Maria Barrientos (1884 - 1946)

Note by Alan Bilgora











Born in Barcelona on March 10th 1884 Maria Barrientos became a singer in an age where the abilities of the soprano leggiera d’agilita, euphamistically called the coloratura still aroused the utmost enthusiasm in the opera and concert going public. Even allowing for the early development of young Latin girls and boys, her appearance at the age of twelve, in a students performance of La Nit Del Bosc by Jose Rodoreda was considered exceptional. Having been supported by her mother, who had great aspirations for her talented young daughter, she received her first singing lessons at a very early age. She was enrolled at the Barcelona Conservatoire making rapid progress, resulting in her official debut aged fourteen on the 24th July 1898 at the Teatro Lirico in Barcelona, in Bellini’s La Sonnambula. Her voice had a warm and appealing quality and over the years her very sound and basic technique was constantly kept in excellent condition with a regular and lengthy daily practice routine. Evidently like a number of other vocalists she frequently compared her voice to that of a musical instrument, and, even whilst travelling, used a tuning fork so that she could continue singing her vocalizzi.

In her early Columbia recordings made two decades after her debut, her voice shows no signs of wear, even after numerous rigorous seasons in many of the world’s largest and most important opera houses. These included not only the major European centres, but those in North and South America as well. In spite of serious competition by many famous sopranos, including the then reigning Italian diva Luisa Tetrazzini her performances had audiences and critics reacting in the most positive manner. The very important newspaper La Nation, after a performance of La Sonnambula in the Teatro Politeama in Buenos Aires extolled her turns, arpeggios, trills and other vocal accomplishments, so generally expected from the older generation of singers, and Barrientos was described as the second Adelina Patti, that legendary singer of the 19th Century.

Sometime in 1902 Barrientos became engaged to Gatti-Casazza, then Intendent at La Scala, Milan, and although contracted to the Teatro Real in Madrid over the next few years she also made appearances in seasons at La Scala and Covent Garden, returning to Madrid for the special celebrations on the marriage of King Alfonso XIII on 31st May 1906. However it became evident that she and Gatti-Casazza were not really suited and she broke off her engagement. A partial cessation of her career took place after her marriage in 1907 to the Argentinian Jorge Keen with whom she had a son. This marriage was not successful and Barrientos made her return to the stage on the 25th May 1911 as Lucia at the Colon, Buenos Aires with an all-star cast including Constantino, Ruffo and de Angeles. This period resulted in her audiences, and surely her greatest fans in South America, Spain and Italy experiencing many of her best performances. Barrientos finally made her Metropolitan, New York debut on January 31st 1916 in Lucia di Lammermoor with Giovanni Martinelli, Leon Rothier and the baritones Giuseppe De Luca and Pasquale Amato alternating in the cast. In Rigoletto she had Enrico Caruso as a brilliant Duke and the elegant De Luca as the eponymous anti-hero.

She also appeared alongside a number of distinguished artists including Casals, Kreisler, McCormack and Julia Culp in a special benefit concert raising money for the family of the composer Granados, who lost his life in a ship torpedoed by the Germans on its way back from America. The usual extensive U.S.A. Metropolitan Opera tours were undertaken including appearances in Philadelphia and Boston. Although her art was admired by American audiences, she was always very aware of the unbounded enthusiasm of her South American and Spanish public, where she enjoyed her greatest successes. Such was the response to her Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia in Buenos Aires that she was obliged to sing the Waltz song’ from Mireille in the Lesson Scene after she had already sung the taxing ‘Voices of Spring’. Over the following seasons Barrientos made numerous appearances at the Metropolitan, New York alongside Caruso in L‘Elisir d‘Amore and Lakmé with Martinelli, also appearing as a soloist in a benefit concert for the Metropolitan Emergency Fund. A return to South America was notable for her singing two operas not usually in her repertoire, Ambroise Thomas’s Mignon and Meyerbeer’s Dinorah where in the latter work she was supported by her exciting compatriot, the tenor Antonio Cortis. Her New York reputation was such that on February 18th 1918 I Puritani was revived especially for her, and together with the sensational tenor Hipolito Lazaro and the great bass Jose Mardones they created one of the season’s outstanding successes, certainly giving the large Spanish contingent of singers then appearing in America a tremendous boost. That season too, she also sang in the first American performance of Rimsky-Korsakoffs Coq d’Or where her singing of the Queen of Shemakha’s music was considered to be “delightful”. Her last North American season took place in 1920 with her final Metropolitan Opera performance being that of Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore with Caruso and Scotti. This was followed by a short season in Havana and in Madrid at the ‘Real’ with a return for the last time to the Colon in Buenos Aires, singing seven of her most admired roles. That winter season saw her back in Madrid including a gala performance of La Traviata in honour of the visiting Queen of the Belgians with the Spanish Queen also being present. Her last reported operatic appearance would seem to be at the ‘Real’ in Madrid in 1922 in the company of Nieto, Lazaro, and the very young Miguel Fleta soon to become the tenor idol of the Spanish speaking world. Barrientos spent her last years in France where she continued to give concerts, and evidence of her well-preserved vocal state can be heard in a series of recordings of songs by Da Falla, accompanied by the composer, made some thirty years after her official debut.

A somewhat austere appearance belied a kindly but rather shy and introverted disposition. As commented upon by the late Clifford Williams in his short biography published in The Record Collector some years ago, she invariably shunned public life and interviews, never being tempted like some other singers to comment on her colleagues or their performances. Maria Barrientos died in Saint-Jean-de-Luz on August 8th 1946 having enjoyed a superb international career on three continents, always as a 'star' in the company of many of the greatest singers of her generation.


© 2003 Alan Bilgora

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