Rosa Ponselle

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Early life

She was born Rosa Ponzillo on January 22, 1897, in Meriden, Connecticut, the youngest of three children. Her parents were Italian Neapolitan immigrants. Rosa had an exceptionally mature voice at an early age and, at least in her early years, sang on natural endowment with little, if any, vocal training. She sang in movie houses and cafes in Meriden and at church, and she soon became well-known locally for her exceptionally beautiful voice.

Vaudeville

Rosa's older sister, Carmela, a mezzo-soprano, also had a fine voice and had a successful career in vaudeville after her debut in "The Girl from Brighton," a 1912 Broadway musical. Three years later, in 1915, Carmela brought Rosa to audition for her agent. In spite of being markedly overweight (a stark contrast to the fashion-model physique of her older sister), Rosa impressed with her voice, and she was hired to perform with Carmela as a "sister act." Over the next three years the Ponzillo Sisters (also known as "Those Tailored Italian Girls") became a headlining act on the Keith Circuit in vaudeville, appearing in all the major theaters on the circuit and making a substantial income. They performed as a "class act" and sang ballads and operatic arias.

In 1918, Carmela and Rosa demanded a large raise from the Keith Circuit, as a result of which their act was dropped. At the time, Carmela was studying in New York with a well-connected voice teacher/agent named William Thorner. Thorner heard Rosa sing and agreed to give her lessons. (Rosa later denied that Thorner had ever given her voice lessons, but her statements on the subject are contradictory.) Although initially less impressed with Rosa's future prospects compared to Carmela's, Thorner changed his opinion after the legendary baritone Victor Maurel, whom Verdi had chosen to create Iago in "Otello", auditioned both sisters at his friend Thorner's request. Soon afterward, Thorner persuaded the great tenor Enrico Caruso, star of the Metropolitan Opera, to his studio to hear Carmela and Rosa sing. Caruso was deeply impressed with Rosa's voice and arranged for an audition with the Met, as a result of which the Met's general manager, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, offered Rosa a contract for the 1918-19 season.

Metropolitan Opera debut and early operatic career

Rosa Ponselle made her Metropolitan Opera debut on November 15, 1918, as Leonora in Verdi's "La forza del destino", opposite Caruso. It was her first performance on any opera stage. In spite of an almost paralyzing case of nerves (which she suffered from throughout her operatic career), she scored a tremendous success, both with the public and with the critics. New York Times critic James Huneker wrote:

"What a promising debut! Added to her personal attraciveness, she possesses a voice of natural beauty that may prove a gold mine. It is vocal gold, anyhow, with its luscious lower and middle tones, dark, rich and ductile, brilliant in the upper register."

In addition to Leonora, Ponselle's roles in the 1918-19 season included Santuzza in "Cavalleria rusticana", Rezia in Weber's "Oberon", and Carmelita in the (unsuccessful) world premiere of Joseph Carl Breil's "The Legend" (a role and opera that Ponselle loathed so much that she later burned the score and said the opera "would stink up a cat box").

In the following Met seasons, Ponselle's roles included the lead soprano roles in "La Juive" (opposite Caruso's Eléazar, his last new role before he died), "William Tell", "Ernani", "Il trovatore", "Aida", "La Gioconda", "Don Carlo", "L'Africaine", "L'amore dei tre re", "Andrea Chenier", "La vestale", and in 1927 the role that many considered her greatest achievement, the title role in Bellini's "Norma". In addition to her operatic activities, which were centered at the Met, Ponselle also had a lucrative concert career.

Appearances abroad and later operatic career

Outside the USA, Ponselle sang only at Covent Garden in London (for three seasons) and in Italy (in order, so she said, to honor a promise she had made to her mother that she would one day sing in Italy). In 1929, Ponselle made her European debut in London, at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. Up until that time, her career had been concentrated entirely in America. Ponselle sang two roles at Covent Garden in 1929: Norma and Gioconda. She had a great success and was tumultuously acclaimed by the normally staid London audiences. She returned to London in 1930 in "Norma", "L'amore dei tre re", and "La traviata" (her first performances as Violetta). In her final London season in 1931, she sang in "La forza del destino", "Fedra" (an opera by her coach and long-time friend, Romano Romani), and a reprise of "La traviata".

