Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur: "Io son l'umile ancella" by Claudia Muzio 1921

My favorite soprano of the early part of the 20th century, Clauda Muzio, had a voice that recorded very well. Much better than most of her soprano counterparts. The voice, even on these early acoustic recordings, is full of resonance and overtones that are lost with many of the high voice records. This Edison Diamond Disc from 1921 has quite a lot of surface noise which is common with this type of record. But, the power and quality of her beautiful voice shines through the background sound.

The rarely performed Adriana Lecouvreur has gorgeous music for both the Soprano and Tenor, but as with many of the Verismo operas are hard to portray to modern audiences. I think this is a great opera that deserves more attention that it gets. But, it requires superb performers and a strong stage director to work.

Claudia Muzio Wikipedia Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Muzio

Adriana Lecouvreur Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriana_Lecouvreur

Claudia Muzio from allmusic.com:
Opera, like any other art form, has its cult figures, typically singers who died young and enacted tragedies, on stage or (sometimes "and") in their own lives. While Maria Callas is probably the best known of these, Claudia Muzio has her own legion of devotees. Like Callas, her voice had a certain veiled tone, one making it near-perfect for tragic heroines; she was an excellent actress and a beautiful woman, and also had some major vocal troubles towards the end of her career, though was still able to thrill audiences by her vocal and physical communication. (There was something of a personal connection as well -- Aristotle Onassis had been Muzio's lover earlier in his life, Callas' much later.) Muzio's vocal acting was poignantly subtle, based on colors and shading of her tone, rather than the harsh-toned, uncontrolled shrieks or melodramatic gulping sobs that too often passed (and still do) for dramatic high notes or powerful involvement, and she was known as "the Duse of song," after Eleonora Duse, an actress famed for her intensity. During most of her life she was more or less a recluse, and avoided society.

She came from a background that combined music and drama; her father was an operatic stage director at both the Met and Covent Garden, and her mother an opera house chorister. She studied at an early age with Annetta Casaloni, the mezzo-soprano who created the role of Maddalena in Verdi's Rigoletto, in Turin, and made her own operatic debut as Massenet's Manon in Arezzo in 1910; in 1911, she made her first recordings, an aria from La bohème and part of La traviata. Her La Scala debut was as Desdemona in 1913. This was so successful that a member of the Paris Opera management immediately offered her the same part for the next season, and a representative of the Covent Garden management heard her in rehearsals, and immediately offered her the role of Manon for the next year. However, while she sang several roles during just ten weeks there, that was the only season she sang at Covent Garden; much of the remainder of her career was in Italy and North and South America, especially at the Teatro Colon, where she was known as "La unica."

Her Met debut was as Tosca, in 1916, singing with Enrico Caruso and Antonio Scotti, and she appeared in each season there for the next six years, singing a total of 15 roles and 152 performances, including, in 1918, the role of Georgetta in the world premiere of Puccini's Il tabarro. Her Chicago debut was in 1922 as Aida, and she remained there for nine seasons, singing a combination of contemporary (such as Fevrier's Monna Vanna and Ginevra in Giordano's La cena delle beffe), and nineteenth century works.

She died in Rome, probably from either a rheumatic heart condition or Bright's Disease, though to this day, rumors of suicide persist, as her love life was never a happy one and the stock market crash had affected her finances deeply.

Видео Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur: "Io son l'umile ancella" by Claudia Muzio 1921 канала Daniel Melvin