Conchita Supervia
Encyclopedia
Conchita Supervía was a highly popular Spanish (Catalan) mezzo-soprano
singer who appeared in opera
in Europe and America and also gave recitals.
Supervía was born in Barcelona
to an old Andalusia
n family and given the baptismal name of María de la Concepción Supervía Pascual. She was educated at the local convent but at the age of twelve entered the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu
in Barcelona to study singing. She made her stage debut in 1910 at the young age of 15 at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
, Argentina
in Stiattesi's Bianca de Beulieu. Then she sang in Tomás Bretón
's Los amantes de Teruel
and as Lola in Mascagni
's Cavalleria rusticana
.
In 1911 she sang the role of Octavian in the first Italian language production of Richard Strauss
's Der Rosenkavalier
at the Teatro Constanzi in Rome. In 1912 she appeared as Carmen
at the Gran Teatre del Liceu
in her native city, a role with which she would be associated for the rest of her career.
She made her American debut in 1915 as Charlotte in Massenet
's Werther
at the Chicago
Opera, where she also sang in Mignon
and Carmen. Back in Europe by the end of the First World War she was invited to Rome, where she started the Rossini revival that made her world-famous – as Angelina in La Cenerentola
, Isabella in L'italiana in Algeri
and Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia
, in the original keys.
She had a powerful chest register linked to a flexible upper voice that could cope easily with florid passages, allied to a musicianship of great individuality and infectious flair. Her voice is not without its critics; a pronounced vibrato
that in the lower part of the voice became almost a machine-gun rattle, ‘as strong as the rattle of ice in a glass, or dice in a box’, in a comment attributed to the British critic, Philip Hope-Wallace. Many who heard her in the flesh have said that this vibrato
was more evident on records than on the stage – an example of the microphone exaggerating a singer's faults. In the 1920s Supervía sang at La Scala
as Hänsel in Engelbert Humperdinck
's Hänsel und Gretel but, strangely, she never sang the Rossini roles or Carmen at La Scala though she sang there in every season until 1929.
All in all, she made more than 200 recordings mostly for the Fonotipia and Odeon
labels, featuring not only her famous roles in opera but also a vast song repertory in Catalan, Spanish, French, Italian and English, as well as pieces from zarzuela
and even operetta
. (She had appeared in a legendary production of Franz Lehár
's Frasquita at the Opéra Comique.)
In 1930, she made her London debut at the Queen's Hall
. The following year she married a Jewish businessman from London, Ben Rubenstein, and settled there. (She already had a teenage son, George, from a previous association.)
Her Covent Garden
debut was in 1934 in La Cenerentola and in 1935 she repeated that part, plus L'Italiana in Algeri. In 1934, Supervía appeared in the Victor Saville
British motion picture Evensong
as a singer named Baba L'Etoile, opposite actor Fritz Kortner
.
Pregnancy forced her to cancel her planned appearances in the autumn of 1935. On March 29, 1936 she entered a London clinic to await the birth of her baby, which was stillborn on March 30; a few hours later she herself died. She was buried with her baby daughter, in a grave designed by Edwin Lutyens
, in the Liberal Jewish Cemetery at Willesden
in NW London. The grave, which had fallen into disrepair, was refurbished by a group of admirers and re-consecrated in October 2006.
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
singer who appeared in opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
in Europe and America and also gave recitals.
Supervía was born in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
to an old Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
n family and given the baptismal name of María de la Concepción Supervía Pascual. She was educated at the local convent but at the age of twelve entered the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu
Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu
Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu is a music college in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was created in 1837 with the name Liceo Filo-dramático de Montesión....
in Barcelona to study singing. She made her stage debut in 1910 at the young age of 15 at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
in Stiattesi's Bianca de Beulieu. Then she sang in Tomás Bretón
Tomás Bretón
Tomás Bretón was a Spanish musician and composer.-Biography:Tomás Bretón was born in Salamanca.He gained renown as a result of the success of his zarzuela La verbena de la Paloma, although other were well-received works, included his operas Los amantes de Teruel, based on the eponymous legend,...
