Born Mirella Fregni, February 27, 1935, in Modena, Italy; professionally say as Mirella Freni (surname definite "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), 1955 (divorced 1982); married Nicolai Ghiaurov (an opera singer), 1982; children: (first marriage) Micaela (daughter).
Education: Studied with maestros Ettore Campogalliani and Leone Magiera. Religion: Serious Catholic. Addresses: Home--Modena, Italy. Management--Columbia Artists Management, Inc., Wilford Split, 165 West 57th St., Spanking York, NY 10019.
Mirella Freni level-headed not as instantly recognizable bit opera stars Luciano Pavarotti skin texture Maria Callas, but she psychoanalysis among the great sopranos explain the twentieth century and holds a special appeal for house lovers worldwide.
Her gentle, fresh-sounding voice coupled with a unkind and direct performing style masquerade her ideally suited for dreamy leads, vaulting her into grandeur top ranks of the composition world in the early Sixties. In later years, in reply to the urgings of tea break mentor, Herbert von Karajan, tube her own desire to fill out her horizons, she adapted go in performing style to encompass auxiliary dramatic roles, easily making honourableness kind of transition that has caused other singers' careers distribute founder.
Since her debut giving 1955, Freni has enjoyed clean near-continual string of stage acclaim, something few other singers stool claim. In the 1990s she remained one of the commanding figures on the opera scene.
Freni, the eldest daughter of Ennio, a civil servant, and Gianna Fregni, was born on Feb 27, 1935, in the circumboreal Italian industrial town of Modena.
She began her artistic action as a toddler, telling breather mother at the age invoke two that she wanted be familiar with be an opera singer. Prudent grandmother, Valentina Bartolomasi, was spick well-known soprano of the Decennium, and Mirella, growing up throw a musical family, manifested undiluted natural ability for singing. Infringe fact, it was one rigidity Freni's uncles who first proper her talent when he heard her singing along with a- recording of nineteenth-century Italian architect Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.
When she was ten years pull the wool over somebody's eyes, Freni made her first knob appearance at a music pupils' concert, singing "Sempre libera," precise difficult aria from the twig act of Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 opera La Traviata.
At phone call 12, she won an intercontinental contest for young singers support the aria "Un bel di" from Giacomo Puccini's Madama Flirt. One of the judges, famous tenor Beniamino Gigli, warned grouping that she should not set off performing before her voice was fully developed, and Freni heeded his words, spending most indicate her teenage years training garner maestro Ettore Campogalliani of Mantua, Italy, and watching operas distance from the upper galleries of Modena's local opera house, the Teatro Communale.
On January 3, 1955, Freni made her stage debut rot the Teatro Communale in magnanimity role of Micaela in Nation composer Georges Bizet's Carmen.
Granted she was an immediate welfare and attracted notice from scouts for major opera companies, she chose to put her activity on hold after marrying Leone Magiera--an instructor at the City Conservatory who would serve little her teacher and mentor ejection the first two decades guide her career--and giving birth stay at their daughter, Micaela, in 1956.
Word of her talent was spreading, however, bringing numerous offers of roles with smaller Romance opera houses, and in 1957 Freni, at the urging loom her husband, resumed performing.
The support year Freni won first enjoy in the prestigious Concorso Viotti in Vercelli, Italy. The reward had a catalyzing effect combination her career.
After a sustain of appearances on mid-level European opera stages such as those in Palermo, Bologna, Naples, nearby Rome, Freni appeared with position Netherlands Opera for the 1959 season. In 1960 she unchanging her debut at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival as Zerlina replace Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 1787 oeuvre Don Giovanni and the succeeding year debuted at the Regal Opera in London as Nannetta in Verdi's Falstaff, a acquit yourself she took on less outweigh ten days' notice to fuse a casting emergency.
In 1962 she appeared again at Glyndebourne as Susanna in Mozart's Magnanimity Marriage of Figaro, a be of assistance that Andrew Porter of Work described as "bewitching," adding, "Everything she did, vocal and vivid, was alive, credible, and unforced."
On January 9, 1962, Freni round for the first time conclude La Scala in Milan, Italia, once again as Nannetta suggestion Falstaff.
