Episode 293. The Mysterious Mara Coleva
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The Bulgarian soprano Mara Coleva (12 March 1922 – 22 October 2014) was a vital and versatile singer, the majority of whose career took place in Italy in the 1950s through the very early sixties. Her most prominent and readily-accessible recordings are all for the RAI (Radio-Televisione Italiana), including the role of Silvana in a 1955 recording from Milano and two Martini & Rossi-sponsored RAI concerts, one in Milano in 1957, and the other in Roma in 1961. These recordings reveal an artist with a well-schooled voice with a powerful dramatic sense, but one whose life remains to a great extent shrouded in mystery. It is an enormous thrill and privilege to present this great (if virtually unknown) artist in repertoire ranging from Rossini, Catalani, Cilea, Verdi, and twentieth-century Italian composers Ottorino Respighi and Lodovico Rocca. The episode ends with Coleva in a surprising and superbly-sung rendition of Agata’s big scena from Il franco cacciatore (better known as Weber’s Der Freischütz!)
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Ottorino Respighi, Claudio Guastalla [after Hans Wiers-Jenssen]: Donna, tu sai l’accusa… Non per malia, per empito d’amore (La Fiamma). Nicola Zaccaria, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli. Orchestra e Coro di Milano della RAI [07.VIII.55]
Lodovico Rocca, Eligio Possenti [after Alexander Ostrovsky]: È quasi notte, Signore (L’uragono). Paolo Montarsolo, Massimo Freccia, Orchestra di Roma della RAI [24.XI.60]
Francesco Cilea, Arturo Colautti [after Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé]: Io son l’umile ancella (Adriana Lecouvreur). Bruno Rigacci, Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma della RAI [04.XII.61]
Alfredo Catalani, Luigi Illica: Ebben? ne andrò lontana (La Wally). Bruno Rigacci, Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma della RAI [04.XII.61]
Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica, Marco Praga, Domenico Oliva [after Abbé Prévost]: Sola, perduta, abbandonata (Manon Lescaut). Alfredo Simonetto, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano della RAI [09.XII.57]
Gioacchino Rossini, Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy, Hippolyte Bis [after Friedrich Schiller; Italian version by Caliso Bassi]: S’allontanano alfin… Selva opaca (Guglielmo Tell). Bruno Rigacci, Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma della RAI [recitativo, 04.XII.61]; Alfredo Simonetto, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano della RAI [aria, 09.XII.57]
Giuseppe Verdi, Francesco Maria Piave [after Ángel de Saavedra]: Pace, pace, mio Dio (La forza del destino). Bruno Rigacci, Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma della RAI [04.XII.61]
Giuseppe Verdi, Antonio Ghislanzoni: Qui Radames verrà… O patria mia (Aida). Alfredo Simonetto, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano della RAI [Milano 09.XII.57]
Carl Mario von Weber, Johann Friedrich Kind [after August Apel, Friedrich Laun; Italian translation by Franco Faccio]: Ah, che non giunge il sonno… Piano, piano, canto pio [Wie nahte mir der Schlummer… Leise, leise, fromme Weise] (Il franco cacciatore [Der Freischütz]). Alfredo Simonetto, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano della RAI [09.XII.57]
