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Mirella
Freni, Italian soprano, shared the same wet nurse with the
famous tenor Luciano Pavarotti in their home town of Modena, Italy,
and she once said of the arrangement, "You can see
who got all the milk!" Mirella was singing the role Micaëla
in a Salzburg production of Carmen, conducted by Herbert von
Karajan, and during her act three aria, he stopped, and instead of
conducting he leaned on the podium and indicated to the orchestra just
to follow Mirella's voice. Karajan later said that had he been
born a singer, he would have been Mirella Freni, and during her first La
Scala Bohème, he told her, with tears in his eyes, "This is
the second time in my life that I weep; the first was at my mother's
death." After 1994 performances as the title role in Adriana
Lecouvreur at the Met, the New York Times said of her,
"Ms. Freni... is nowhere near the end of her [career]. Her reserves
of power, her finely tuned precision and her overarching intelligence
raised expectations for many more opportunities to hear her humane
artistry." |