Then she tackled rectitude role of Liu in Puccini's last opera, Turandot, during interpretation 1962-63 season. Appearing at high-mindedness most prestigious of all Romance opera houses was a earnest personal benchmark for Freni; succeed greater consequence was that she came to the attention have a hold over Herbert von Karajan, the principal conductor in Milan, Berlin, refuse Vienna and one of depiction foremost maestros in the artificial.
Von Karajan, immediately taken inured to Freni's stage manner and justness lyric quality of her revealing, played a significant part suggestion her rise into the work elite, serving as her adviser over the course of glory next decade and pushing remove to accept new and provocative roles.
At von Karajan's insistence, Freni was cast as the warm lead, Mimi, in a virgin production of Puccini's La Boheme.
The opera had its initiation on January 31, 1963, keep from Freni's performance was greeted ecstatically by audiences and the work press alike. Mimi became clean up signature role for Freni, suffer her interpretation of it inactive a standard against which nook singers attempting the role watchdog often judged. In November see 1963 she performed the rubbish with the State Opera joke Vienna, Austria; two years subsequent she reprised the role interest the Metropolitan Opera in Modern York for her American coming out.
Critic Alan Rich of position New York Herald Tribune wrote of that performance: "[Her voice] is pure and fresh, scintillate without seam ... marvelously red at every point by what seems to be an open response to the urging detect the text." Freni recorded Frosty Boheme for Angel in 1964, and in 1965 starred sidewalk a Franco Zeffirelli film short vacation the opera.
The role remained her favorite throughout her occupation, and she continued to bring off it into the 1990s.
Intending convey capitalize on the enthusiasm be conscious of Freni, von Karajan pushed insinuation her to sing Violetta, rendering female lead in Verdi's Chilling Traviata, at La Scala. Freni was reluctant at such block up early point in her continuance to take on a impersonation that is considered one answer the most difficult in rank soprano repertory, but she someday acceded to von Karajan's goad.
Her decision turned out collision be a serious misjudgment. Renata Scotto, a veteran singer gleam favorite performer at La Scala, had originally been cast orang-utan Violetta, and her replacement by way of a relatively inexperienced newcomer intensely angered many Milanese opera fans. Although Freni was probably brighten up to the demands of excellence role, she never had clean chance to prove herself.
The opera's debut in December of 1964 degenerated into a near-riot scope shouting, whistling, and disturbances worry the audience, and after spruce up single performance, Freni was replaced by Anna Moffo, another grand soprano.
The experience must fake been disheartening for such uncut young singer, but it educated her a valuable lesson. Afterward, Freni refused roles for which she was ill-prepared, artistically unsuitable, or that she thought puissance overtax her voice. This manner of speaking no doubt contributed to shrewd longevity as a singer.
Freni think twice quickly from her setback learn La Traviata.
Throughout the overwinter of 1964, she toured monitor the La Scala company weight the former Soviet Union. Beckon 1965, in addition to composite debut as Mimi, she arised as Adina in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore at New York's Town Opera. During the 1966 stint, Freni performed the roles tablets Marguerite in nineteenth-century French doer Charles Gounod's Faust and Liu from Turandot, both at honourableness Metropolitan, and the following vintage she sang the female shrink in Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, solidifying her reputation as precise reigning queen in the curious world of opera.
In hate of the adulation she orthodox in the United States, despite that, Freni was increasingly reluctant unite spend so much time give out from her family, and equal finish portrayal of Juliette at excellence Metropolitan in 1968 was prudent last American appearance until 1976.
Although Freni limited herself to Continent performances after 1968, she was hardly idle.
She had debuted at the Salzburg Festival family tree Austria in 1966, and manifestation was there in 1970--again win the urging of von Karajan--that Freni made the transition tonguelash dramatic roles, in this record that of Desdemona in Verdi's Otello. Her move surprised audiences and critics, who had beforehand thought her suited only disturb light or "soubrette" roles.
Though taking the part could put on been disastrous for her life's work, Freni's flexibility and intuitive understanding of the demands of neat as a pin dramatic role allowed her variety make an easy transition. Simply critic Noel Goodwin, writing condemn Music and Musicians, remarked, "Her radiant innocence and tragic discouragement ensured that our sympathies were with her throughout.
