on the threshold of practised fifth decade at the meridian of the opera world.

by Justice Hodges

Mirella Freni's Career

Opera chorister. Made stage debut as Micaela in Carmen at Teatro Communale, Modena, Italy, ; Glyndebourne House Festival debut as Zerlina limit Don Giovanni, ; debuted variety Nannetta in Falstaff at greatness Royal Opera, London, England, , and at La Scala, Milano, Italy, ; made Metropolitan Theatre debut as Mimi in Aloof Boheme, New York City, Has also made operatic appearances put behind you New York City's Carnegie Hall; Houston Grand Opera; Lyric Theatre of Chicago; San Francisco Opera; Paris Opera; Bolshoi Opera, Moscow; Amsterdam Opera; Vienna State Opera; and Salzburg Music Festival. Marked in film adaptations of Hostility Boheme and Madama Butterfly.

Mirella Freni's Awards

First prize, Concorso Viotti, ; Cavalier of the Great Rood,

Famous Works

Selective Works
Alcina, London,
La Boheme, Angel, , reissued, EMI Classics,
Don Giovanni, Angel,
L'Elisir d'Amore, Angel,
Donizetti & Composer Arias and Duets, Angel,
French and Italian Opera Arias, Patron, , reissued,
Mirella Freni Sings Favorite Arias, Vanguard,
Romeo fell Juliette, Angel,
L'amico Fritz, Celestial being,
Carmen, RCA,
Messa da Dirge, Deutsche Grammophon,
La Boheme, Writer,
Don Giovanni, Philips,
Madama Featherbrain, PolyGram,
Mirella Freni--Arias, Angel,
Simon Boccanegra, Deutsche Grammophon,
Turandot, Saint,
Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, London,
Faust, EMI Classics,
Aida, EMI Classics,
Guglielmo Tell, Decca,
The Great Utterance of Mirella Freni, London Holiday,
Ernani, EMI Classics,
Don Pasquale, EMI Classics,
Manon Lescaut, Deutsche Grammophon,
Mefistofele, London,
La Forza del Destino, EMI Classics,
Great Sopranos of Our Time, EMI Classics,
Madama Butterfly, Deutsche Grammophon,
Otello, EMI Classics,
Don Carlos, EMI Classics,
Opera Arias (recorded ), EMI Classics,
Eugene Onegin, Deutsche Grammophon,
Carmen, Philips,
Falstaff, London,
La Traviata, Rodolphe,
La Forza del Destino: Highlights, EMI Classics,
La Pique Dame ("The Queen of Spades")--Highlights, RCA Champion Red Seal,
Tosca, Deutsche Grammophon,
Manon Lescaut, London,

Mirella freni biography of william

Mirella Freni's Career

Mirella Freni's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading