Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet (August 15, 1858 – January 6, 1942), was a French operatic soprano.
Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. She possessed a potent stage presence and was noted for her acting ability, stormy personality, and dramatic intensity. Contemporary accounts of her voice describe it as extraordinary, with a first-rate technique.
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Early life
Calvé was born in Decazeville, Aveyron. Her father, Justin Calvet, was a civil engineer. She spent her childhood at first in Spain with her parents, then in diverse convent schools, between Roquefort and Tournemire (Aveyron). After her parents separated, she moved with her mother to Paris. There she attempted to enter the Paris Conservatory, while she studied the art of singing under Jules Puget.
After her debut at the Brussels La Monnaie, she took lessons in Paris from the celebrated teacher Mathilde Marchesi, a retired German mezzo-soprano and student of Manuel García. She made a tour of Italy, where she saw the famous actress Eleonora Duse, whose impersonations made a deep impression on the young singer. She trained herself in stage craft and gesture by closely observing Duse's performances.
Career
Her operatic debut occurred in 1881 in Gounod's Faust at Brussels' La Monnaie; later she sang at La Scala, in Milan, and also at the principal theatres of Naples, Rome, and Florence.
Returning to Paris in 1891, she created the part of Suzel in L'Amico Fritz by Pietro Mascagni, playing and singing the role later at Rome. Because of her great success in it, she was chosen to originate the role of Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, which was viewed as one of her greatest parts. She repeated her success in it in London.
Her next triumph was Bizet's Carmen. Before beginning the study of this part, she went to Spain, learned the Spanish dances, mingled with the people and patterned her characterization after the cigarette girls whom she watched at their work and at play. In 1894, she made her appearance in the role at the Opéra-Comique, Paris. The city's opera-goers immediately hailed her as the greatest Carmen that had ever appeared, a verdict other cities would later echo. She had had many famous predecessors in the role, including Adelina Patti, Minnie Hauk and Célestine Galli-Marié, but critics and musicians agreed that in Calvé they had found their ideal of Bizet's cigarette girl of Seville. Her many charms of voice, figure, and personality combined to make it one of the most brilliant impersonations ever given in opera.
Calvé first appeared in America in the season of 1893–1894 as Mignon and her reception then and ever afterward was flattering. She would make regular visits to the country, both in grand opera and in concert tours. She created the part of Anita, which was written for her, in Massenet's La Navarraise in London, in 1894, and sang Sapho, in an opera written by the same composer.
She also sang Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet in Paris in 1899, but the part was not suited to her and she dropped it. She also appeared with success in many roles, among them, as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, the title role in Félicien David's Lalla Rookh, as Pamina in The Magic Flute, and as Camille in Herold's Zampa, but she is best known as Carmen.
Calvé died in 1942 at Montpellier, Hérault, and is buried in Millau. Her voice, however, is preserved in a number of recordings made between 1902 and 1920. These are available on CD transfers.
In the winter of 1893-1894 the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862-1947) executed a life-size portrait of her standing full-length in a green-blue dress, wearing an opera cloak of white and gold with a sable edge, clutching American Beauty roses. It is now lost, as is a pastel he made of her in 1896-1897.
Works
- Calvé, Emma: "My Life", Appleton. 1922.
- Calvé, Emma: "Sous tous les ciels, j'ai chanté", Plon, Montréal 1940; (1940; "I've Sung Under Every Sky") : autobiography.
Chronological table
- 1858 Birth of Rosa Emma Calvet in Decazeville.
- 1864 She attends a convent in Rodez. The sisters give some concerts where Mgr Bourret, bishop of this town appreciates her voice.
- 1874 Emma and her mother Léonie go up to Paris. Although they are short of money, Puget consents to give Emma lessons.
- 1882 Debut at the Brussels La Monnaie, as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's Faust. Lessons by Mrs Marchesi, one of the most influential voice teachers of the era.
- 1882 fin, Théodore Dubois' Aben Hamet in the Théâtre-Italien. 1883 She creates Victorin Joncières' Le Chevalier Jean in the Opéra-Comique. She sings in Zampa and Lalla-Roukh. After a failure at the Scala, recommended by Gounod, she took lessons from Rosine Laborde. In Rome she took lessons from Domenico Mustafà (1829 -1912).
- 1885 nov., in Nice she sings the part of Leïla in Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de perles with a grand success. She sings Halévy's L'éclair.
- 1888 May. Milan. Triumph in the Scala with Hamlet.
- 1890 She creates Cavalleria rusticana in Florence. She sings in Rome, then in Naples.
- 1891 November: she sang the French premiere of Cavalleria rusticana at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.
- 1892 Travel in Spain; November: great success in Carmen at the Opéra-Comique.
- 1893 Carmen in London's Covent Garden, and in Windsor by Queen Victoria. September: she leaves for the United States. Carmen in the Metropolitan Opera in New York, then in Boston, Chicago and Montreal.
- 1894 July: she buys the medieval castle of Cabrières in the Causses.
- 1895 October: she creates Massenet's La Navarraise in Paris; Tour in Russia: Sankt-Petersburg, performance in front of the tsar.
- 1896 November: creation of Massenet's Sapho, with a libretto from a novel of Alphonse Daudet.
- 1899-1900 Travel in Orient
- 1902 She creates in the Opéra-Comique Reynaldo Hahn's La Carmélite.
- 1903 April: Hector Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust.
- 1904 October: in the Gaîté, Massenet's Hérodiade.
- 1906 Germany and Austria
- 1910-1912 Travel around the world
- 1914 July: Berlin December: 4th tour in the United States
- 1915 USA
- 1916 Benefit concerts in Montpellier, Marseille, Toulon, Nice and Cannes, for the Croix-rouge.
- 1919 For the last time in the Opéra-Comique.
- 1920 She records for Pathé.
- 1922 Tour in England, Scotland and Ireland, with Alfred Cortot and Jacques Thibaud.
- 1925 5th tour in the USA.
- 1925 She retired from the stage. She returned in her beloved Midi to teach. She lived in different houses in Millau and surroundings.
- 1942 January, 6: Death in a clinic in Montpellier.
Discography
- in Les Introuvables du Chant Français EMI, 2005;
- Emma Calve: the Complete Victor Recordings (1907-16), Romophone CD 81024-2.
References
- Contrucci, Jean: Emma Calvé, la diva du siècle, Albin Michel 1989, ISBN 2-226-03541-9
- Girard, Georges: Emma Calvé : étoile dans tous les cieux, cigale sous tous les ciels, Rodez : Cahiers rouergats, 1971; No de :"Les Cahiers rouergats", 1971, ISSN 0184-5365, n °5, 1971
- Girard, Georges: Emma Calvé, la cantatrice sous tous les ciels, Éditions Grands Causses
- Prévost, M.: Dictionnaire de biographie française, t. 7 , Letouzey, 1956
External links
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