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Licia Albanese (1909-2014)

Janos Gereben on August 19, 2014
Licia Albanese receiving the Medal of Honor for the Arts from President Clinton
Licia Albanese receiving the Medal of Honor for the Arts from President Clinton

Among the best-loved, most-respected singers of the last century, Licia Albanese died on Friday, at age 105.

In her long career, Albanese sang Cio-Cio-San at least 300 times and made two recordings with Arturo Toscanini, a great admirer of hers. Together, they recorded La traviata and, for the 50th anniversary of the opera's premiere, La bohème. That was her second La bohème; she recorded the first in Italy in 1938 with the great tenor Beniamino Gigli.

In Manhattan, a lot of singers asked to take part in the celebration of her 100th birthday. And she was moved by this, demonstrating that behind her legendary talent there was always great feeling for the part and at the same time great humility. “I have never been a star," she said some years ago to a reporter from The San Francisco Chronicle. "Call me a very expressive singer.”

New York has celebrated her as a legend on a par with Caruso, Gigli, and Toscanini, whose nephew Walfredo, for years served on the Licia Albanese Foundation.

The New York Times obituary cites her participation in 400 Met productions, although it must have been 400 performances.

San Francisco Opera Performance Archive lists her in 105 performances and two concerts, between 1941 (Micaëla) and 1961 (Butterfly). She sang one of her signature roles, Mimi in La bohème, from 1943 through 1959 with the company. Wikipedia has different figures:

[Albanese] was also a mainstay at the San Francisco Opera where she sang between 1941 and 1961, performing 22 roles in 120 performances over 20 seasons, remaining in part because of her admiration for its famed director, Gaetano Merola. Throughout her career, she continued to perform widely. In recital, concert, and opera, she was heard throughout the country; she participated in benefits, entertained the troops, had her own weekly radio show, was a guest on other broadcasts and telecasts, and recorded frequently.

Albanese came to San Francisco in the summer of 1972 for the special gala concert at Sigmund Stern Grove celebrating the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco Opera. Joining numerous colleagues who had sung with the company, Albanese sang the love duet from Madama Butterfly with tenor Frederick Jagel, accompanied by the San Francisco Opera Orchestra conducted by longtime director Kurt Herbert Adler.

Then, in 1973 she returned to San Francisco to participate in a special concert at the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park with Luciano Pavarotti and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, again conducted by Adler; this time the concert was televised live on KQED-TV. It was a cold, windy, overcast day and, at one point, Pavarotti took part of the long, heavy scarf he was wearing around his neck and shared it with Albanese.

Even after a career spanning seven decades, Albanese continued to perform occasionally. After hearing her sing the national anthem during a Met opening, Stephen Sondheim and Thomas Z. Shepard cast her as operetta diva Heidi Schiller in Sondheim's Follies in concert with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in 1985. During the 1987 spring season of the Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, Albanese starred in a stage revival of Follies, which was a great success.

Don Levine, veteran opera fan and Albanese admirer, told SFCV:

I knew Licia Albanese; I know Stephen De Maio (artistic director of both the Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation and the Giulio Gari Foundation). Whatever the debate about the year of her birth, at that age, a few years don't matter much, and it still leaves Magda Olivero at 104 as probably the last survivor of the great generation diva's active in the mid 20th century.

Licia lived a long and notable life. She was a kind and dear person in private. At any age, her loss is painful but we also weep for joy for all the love and artistry she passed over the footlights to countless opera lovers over a span of about 40 years — 70 if you count her very busy and fruitful retirement. God bless her.