VIRGINIA ZEANI
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An excerpt from The Twilight of Belcanto
by Leonardo Ciampa
Copyright © MMIII Leonardo Ciampa. All rights reserved.
With Christina Pier. Why the recording studios didn’t knock her door down shall remain a mystery. In addition to live and pirated recordings, Zeani made only two studio recordings with a major label. For Decca she recorded an album of coloratura arias, conducted by Gavazzeni, and an album of Puccini arias, conducted by Franco Patanè (father of Giuseppe
Patanè).[5] With the Author. Zeani never had an agent and was not an aggressive self-promoter. “I like to be a lady onstage and offstage. You shouldn’t betray everything you do onstage with stupid things in your life that go into the newspaper. I never had publicity, but the people who love music know me.”[6]
A special category must be made for soprano Virginia Zeani. What a revelation her singing was to me. Talk about someone who should have been superfamous! I had never heard of her until one day Vittorio Marciano mentioned her name to me admiringly.
Virginia Zehan (the name was later Italianized) was born in Transylvania, Romania, on October 21, 1925. In Bucharest, at age nine, she heard her first opera, Madama Butterfly. She chose her career path on that evening.
Zeani studied literature and philosophy at the University of Bucharest. Her voice teacher was the extraordinary Lydia the extraordinary Lydia
Lipkowska[1],
a famous Russian soprano and a court singer to the Czar of Russia. Though her first teacher was Russian, Lipkowska went to Milan and studied with Vittorio Vanzo. She went on to sing in many major capitals in Europe and America. During the Met’s 1909-1910 season she sang two performances with Caruso, a Traviata (18 November 1909) and a Rigoletto (18 February 1910). She sang in the world-première of Ponchielli’s I Mori Di Valenza (Monte Carlo, 17 March 1914). Between 1911 and 1914, Lipkowska recorded 29 gorgeous sides, including Caro Nome and Yolanta’s aria. Lipkowska married, and later divorced, the wonderful Russian baritone George Baklanov[2] (1880-1938). The two left us a resplendently beautiful disc of Figlia! Mio padre! from Rigoletto.
Her studies with Lipkowska complete, Virginia Zeani moved to Italy in March of 1947, to study with none other than Aureliano Pertile. She débuted[3]
at the Teatro Duse in Bologna in 1948, in Traviata – an opera she would sing more than 600 times (!). Her extraordinary repertoire encompassed six languages and 71 roles (listed in Appendix D), and her technique enabled her to hop among coloratura, lyric, and dramatic roles without a problem. She was chosen for many important revivals of neglected Belcanto operas (e. g., Rossini’s Le Comte Ory, Zelmira, and Otello, Donizetti’s Maria di Rohan, Verdi’s Alzira). In her mid 40s she sang bigger roles like Aïda, Tosca, Cio-Cio-San, Fedora, etc. She performed all four soprani roles in Tales of Hoffmann. She sang contemporary music such as Barbara Giuranna’s dodecaphonic Mayerling, written for her. What could Zeani not sing?
A doubly meaningful highlight of Zeani’s life occurred in 1952, when Serafin asked her to replace Callas in a production of I Puritani. It marked not only Zeani’s Florentine début (and her first performance in a large, important house) but also the first time she met basso Nicola Rossi-Lemeni.
Four years later, on December 10, 1956, Zeani made her La Scala début, as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. The title role that night was sung by the same Rossi-Lemeni. A week later he proposed marriage. Zeani accepted.
A month later (January 26, 1957), Zeani created the role of Blanche in the world-premiere of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, also at La Scala.[4] Poulenc greatly admired Zeani, whose repertoire also included his La Voix Humaine. Indeed, a striking trait of Zeani’s art is her equal affinity with both the French and Italian repertoires. Her 1963 recordings of Dépuis le jour (from Charpentier’s Louise) and Ah! Je suis seule (from Massenet’s Thaïs) are among the most stylistically satisfying of any recorded versions. And if the performance on video of an aria from Voix Humaine is any indication, no one in the world sang that role better. This is soprano singing of the highest stratosphere – beautiful technique, dramatic awareness, keen musicality, faultless style.
Ms. Zeani appeared in every major house in Italy, as well as major houses in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin, Madrid, Zurich, Russia, Egypt, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico City, and others. In 1956 Sir Rudolf Bing invited her to sing at the Met. Owing to the Carmelites premiere and her upcoming wedding, she was unable to accept. The mercurial Bing didn’t invite her again for ten years.
As you will read, Zeani sang opposite all the great tenors from Gigli and Tagliavini right up to Pavarotti and Domingo. She knew and/or sang with just about any famous name you can think of during the ’50s, ’60s, or ’70s.
In addition to the glorious, Italianate voice (extending from alto G to above-the-staff F), coupled with one of the most flexible techniques of her time, she had a tremendous dramatic range, a special talent for infusing the character’s authentic emotions into her singing. Caballé’s electricity, Cotrubas’ simplicity, Ponselle’s sensuality, De Los Angeles’ angelic quality – Zeani could conjure it all. And she was beautiful. My wife Rebecca, upon seeing an old photo, remarked, “She looked like Elizabeth Taylor – only more beautiful.” Zeani’s eyes in particular were much discussed.
On the other hand, Zeani likes the spontaneity and “honesty” of her live recordings. Like Gigli, Björling, and only a handful of others, Zeani had that rare trait so often killed by antiseptic recording sessions: that freshness and naturalness that made you feel as though she could repeat the aria five or six more times, and each take would be as good as the last.
Had I not heard it with my own ears, I would not have believed the ovation she received during her 1962 Maria di Rohan at the San Carlo. Neapolitans know singing the way they know pizza or coffee; they are almost impossible to impress. But as the recording shows, they practically took the roof off after Zeani’s Benigno il cielo arridere. The applause was not so much for the perfect high Eb but for a performance that they knew was right.
In 1980, Zeani and her late husband, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, joined the voice faculty of the Indiana University School of Music. Later they both were elevated to Distinguished Professors.
Earlier in the book I quoted Serafin’s famous list of three vocal miracles. Richard Bonynge had his own list of three:
Apart from Joan [Sutherland], … the voices I most remember are Flagstad, Virginia Zeani and Renata Tebaldi.[7]
From The Twilight of Belcanto
Copyright © MMIII Leonardo Ciampa. All rights reserved.
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[1] Lipkowska’s name is
sometimes spelled Lipkovska or Lipkovskaya. The reference books cannot agree on
her dates; she was born in either 1880 or 1882 and died in either 1955 or 1958.
[2] His last name is sometimes
spelled Baklanoff; his first name alternates between George, Georges, and
Georgy.[3] The 22-year-old Zeani was a
last-minute replacement for Margherita Carosio. The tenor that evening was
Arrigo Pola, one of Pavarotti’s teachers. The baritone was Anselmo
Colzani, who sang often at the Met.[4] Poulenc always preferred his
operas to be sung in the vernacular. Thus, by his request, the opera was sung
in Italian that evening and entitled Dialoghi delle Carmelitane.[5] Zeani did make some studio
recordings for a small company in Rumania (e. g., a Traviata in ’68 and a Tosca in ’77). The conditions
were less than ideal. The music was basically sung through once; second takes
were rarely given. And the recorded sound was substandard. These do not give a
full idea of what Zeani could do.