Theatrical to the last, the great soprano Magda Olivero died on the day of La Scala's opening performance after the summer break. Before Maria Agresta's recital a beautifully worded tribute to Olivero's career, voice and life was read out, and then the audience stood for a minute's silence. It was followed by long applause.
Although Olivero started having difficulties in walking as she reached her 100th birthday – which she celebrated with a conference on her life and art in Mantova – she remained active mentally and participated in a few radio and television shows by phone until recently. She was on holiday in Cogoleto, near Genoa, when she suffered a stroke on 20 August, from which she didn't recover. She died yesterday, at the age of 104, in a hospital in Milan, her adopted home city; the same hospital where Carlo Bergonzi died two months ago.
Maybe it isn't surprising that Olivero lived such a full and long life as she was always pushing the age boundary, from her Met début as Tosca when she was 65, to recording a cd of selections from Adriana Lecouvreur when she was 83.
Magda Olivero will be buried in Milan's Monumental Cemetery in the Famedio, a massive Hall of Fame-like Neo-Medieval building at the entrance of the cemetery, where she will be in the company of honoured citizens such as Alessandro Manzoni and Arturo Toscanini.
With tears in her eyes, Maria Agresta dedicated her first encore to Olivero: Liu's aria Tu che di gel sei cinta which Olivero sung to Gina Cigna's Turandot.
Teatro alla Scala's tribute to Magda Olivero:
L'Italia della cultura e della musica perde con Magda Olivero una protagonista indimenticabile, depositaria di una prassi musicale fatta di intelligenza, passione e profonda connessione con le radici culturali del repertorio italiano tra Ottocento e Novecento.
Le sue presenze alla Scala, pur non numerosissime, testimoniano tuttavia le fasi della sua carriera e comprendono alcuni dei titoli più significativi del suo repertorio. Magda Olivero debutta al Teatro alla Scala il 23 aprile 1938 come protagonista di Marcella di Umberto Giordano in una serata di gala per la Giornata delle Nazioni diretta da Franco Capuana e torna l'anno successivo in alternanza con Mafalda Favero nella parte di Mimì ne La bohème diretta da Umberto Berrettoni.
Dopo la lunga pausa della sua carriera in seguito al matrimonio con Aldo Busch Magda Olivero torna al Piermarini nel 1958 in Adriana Lecouvreur di Francesco Cilea e nel 1959, al fianco di Mario Del Monaco, in Francesca da Rimini di Riccardo Zandonai, entrambe dirette da Gianandrea Gavazzeni. L'ultima, leggendaria apparizione scaligera fu nel 1974 nei panni di Kostel'nika nella Jenůfa di Leoš Janáček.
Voce carismatica, attrice formidabile, intelligenza pronta e tagliente fino alla fine, la Olivero fu, oltre che indimenticata Violetta e Medea, straordinaria interprete del repertorio pucciniano e verista, eseguito sempre con dizione perfetta e scolpita e un rigore musicale che traeva origine dagli studi giovanili di armonia e composizione.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