In 1933 Ponselle sang her only performances in Italy, as Giulia in "La vestale", with the Maggio Musicale in Florence. As in London, the audiences were wildly enthusiastic. At the second performance, Ponselle had to encore the aria, "O nume tutelar." Her success was such that she considered an engagement at Milan's La Scala, but after witnessing a Florence audience's brutal treatment of a famous tenor, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, who cracked on a high note, she decided not to press her luck further with the notoriously difficult Italian operagoing public. Other than her appearances in London and Florence, Ponselle never sang outside the United States.

Ponselle continued in the 1930s to add roles to her repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1930 she sang Donna Anna in "Don Giovanni" to great acclaim, but her first New York appearances in 1931 as Violetta, a role she had sung with such success in London, received a more mixed reception from the New York critics, some of whom found her interpretation too forceful and dramatic. (W.J. Henderson complained of her "assaults" on the vocal line.) In 1931 she sang in another unsuccessful world premiere, Montemezzi's "La notte di Zoraima", which sank without a trace. Like many other opera singers of that time, she made a brief trip to Hollywood and made screen tests for M-G-M and Paramount, but nothing came of them. In 1935, Ponselle sang her first Carmen at the Met. In spite of a great popular success with the role, for which she had prepared meticulously, Ponselle received a drubbing from most of the New York critics, especially Olin Downes in the New York Times, whose savagely caustic review hurt Ponselle deeply. The only roles Ponselle sang during her last two seasons at the Met were Santuzza and Carmen, roles that did not tax her upper register. Differences with the Met management regarding repertoire led her not to renew her contract with the company for the 1937-38 season. Her last operatic performance was as Carmen on April 22, 1937, in a Met tour performance in Cleveland. She was 40 years old, at the height of her popularity, and apart from a receding upper register, still in magnificent voice.

Retirement

Ponselle did not consciously or purposely retire after that Cleveland "Carmen" in 1937; she just let her career slip away. A variety of factors contributed to this: her receding upper register, which made singing her signature roles increasingly nerve-wracking; her bitterness over the Met management's refusal to accede to her requests regarding repertoire (she wanted to sing Cilea's "Adriana Lecouvreur", another part with a congenial low tessitura, and general manager Edward Johnson said no); mental and physical exhaustion, after a non-stop, intense 21-year career with continual bouts of performance nerves; her marriage in 1936 to Baltimore socialite Carle Jackson; and her enjoyment of the relaxed life she now had without the demands of performing. Ponselle later said that she never missed performing after she retired. She and Jackson built a luxurious home near Baltimore, the Villa Pace, where she lived the rest of her life.

Her marriage to Jackson was rocky and they divorced in 1949. The breakup was traumatic for Ponselle, and she suffered a nervous breakdown. Although she never again appeared on the concert or opera stage, Ponselle continued to sing at home for friends, who reported that her voice was as magnificent as ever. This was confirmed in 1954, when RCA Victor came to Villa Pace and recorded Ponselle singing a wide variety of songs. In the late 1940s, Ponselle became the guiding force of the fledgling Baltimore Civic Opera Company, providing coaching and voice lessons for the young singers who appeared with the company. Among those who coached with her during their Baltimore Civic Opera appearances at the start of their careers were Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes, Plácido Domingo and James Morris.

Ponselle died at the Villa Pace near Baltimore, Maryland on May 25, 1981. She is buried in Druid Ridge Cemetery in Baltimore.

Quotations

*"When discussing singers, there are two you must first set aside: Rosa Ponselle and Enrico Caruso. Then you may begin." - Geraldine Farrar, soprano.
*"In my lifetime, there have been three vocal miracles: Caruso, Ruffo and Ponselle." - Tullio Serafin, conductor.
*"When you hear the voice of Rosa Ponselle, you hear a fountain of melody blessed by the Lord." - Mary Garden, soprano.
*"The most glorious voice that ever came from any woman's throat."
- Walter Legge, record producer.
*"The greatest singer of us all." - Maria Callas, soprano.
*"The Queen of Queens in all of singing." - Luciano Pavarotti, tenor.

The voice

Rosa Ponselle's voice was one of extraordinary beauty and voluptuousness. In its richness and depth, it has been compared by commentators at various times to port wine, maroon velvet and dark chocolate. Luciano Pavarotti, who visited Villa Pace and vocalized with Ponselle when she was nearly 80 years old, likened her still-intact voice to "the color of amber." The voice was absolutely even in its scale, from top to bottom, with all vocal registers seamlessly integrated and no audible changes of gear. Her legato singing was exemplary. She could sing at all dynamic levels, from a powerful forte to a gossamer pianissimo that carried to all corners of the opera house, and she could execute a perfect "messa di voce" in all parts of her range. In her early years, she had a three-octave range from low C to high C. She possessed an exceptionally rich and mellow middle and lower register.

In weight and caliber Ponselle's voice was a true dramatic coloratura soprano, capable of encompassing all the demands of roles like La Gioconda and Norma. Although not a coloratura soprano in the mould of Tetrazzini or Galli-Curci, she had unusual flexibility for such a large and powerful voice and could negotiate fast scale passages with ease and accuracy, the proverbial "string of pearls." She possessed a fine trill that she could sustain seemingly forever: when she sang the trill in the cabaletta "Tutto sprezzo" in Act I of Verdi's "Ernani", the story was that the conductor would simply fold his arms and wait for her to finish, picking up his baton only when she indicated that she was ready to come out of the trill.

Added to the above, Ponselle was a sensitive musician and an imaginative interpreter. She was a quick study and could sight-read with accuracy. She possessed an excellent sense of rhythm. She was a convincing and intense actress, at times (in the opinion of some critics) pushing drama and intensity past the bounds of good taste. One can hear something of this in the denunciation scene in a 1935 performance of "La traviata", during which Ponselle's Violetta sobs and cries out and grows increasingly (and audibly) hysterical as Alfredo berates her.

The principal flaw in Ponselle's voice, past the earliest years of her operatic career, was a problematic top register. Even in her earliest days, she had a phobia of the high C. In an interview in 1955, Ponselle said that the first thing she did when looking over a prospective role was flip through the score and count the high Cs. (The exposed high C in "O patria mia" in "Aida" terrified Ponselle and was the reason she did not sing more often a role that otherwise fitted her, vocally, like a glove.) Throughout her career Ponselle availed herself freely of transpositions. Apparently, she never sang any of the high Cs in "Norma" but transposed them all down to a B. Her "Sempre libera" in the live "Traviata" is taken down a whole tone. In the later years of her career, but while she was still relatively young, her top register receded, and she was increasingly drawn to roles like Santuzza, Carmen and Adriana that did not tax her upper register. Some have speculated that Ponselle was by nature a mezzo-soprano. This theory is bolstered by the dark richness and solidity of her lower register. Ponselle herself once told mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne that she might have studied as a mezzo had she not begun singing so young. More likely, however, Ponselle, like Horne and Regina Resnik, started out as a true soprano, but as her voice matured it darkened and settled into a lower placement. If Ponselle had continued to sing in opera into the 1940s, she would probably have done so as a mezzo-soprano.

The following recordings best demonstrate the various aspects of Ponselle's voice discussed above:

Range, timbre, pianissimo: "Suicidio!"
Trill and coloratura: "Ernani, involami" and "Mercè, diletti amiche" ("Bolero")
Legato: "Tu che invoco" and "O nume tutelar"
Dynamic control and messa di voce: "Pace, pace, mio Dio"

Recordings

Rosa Ponselle's recording career began with the acoustic horn, continued with electric recording, and ended on magnetic tape. Over her career, she made 166 commercial recordings (not including alternate takes), either in the studio or at Villa Pace. These are supplemented by live recordings from the 1930s, which include three complete operas and numerous songs and arias from her appearances on radio. Additionally, there are numerous "private" recordings made by Ponselle herself and others at the Villa Pace, from 1949 through the late 1970s.

Columbia Recordings. Shortly before her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1918, Ponselle signed a 5-year contract with American Columbia. Although at that time Victor was the more prestigious label, and the one for which Caruso recorded, Ponselle was counselled to sign with Columbia because she would be the company's leading soprano and not just one in a stable of great singers. Ponselle made 44 discs for Columbia, including arias from many operas in which she never sang, such as "Lohengrin", "Tosca", "La Bohème", "Madama Butterfly", and "I Vespri Siciliani". All her Columbia recordings were acoustics. Her 1923 Columbia recording of "Selva opaca" from "William Tell" was her personal favorite among all her acoustic recordings, because she felt that it was the most accurate representation of her voice and style at the time. Of particular interest among the Columbia discs are three duets she made with Carmela of some of their vaudeville hits, including a version of "Comin' Thro' the Rye" that features an elaborate coloratura cadenza that would not be out of place in Bellini's "Norma" but sounds a bit strange in the Scottish Highlands. One of Ponselle's regrets about signing with Columbia was that it deprived her of the chance to record with Caruso, who was an exclusive Victor artist.

