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American soprano
Rosa Ponselle (born Rose Melba
Ponzillo to Italian immigrants) 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, she
scored a tremendous success, both with the public and with the
critics. Ponselle's voice was a rich dramatic coloratura
soprano, with great natural beauty.
The principal flaw in her 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.
Apparently, she never sang any of the high Cs in Norma but
transposed them all down to a B. She retired in 1937 after having
received a drubbing from the critics for her interpretations of
Violetta in La Traviata and Carmen.
Ponselle died
at her luxurious home, the Villa Pace, near Baltimore, Maryland in
1981. Maria Callas called
her, "The greatest singer of us all." |
