Lucrezia Bori

Biography

Standing aside from additional lyric sopranos of her day, Lucrezia Bori was an excellent interpretive artist, adept at utilizing the oboe-like timbre of her modest-sized tone of voice to generate interpretations of rare pathos. Without conventionally gorgeous, she bewitched her viewers into thinking her to be always a creature of amazing allure. Her capability to disguise a relatively ordinary number with immaculately trim costumes is normally borne out by many photographs used of her during her best years. She survived the onset of nodes on her behalf vocal cords, retiring and enabling an interval of overall silence to cover the curing that allowed her to come back for yet another decade . 5 of performing. Upon her pension, she committed herself to focusing on behalf of her beloved Metropolitan Opera, initial being a panel member, later on like a director from the Metropolitan Opera Association where she continued to be until her loss of life. First educated in a convent in her indigenous town, Bori (created Borja) started her vocal teaching in the Valencia Conservatory and later on pursued advanced research with Melchiorre Vidal in Milan. Her debut occurred at Rome’s Teatro Adriano as Micaëla in 1908. She consequently sang Nedda at two additional theaters and undertook Butterfly in Naples. Once the Metropolitan Opera stopped at Paris in 1910, Bori was suggested as an alternative for an ailing Lina Cavalieri in Manon Lescaut and was authorized by an audition -panel comprising Puccini, Toscanini, and Metropolitan supervisor Gatti-Casazza. With Toscanini performing and Caruso as her Des Grieux, Bori’s triumph was full, and the brand new York company wanted her instant engagement. Earlier achievement, however, had resulted in an engagement at La Scala for another yr, and she sang a number of lyric tasks, performing Octavian within the Italian premiere of Rosenkavalier along with the Goose Gal in the initial Italian functionality of Humperdinck’s Königskinder (both under Tullio Serafin’s baton). Bori finally found its way to NY where her November 11, 1912, debut emerged in the function of her Paris achievement, Puccini’s Manon. Even though some critics sensed her tone of voice was relatively restricted in proportions and color, Bori shortly won her method with both writers and viewers. She became greater than a precious vocalist; she became an authentic superstar. W.J. Henderson, relatively reserved in his preliminary response, was unreservedly thinking about Bori’s Fiora in Montemezzi’s L’Amore dei tre re the next season among others more and more succumbed to the singer’s dramatic power and beguiling demeanor in comic assignments. Apart from a four-year rest period concluded using a functionality in Monte Carlo, Bori sang productively until 1936, when her pension was celebrated using a gala farewell. During the period of her Metropolitan profession, she made an appearance (by her very own count number) 429 situations in 28 different assignments. Being among the most well-known had been Violetta, Mimì, the Manon of Massenet, and Norina. For the Metropolitan, she developed a significant amount of jobs, including Despina, Mélisande, Antonia in Les contes d’Hoffmann (she was also a seductive Giulietta despite her fairly delicate tone of voice), Concepcion in Ravel’s L’heure espagnole, Salud in La vida breve, and Mary in Deems Taylor’s Peter Ibbetson. Once she came back to NY in 1921, Bori continued to be loyal towards the Metropolitan, singing just occasional shows with various other American homes and producing regular performances at Ravinia Recreation area each summertime. She continued to be through her extremely last efficiency an musician both inimitable and irreplaceable.

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