Victor Recordings. When her Columbia contract expired in 1923, Ponselle immediately signed with Victor. Her recordings from 1923-1925 are all acoustics; from 1925 on, they are all electrics. Ponselle's greatest recordings for Victor include "Pace, pace mio Dio," "Suicidio!", "Casta Diva," and the two arias from "La vestale." She also recorded several ensembles, including the complete Tomb Scene from "Aida" with Giovanni Martinelli and "Mira, o Norma" with Marion Telva, the Adalgisa of her first Normas in 1927. Ponselle made no studio recordings after 1939. In 1954 RCA Victor, unable to persuade Ponselle to return to the recording studio, took its recording equipment to the Villa Pace and set up a microphone in the foyer. Ponselle, with piano accompaniment by conductor Igor Chichagov, recorded alternate versions of 53 songs, many of which were released on two LP discs, "Rosa Ponselle Sings Today" and "Rosa Ponselle at the Villa Pace". They show that Ponselle's voice was in magnificent condition even at age 57, with extraordinary richness and depth (including a low D in "Der Tod und das Mädchen"), even if the top notes are a bit attenuated.

Live Recordings. Ponselle sang often on the radio in the early 30s, and she generally had her broadcasts recorded on 78 rpm acetate disks. Many of these have been released since on LP and CD. There are four complete opera performances from the Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcasts: "Don Giovanni" (1934), "La traviata" (1935), and two performances of "Carmen" (1936 and 1937). The 1937 "Carmen" is the Cleveland tour performance that was Ponselle's farewell to the operatic stage. The "Traviata" and "Carmen" performances are in good sound (for a mid-30s radio broadcast transcription); the "Don Giovanni" is in very poor sound. Ponselle's live recordings also include many songs and arias from her radio concerts. Finally, there are private recordings made at the Villa Pace of Ponselle singing various songs and arias accompanying herself on the piano, some of which are items she never recorded elsewhere. There is a particularly moving and very freely-rendered performance of the aria "Senza Mamma" from "Suor Angelica".

Compact Discs

*Rosa Ponselle RCA Victor Vocal Series.
*Rosa Ponselle: The Columbia Acoustic Recordings; Pearl.
*Rosa Ponselle: The Victor Recordings 1923-25; Romophone.
*Rosa Ponselle: The Victor Recordings 1925-29; Romophone.
*Rosa Ponselle: The 1939 Victor and 1954 "Villa Pace" Recordings; Romophone.
*Rosa Ponselle in Opera and Song; Nimbus Prima Voce (available separately on 3 *CDs - Rosa Ponselle vv. 1, 2 & 3; Nimbus).
*Rosa Ponselle On the Air Volume 1 1934-36; Marston.
*Rosa Ponselle On the Air Volume 2; Marston.
*Rosa Ponselle: When I Have Sung My Songs 1922-1057; Biographies in Music, Cantabile.

References

*American Association of University Women, (Towson, Maryland, Branch), [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/7441013 "Baltimore County Women, 1930-1975"] , (Baltimore: The Sunpapers, 1976) [The book is a collection of profiles of forty Baltimore County women "who distinguished themselves" in diverse fields (including artist Jane Frank and golfer Carol Mann), compiled as part of a project celebrating the 1976 United States Bicentennial ] OCLC 7441013
*Drake, James A., [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/7923939&referer=brief_results "Rosa Ponselle: A Centenary Biography"] (Amadeus Press: Portland 1997) ISBN 0-385-15641-3
*Fitzgerald, Gerald ed., [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/20452278&referer=brief_results "Annals of the Metropolitan Opera"] (G. K. Hall & Co.: Boston 1989) ISBN 0-8161-8903-X
*Jackson, Paul, "Saturday Afternoons at the Old Met: The Metropolitan Opera Matinee Broadcasts, 1931-1950" (Amadeus Press: Portland 1992)
*Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/36892834&referer=brief_results "Rosa Ponselle: American Diva"] (Northeastern University Press: Boston 1997) ISBN 1-55553-317-5
*Ponselle, Rosa & Drake, James A., [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/7923939&referer=brief_results "Rosa Ponselle: A Singer's Life"] (Doubleday & Sons: New York 1982) ISBN 0-385-15641-3
*Scott, Michael, "The Record of Singing, Vol. 2" (Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd.: London 1979)
*Steane, J.B., [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/996289&referer=brief_results "The Grand Tradition"] (Amadeus Press: Portland 1993) ISBN 0-684-13634-1