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Virginia Zeani--soprano
Pesaro
1965
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"Virginia Zeani (born Virginia Zehan; 21 October 1925), Commendatore OMRI[1] is a Romanian-born opera singer who sang leading soprano roles in the opera houses of Europe and North America.
Zeani was born on 21 October 1925 in Solovăstru, a central Transylvania village located in Romania. She has described to interviewers a childhood where despite bronchial troubles, she was always singing, even when she was fetching water from the river for cooking. She said that music had "entered her soul" after hearing a band of gypsies one of whom was playing a hora on the violin, and at the age of nine she became determined to be an opera singer after hearing a performance of Madama Butterfly.[3][9] When she was 13 a benefactor in the village paid for her to study singing in Bucharest, first with Lucia Anghel, and then with Lydia Lipkowska. Zeani sought out Lipkowska when she had begun to doubt Anghel's assessment of her voice as a mezzo-soprano. Lipkowska agreed that her voice was that of a soprano and trained her in that repertoire. After World War II ended she emigrated to Italy and continued her vocal studies in Milan. By then she knew the leading soprano roles in four operas by heart—the title role in Manon, Marguerite in Faust, Violetta in La traviata and Mimì in La bohème. In Milan she had extensive coaching with the conductor Antonio Narducci. She also sought out the tenor Aureliano Pertile who had long been one of her idols for the beauty of his phrasing and diction. She called at his house and according to Zeani, when he opened the door she burst into tears and was unable to speak. Pertile's wife ushered her inside and after talking to her Pertile accepted her as a student on a non-paying basis, giving her private lessons and allowing her to attend his master-classes. She repaid him by running errands and helping his wife with household chores.[7][10]
Zeani made her professional debut as Violetta in La traviata at the Teatro Duse in Bologna in 1948 as a last-minute replacement for Margherita Carosio. It was to become her signature role—she sang it 648 times during the course of her career. She initially sang in Italian regional opera houses but also began appearing abroad. In 1950 and 1951 she sang in Egypt in private concerts for King Farouk as well as in a series of operas in Cairo and Alexandria. She also sang Violetta in Geneva in 1952 and at London's Stoll Theatre in 1953. She had made her Florence debut as Elvira in I puritani in 1952, replacing Maria Callas who had withdrawn from the production after two performances. It was during the Puritani performances that she first met her future husband, the Italian bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni. They met again in 1956 when she made her La Scala debut as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare. Rossi-Lemeni was her Giulio Cesare. He soon proposed and the couple married in 1957. A year later their son Alessandro was born. Zeani and Rossi-Lemeni made their home in Rome and would appear together in thirteen more operas.[9][10]
At the start of her career Zeani had specialised in coloratura roles including Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Elvira in I puritani, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Adèle in Le comte Ory. However, in a 1960 production at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma she sang all three heroines in The Tales of Hoffmann — Olympia (coloratura soprano), Antonia (lyric soprano), and Giulietta (dramatic soprano). Rossi-Lemeni appeared in the same production playing all four villains — Lindorf, Coppelius, Dr. Miracole, and Dappertutto.
Zeani sang 69 roles in the course of her career in a wide-ranging repertoire. She sang in important revivals of Verdi's early and now rarely performed opera Alzira (Rome, 1970) and belcanto operas such as Donizetti's Maria di Rohan (Naples 1965) and Rossini's Otello (Rome, 1968), but she also sang in the world premieres and early performances of several 20th-century operas.
Teaching career and later life
In 1980 Zeani and Rossi-Lemeni settled in the United States where they had been offered teaching positions at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music. She continued teaching there after Rossi-Lemeni's death in 1991 and was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor of Music in 1994.'; Wikipedia (edited)
