Margherita Grandi
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Margherita Grandi
( b Hobart , 4Oct1894; d Milan , 29Jan1972). Australian mezzo-soprano, later soprano. She studied in London (1912–17) at the RCM and in Paris, from 1919, with Emma Calvé . Engaged (under the name of Djemma Vécla, an anagram of Calvé) as a mezzo-soprano in 1922 at Monte Carlo, she sang Carmen, Charlotte and Arrigo Boito's Margherita, and created the title role of Jules Massenet's Amadis. After further study in Italy with Giannina Russ , she made her soprano début in 1932 under her married name of Grandi at the Teatro Carcano, Milan, as Aida, a role she repeated at Verona (1946). She sang Arrigo Boito's Helen of Troy at La Scala in 1934. She made her British début in 1939 at Glyndebourne as Lady Macbeth, then spent the war in Italy, singing Maria in the Italian première of Friedenstag at Venice (1940) and Octavia (L'incoronazione di Poppea) at Rome (1943). In 1947 she made her London début singing Tosca and Donna Anna at the Cambridge Theatre, then sang Lady Macbeth with the Glyndebourne company at Edinburgh. She returned to Edinburgh in 1949 as Amelia (Un ballo in maschera) and created Diana in Arthur Bliss's The Olympians at Covent Garden (1949), where she also sang Leonora (Il trovatore) and, in 1951, made her stage farewell as Tosca. She had a generous, vibrant voice which was allied to a style of rare sweep and conviction. Grandi is heard singing Brian Easdale's operatic aria in the film The Red Shoes (1948), and she is represented on disc by extracts from Macbeth and Don Carlos.
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Margherita Grandi
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Margherita Grandi (10 October 1894[1][2] – 29 January 1972) was an Australian-born Italian soprano, particularly associated with dramatic Italian roles. She possessed a powerful voice and was a forceful singing-actress in the grand manner.
Life and career
Margherita Grandi was born Margaret Gard in Harwood Island, New South Wales, Australia.[1] When she was ten her family moved to Tasmania and she went to school in Hobart. She left Australia in 1911 to study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in London. She also studied with Mathilde Marchesi and Jean de Reszke; and later in Paris with Emma Calvé.[1] She made her professional debut in Paris, as a mezzo-soprano under the stage name of Djéma Vécla (Vecla being an anagram of Calvé) singing Charlotte in Massenet's Werther.[1] In 1922, she created Massenet's Amadis in Monte Carlo.[3][1]
She went to Italy, where she married stage designer Giovanni Grandi,[3][1] with whom she had a daughter, Patricia. After further studies in Milan, with Giannina Russ, and an absence from the stage of almost ten years, she made a new debut as a soprano using her married name Grandi in 1932, at the Teatro Carcano in Milan, in the title role of Verdi's Aida.[1] She made her debut at La Scala in 1934, as Helen in Boito's Mefistofele. She sang the role of Maria in the Italian premiere of Richard Strauss's Friedenstag in 1940.[3][1]
She made her British debut in 1939 at Glyndebourne, as Verdi's Lady Macbeth, considered her greatest role.[1] She sang at the Royal Opera House from 1947 to 1950, as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Leonora in Il trovatore and the title role in Puccini's Tosca, and there she created the role of Diana in Arthur Bliss's The Olympians.[1] She sang Lady Macbeth at the 1947 Edinburgh Festival,[3] since issued on CD. She retired from the stage in 1951. Her singing voice is heard in the 1948 film The Red Shoes.
Margherita Grandi died in Milan in 1972, survived by her daughter.
She can be heard on disc as Giulietta in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, and in excerpts from Verdi's Macbeth, La forza del destino and Don Carlos, and Puccini's Tosca. She left few commercial recordings as she was in her fifties by the time she entered the studio. She never performed in, or even returned to, her native Australia after leaving in 1911, and consequently is little known there.[1]
Notes
Sources
- Australian Dictionary of Biography: Margherita Grandi
- Grove Music Online, Harold Rosenthal, Oxford University Press, 2008.
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