Luisa Tetrazzini
Volume 2

Note by Nigel Douglas











Of all the great divas of the early twentieth century the one whom I find the most endearing, both as an artist and as a personality, is the 'Florentine Nightingale', Luisa Tetrazzini. Unfortunately it is difficult to establish the truth about certain details of her early days, owing to the fact that her own hilarious memoirs need to be taken not with a pinch of salt but with roughly a lorryload of it. It would, however, be safe to say that she was a lady who treated life as an adventure, and lived it to the full.

Tetrazzini was born in Florence on 29 June 1871, and unlike so many of the great Italian stars she came from a background of financial security, her father being a prosperous military tailor. Her sister Eva, nine years older than herself, was also a successful soprano; Eva probably gave Tetrazzini her first singing lessons and she also studied, though not for very long, with Eva's teacher, Maestro Ceccherini, at the Instituto Musicale in Florence. At the age of only nineteen she made an unconventional debut as Inez in Meyerbeer's L'Africana at the Florentine Teatro Pagliano. According to her own account she leapt up from the audience and offered her services when it was announced that the scheduled singer was suddenly indisposed, but more sober accounts describe the event somewhat differently. She was almost certainly already married to the manager of the Pagliano, Alberto Scalaberni, who lived on the top floor of the theatre building, and the other soprano's cancellation had probably given Tetrazzini a couple of days in which to rehearse the role. In any case she indubitably triumphed, and there is reason to believe that her husband, who had no desire to lose his young wife to the world of international opera, literally imprisoned her in her room, whence she escaped by the time-honoured method of tying her sheets together to make a rope - not a method which would have been advisable for her during the later stages of her career.

The repertoire of the coloratura soprano is the most technically demanding in the whole of opera, and it is an indication of Tetrazzini's astonishing natural talent that after so sketchy a training she managed to tackle the most daunting of roles and regularly drove her audiences frantic with enthusiasm. In 1892 she headed off to Buenos Aires where the sensational impact of her singing was in no way impaired by the outbreak of a major scandal; her companion on the trip was a popular bass named Pietro Cesari, and the arrival of her husband in hot pursuit of the eloping lovers led to a lurid court case and masses of free publicity. It would be hard to exaggerate the harvest both of fame and fortune which Tetrazzini reaped during the next ten years in Central and South America. According not only to her own memoirs but also to innumerable reports in the local press Brazilian millionaires, Mexican matadors and Argentinian presidents were to be numbered amongst her devoted slaves, ever ready to shower her with diamonds and rubies. In St. Petersburg her success was every bit as great, and in Berlin even Kaiser Wilhelm II was moved to present her with an emerald and platinum ring made by the court jeweller, which she wore from that day onwards at every one of her first nights.

Despite these triumphs it was a source of deep resentment to Tetrazzini that she had failed to make the breakthrough to the opera houses which, in terms of international reputation, rated as the real top of the tree - notably the Metropolitan and Covent Garden. She had already won a special place in the hearts of the San Francisco public, where, in the words of one report, 'cheering crowds lined Market Street all the way from the Ferry Building to the Palace Hotel' to greet her arrival for a series of concerts, but New York, and London too, seemed determined to give her the cold shoulder. Then at last, in 1907, she received her first grudging invitation to sing Violetta in La Traviata at Covent Garden. The management subsequently tried to wriggle out of its offer but Tetrazzini refused to oblige, and, in the words of the Musical Director, Percy Pitt, 'she arrived for four days of rehearals with a certain air of deliberation which was very distressing for us all.' Her debut was regarded as such a non-event that no critics were invited and the house was half empty, but the moment the General Manager, Henry Higgins, heard her first cadenza in the final scene of Act I he realised that he had on his hands 'a real leggiero-spinto with breadth and purity of tone such as I had dreamt of all my life', and he rushed to the telephone to ring his friends in Fleet Street. Numerous reporters came tumbling out of their cabs in time for the opening of Act II, and the next day Tetrazzini was front page news. After this the only way to satisify the public's demand for tickets was to mount a special series of Tetrazzini concerts.

New York was not slow to take the hint. Oscar Hammerstein snapped up Tetrazzini for his loss-making Manhattan Opera Company, which promptly started to make a healthy profit. Once again her debut role was Violetta, and Richard Aldrich of The New York Times reported that her reception was 'almost unparalleled in New York's operatic history.' The critic of The New York Press wrote that her final E flat above high C at the close of Act I was 'produced with so great an ease and freedom that persons possessed of the sense of absolute pitch almost doubted their senses', and for good measure she capped the note in question by indulging in her favourite piece of 'business'. Bending down after she had struck the E flat she gathered up the long train of her dress and strolled into the wings, holding that astounding note until she had disappeared from sight.