's Los amantes de Teruel
Teruel
Teruel is a town in Aragon, eastern Spain, and the capital of Teruel Province. It has a population of 34,240 in 2006 making it one of the least populated provincial capitals in the country...
and as Lola in Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
's Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
.
In 1911 she sang the role of Octavian in the first Italian language production of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
at the Teatro Constanzi in Rome. In 1912 she appeared as Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
at the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Liceu
The Gran Teatre del Liceu , or simply Liceu in Catalan and Liceo in Spanish, is an opera house on La Rambla in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain...
in her native city, a role with which she would be associated for the rest of her career.
She made her American debut in 1915 as Charlotte in Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
's Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
at the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
Opera, where she also sang in Mignon
Mignon
Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's The Dead,...
and Carmen. Back in Europe by the end of the First World War she was invited to Rome, where she started the Rossini revival that made her world-famous – as Angelina in La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
, Isabella in L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
and Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
, in the original keys.
She had a powerful chest register linked to a flexible upper voice that could cope easily with florid passages, allied to a musicianship of great individuality and infectious flair. Her voice is not without its critics; a pronounced vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
that in the lower part of the voice became almost a machine-gun rattle, ‘as strong as the rattle of ice in a glass, or dice in a box’, in a comment attributed to the British critic, Philip Hope-Wallace. Many who heard her in the flesh have said that this vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
was more evident on records than on the stage – an example of the microphone exaggerating a singer's faults. In the 1920s Supervía sang at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
as Hänsel in Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
's Hänsel und Gretel but, strangely, she never sang the Rossini roles or Carmen at La Scala though she sang there in every season until 1929.
All in all, she made more than 200 recordings mostly for the Fonotipia and Odeon
Odeon
Odea, Odeon, or Odeum may refer to:* Odeon , ancient Greek and Roman buildings built for singing exercises, musical shows and poetry competitions-Modern era:* Cineplex Odeon, North America...
labels, featuring not only her famous roles in opera but also a vast song repertory in Catalan, Spanish, French, Italian and English, as well as pieces from zarzuela
Zarzuela
Zarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...
and even operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
. (She had appeared in a legendary production of Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár was an Austrian-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow .-Biography:...
's Frasquita at the Opéra Comique.)
In 1930, she made her London debut at the Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...
. The following year she married a Jewish businessman from London, Ben Rubenstein, and settled there. (She already had a teenage son, George, from a previous association.)
Her Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
debut was in 1934 in La Cenerentola and in 1935 she repeated that part, plus L'Italiana in Algeri. In 1934, Supervía appeared in the Victor Saville
Victor Saville
Victor Saville was an English film director, producer and screenwriter. He directed 39 films between 1927 and 1954...
British motion picture Evensong
Evensong (film)
Evensong is a 1934 British musical film directed by Victor Saville and starring Evelyn Laye, Fritz Kortner and Emlyn Williams. It is loosely based on the story of the singer Nellie Melba. It was also the first film of Alec Guinness.-Cast:...
as a singer named Baba L'Etoile, opposite actor Fritz Kortner
Fritz Kortner
Fritz Kortner was an Austrian-born stage and film actor and theatre director.Kortner was born in Vienna as Fritz Nathan Kohn. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduating, he joined Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911 and then Leopold Jessner in 1916. Also in that year...
.
Pregnancy forced her to cancel her planned appearances in the autumn of 1935. On March 29, 1936 she entered a London clinic to await the birth of her baby, which was stillborn on March 30; a few hours later she herself died. She was buried with her baby daughter, in a grave designed by Edwin Lutyens
Edwin Lutyens
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...
, in the Liberal Jewish Cemetery at Willesden
Willesden
Willesden is an area in North West London which forms part of the London Borough of Brent. It is situated 5 miles north west of Charing Cross...
in NW London. The grave, which had fallen into disrepair, was refurbished by a group of admirers and re-consecrated in October 2006.
External links
- Conchita Supervía at Basso Cantante
- Conchita Supervía - includes her recording of "Il Était un Roi de Thulé" (1932)