Virginia Zeani: 21 October 1925 – 20 March 2023
In 2015, when the soprano Virginia Zeani was 90, I was asked to interview her, and we enjoyed (yes, we laughed a lot) a long video call where she talked frankly about her career, her colleagues, her vocal technique, her loves, and life as an ‘eternally young' old lady.
Even at 90, she had an extraordinarily quick mind with dates, names and places easily coming to mind – even Luciano Pavarotti's date of birth. She spoke freely about ‘her' tenors… Pavarotti, Kraus, Domingo and Vickers; about creating the role of Blanche in Dialogues of the Carmelites; her regret about her lack of a recording contract; her husband, “I loved only once in my life”; and Callas and Sutherland, her opera debuts and her teaching.
When the Skype call connected, I saw a beautiful woman, impeccably turned out, with some flowers on a small side table as though posed for a portrait painter, yet she was anything but formal.
It was a privilege to spend a couple of hours in her company and it is one of the interviews that I enjoyed the most.
Inside I feel 50, outside I feel 70, and my brain believes that I'm eternally young. Naturally, many of my friends are dead. It's normal. One is condemned after 70 to see many friends die, so when one reaches 90… well, I hope that I'll arrive at 90; there are still a couple of days to go!
She survived those few days until her 90th birthday, and then another seven years: Virginia Zeani died this week at the age of 97, and I repropose this delightful conversation as a tribute to a fine singer and a warm human being.
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.