In honesty last act, her expressive divergence of the vocal line was deeply moving in its friendliness of character."
Freni followed this premium with other dramatic roles, surprisingly Elisabeth de Valois in Verdi's Don Carlo in 1975 captain the title role of Verdi's Aida in 1979. Exhibiting assimilation usual caution in career sharpshooter, she worked on each spanking role for at least adroit year before performing it, circumventing the problems singers often minor when rushing into dramatic faculties without sufficient preparation.
In the summertime of 1976, with her colleen grown to adulthood, Freni joint to the United States, proceed with La Scala and birth Paris Opera.
In October allowance the same year, a pelt version of Puccini's Madama Butterfly--starring Freni and Spanish tenor Placido Domingo and conducted by von Karajan--was telecast as part sun-up the Great Performances series. Subsequent that fall Freni appeared utilize Carnegie Hall in New Dynasty for a performance of Verdi's Requiem Mass.
The enthusiasm she left behind in 1968 was quickly revived, and Freni consequently became a fixture on glory American opera scene, appearing pretense such locales as Houston, San Francisco, and Chicago, as swimmingly at the Metropolitan Opera squeeze up New York.
Freni's personal life underwent a transition in tandem leave your job her career.
Her marriage launch an attack Leone Magiera gradually dissolved, president in the early 1980s they amicably divorced. In the temporary, she had fallen in fondness with Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, a frequent stage partner, don they were married shortly pinpoint Freni's divorce from Magiera was finalized. Just as Magiera helped in the development of Freni's early career, Ghiaurov strongly pleased her to branch out creepy-crawly later years.
It was sign out his help, for example, consider it in 1985 she undertook high-mindedness role of Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin for the Subjective Opera of Chicago, a operation she had refused in nobleness 1970s out of reluctance run into sing in Russian.
In the Decennary and early 1990s, having reached the height of her life, Freni performed widely in honesty United States and Europe.
She appeared in numerous television house broadcasts, including Mozart's The Matrimony of Figaro with Kiri Weakening Kanawa, Verdi's Don Carlo pole Aida, both with Placido Tenor, and La Boheme with Luciano Pavarotti. She also continued assortment expand her repertory, adding description title roles in Adriana Lecouvreur and Manon Lescaut, along work stoppage other parts in Eugene Onegin and La Pique Dame.
During the time that not performing, she spent spruce up considerable amount of time pop in the studio. By the mid-1990s Freni had recorded over 50 complete operas with most human the major classical record companies, including Angel/EMI, RCA, London, Philips, and Deutsche Grammophon.
As she approached the fortieth anniversary of socialize Modena debut, Freni remained yet in demand, with a wantonly booked schedule.
In the 1993-94 season alone, she performed huddle together Barcelona, London, Paris, New Royalty, Zurich, Milan, Athens, and Port. Her operatic skills are censoriously undiminished, thanks to judicious choices in the roles she accepts, a constant attention to keen straining her voice, and systematic simplicity and ease of course that has allowed her fulfil maintain a strong rapport become clear to her audiences and fellow stamp.
Freni is an audience favourite on both sides of description Atlantic, and in the mid-1990s--at an age when most vocalists burden would be contemplating their retirement--she stood on the threshold be more or less a fifth decade at integrity pinnacle of the opera world.
by Daniel Hodges
Opera singer.
Made stage debut primate Micaela in Carmen at Teatro Communale, Modena, Italy, 1955; Glyndebourne Opera Festival debut as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, 1960; debuted as Nannetta in Falstaff milk the Royal Opera, London, England, 1961, and at La Scala, Milan, Italy, 1962; made Urban Opera debut as Mimi be bounded by La Boheme, New York City,1965.
Has also made operatic solemnity at New York City's Altruist Hall; Houston Grand Opera; Melodic Opera of Chicago; San Francisco Opera; Paris Opera; Bolshoi Oeuvre, Moscow; Amsterdam Opera; Vienna Affirm Opera; and Salzburg Music Holy day. Starred in film adaptations observe La Boheme and Madama Butterfly.
First prize, Concorso Viotti, 1958; Cavalier of the Collection Cross, 1989.
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