There, to my way of thinking, we have the essential Tetrazzini. She once employed the word impertinenza to describe the ease with which the young Caruso used to scatter his golden tones around the auditorium, and for almost every aspect of Tetrazzini's own persona impertinenza is the mot juste. The recklessness with which she sets about the coloratura passages in so many of the tracks on the current Nimbus selection is the kind of thing which is guaranteed to drive an audience wild - it is a firework display and a tightrope act at one and the same time. There is, however, also much more to it than this; the artistry is undeniable. Because of the sheer frivolity of so many areas of Tetrazzini's life it is tempting to take the vocal facility for granted and overlook her musical attainments. Richard Aldrich, on another occasion, wrote, 'Much that she does cannot meet with serious approval', thinking no doubt of such habits as blowing a kiss to the audience when making her first entrance in an opera, or joining in the applause for one of her colleagues on stage. If we listen, however, to her 1911 version (inevitably truncated) of that famous Traviata scene we soon become aware that there is a serious-minded performance going on. This is not merely the singing of a clockwork canary with all the right notes safely in place; there is a depth of feeling in 'Di quell' amor', and a thoughtful elegance in the use of decoration at the melody's conclusion, followed by an entirely convincing change of vocal mood on the outburst 'Follie! follie!' Even when the fireworks follow they are performed with such an exhilarating rhythmic impulse that even the flashiest passages are still imbued with theatrical flesh and blood. Listen, for instance, to the wonderful cascade down the octave from the high C into the phrase 'a diletti', to the row of staccati on the high C as she moves into the final run, or indeed to the famous high E flat itself. These top notes of hers were not achieved by thinning down the quality in order to reach the stratosphere - every one of them still contained the full meat of the voice.

Tetrazzini was quite a vocal actress too; the colouring of the voice invariably makes it evident whether the heroine in question is going through a period of sunshine or showers. There is genuine heartbreak in Adina's 'Ah! non credea' from La Sonnambula, a notable contrast with 'Ah! non giunge', the same young lady's outpourings at happy-ending time - a rare early version, this one, accompanied by a gloriously tinkly village hall piano. In such happy effusions as Juliette's Waltz Song or Linda di Chamounix's 'O luce' the voice proves itself ideal for the expression of girlish high spirits, but the tone quality which Tetrazzini produces for the more sombre doings in the last act of Il Trovatore admirably displays the width of her dramatic range. One aria which might not be considered natural Tetrazzini territory is Micaela's 'Je dis que rien' from Carmen, though she did in fact sing the role both in St. Petersburg and in South America. Her use of legato in the middle voice seems to belie the occasional complaint that she neglected this part of the instrument; and whether or not one regards Bizet as a composer who can legitimately be popped up an octave when the singer feels inclined, her interpolation of the final high E flat does bring to mind The New York Press's comment quoted above.

If I were to choose a personal favourite, though, amongst the 'non-showy' numbers in this selection I think it would be Tetrazzini's rapt evocation of the magic month of April, as envisaged by Paolo Tosti. This was one of her concert favourites, and from 1914 onwards it was to the concert platform that she devoted herself, partly because she had become too stout for credibility on the operatic stage, and partly because concerts enabled her to earn more money with less effort. Predictably, Tetrazzini concerts were idiosyncratic affairs, and audiences all over Britain and America capitulated to her as happily as ever. She would come trotting onto the platform at a brisk pace, arriving before her public, as Ivor Newton, her regular accompanist, recalled in a delightful memoir, 'breathless and panting'. As the audience had invariably overflowed onto the platform she would recover herself by walking round shaking people's hands and kissing any young children who happened to be within reach. 'Her friendliness and warmth', Newton continued, 'would bring the entire hall to a state of excitement before she had sung a note', and then, when she felt ready to break into song, she would grasp the end of the long rope of pearls which she wore around her neck and throw it over her shoulder as a signal to Newton that it was time to begin.

Thanks to her reckless extravagance, her open-handed generosity, her vulnerability to any confidence trickster who crossed her path and her decision late in life to take a new husband half her age Tetrazzini, who was thought to have earned more money than any of her contemporaries apart from Caruso, died in poverty. One thing she never lost, however, was her sense of humour, and apart from the priceless legacy of her recordings she also left behind her a rich store of memorable utterances. One of my favourites was a remark she made to her great friend, the German soprano Frieda Hempel, who had just expressed astonishment at Tetrazzini's vocal versatility. 'Well, Friedelina', replied the diva, glancing down at where her waist should have been, 'some singers gotta da figure - but Tetrazzini gotta da voice!' As the selection on the current CD amply demonstrates, she did indeed.


© 1997 Nigel Douglas

All rights of the producer and of the owner of the recorded work reserved.
Unauthorised copying, public performance and broadcasting of this recording prohibited.