Gina Cigna
Encyclopedia
Gina Cigna was a French-Italian opera singer, one of the leading dramatic soprano
of the inter-war period.
and graduated with a gold medal. She then started a career as a recitalist. She met French tenor Maurice Sens, whom she married in 1923, and following his advice turned to singing. She took private lessons with Emma Calvé
, Hariclea Darclée
and Rosina Storchio
, but was mostly self-taught. She made her debut as Ginette Sens in 1927 at the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, as Freia in Das Rheingold
, without much success.
Two years later, still at La Scala, but this time under the name Gina Cigna, she sang the role of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni
, and this time it was a triumph. A few weeks later she appeared as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
. She was to sing regularly at La Scala until 1945, quickly establishing herself as one of the leading Italian dramatic soprano alongside Maria Caniglia
in operas such as Il Trovatore
, Un ballo in maschera
, La forza del destino
, Aida
, Andrea Chénier
, and Tosca
. However, it is as Norma
, La Gioconda
and Turandot
that her name will remain forever associated. She recorded Norma in 1937 and Turandot, opposite the young Magda Olivero
as Liù, in 1938, both for Cetra
. As the first complete recordings of these two operas, they are both of considerable historical value.
As her reputation grew invitations from abroad started to materialize, and she sang at the Paris Opéra
, the Royal Opera House
in London, the Lyric Opera of Chicago
, the San Francisco Opera
, and the New York Metropolitan Opera, where she made her debut on February 6, 1937 as Aida.
Cigna's career came to a brutal halt in 1948 when she was involved in a serious car accident and suffered a heart attack. Forced to retire from singing, she turned to teaching. Amongst her pupils were Luis Lima
and Elena Mauti Nunziata
. In 1996 at the age of 96 she appeared in Jan Schmidt-Garre
's film Opera Fanatic.
She died in Milan
, Italy, on June 20, 2001, at the age of 101.
- Norma
- Gina Cigna, Ebe Stignani
, Giovanni Breviario
, Tancredi Pasero
- Vittorio Gui
- 1937
Puccini - Turandot
- Gina Cigna, Francesco Merli
, Magda Olivero
, Luciano Neroni - Franco Ghione
- 1938
Dramatic soprano
A dramatic soprano is an operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually mean less agility than lighter voices but a sustained, fuller sound. Usually this voice has a lower tessitura than...
of the inter-war period.
Biography
Cigna was born in Paris, France, to parents of Italian origin. She trained as a pianist at the Paris Conservatory studying with Alfred CortotAlfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...
and graduated with a gold medal. She then started a career as a recitalist. She met French tenor Maurice Sens, whom she married in 1923, and following his advice turned to singing. She took private lessons with Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet , was a French operatic soprano.Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera...
, Hariclea Darclée
Hariclea Darclée
Hariclea Darclée was a celebrated Romanian operatic soprano. She possessed an agile, powerful, and beautiful voice that was wielded with a fine technique. An extremely beautiful woman, Darclée's stage presence was as elegant and refined as her singing...
and Rosina Storchio
Rosina Storchio
Rosina Storchio was an important Italian lyric soprano who starred in the world premieres of operas by Puccini, Leoncavallo, Mascagni and Giordano...
, but was mostly self-taught. She made her debut as Ginette Sens in 1927 at the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, as Freia in Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
, without much success.
Two years later, still at La Scala, but this time under the name Gina Cigna, she sang the role of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, and this time it was a triumph. A few weeks later she appeared as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
. She was to sing regularly at La Scala until 1945, quickly establishing herself as one of the leading Italian dramatic soprano alongside Maria Caniglia
Maria Caniglia
Maria Caniglia was one of the leading Italian dramatic sopranos of the 1930s and 1940s.- Life and career :...
in operas such as Il Trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
, Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, La forza del destino
La forza del destino
La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...
, Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, Andrea Chénier
Andrea Chénier
Andrea Chénier is a verismo opera in four acts by the composer Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It is based loosely on the life of the French poet, André Chénier , who was executed during the French Revolution....
, and Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
. However, it is as Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
, La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
and Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
that her name will remain forever associated. She recorded Norma in 1937 and Turandot, opposite the young Magda Olivero
Magda Olivero
Magda Olivero is a soprano of the verismo-school of singing. She was born in Saluzzo, Italy. Olivero made her operatic debut in 1932 on Turin radio in Cattozzo’s oratorio I misteri dolorosi. She performed widely and increasingly successfully until 1941, when she married and retired from performing...
as Liù, in 1938, both for Cetra
Cetra
Cetra Records was an Italian company which produced opera recordings from the 1930s onwards. Its roster of artists included Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Lina Pagliughi, Ebe Stignani, Carlo Bergonzi, Galliano Masini, Giovanni Malipiero, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Carlo Tagliabue, Rolando Panerai,...
. As the first complete recordings of these two operas, they are both of considerable historical value.
As her reputation grew invitations from abroad started to materialize, and she sang at the Paris Opéra
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
, the Royal Opera House
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...
in London, the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
, the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
, and the New York Metropolitan Opera, where she made her debut on February 6, 1937 as Aida.
Cigna's career came to a brutal halt in 1948 when she was involved in a serious car accident and suffered a heart attack. Forced to retire from singing, she turned to teaching. Amongst her pupils were Luis Lima
Luis Lima
Luis Lima is an Argentine operatic tenor, who studied in Buenos Aires under Carlos Guichandut and in Sicily under Gina Cigna...
and Elena Mauti Nunziata
Elena Mauti Nunziata
Elena Mauti Nunziata is a retired Italian opera singer.She initially attended the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale in Palermo where she was taught by Gina Cigna, and made her unofficial debut in Sicily as Musetta in La Boheme. Her first recognized success on the stage was as Palermo in Bellini's I...
. In 1996 at the age of 96 she appeared in Jan Schmidt-Garre
Jan Schmidt-Garre
-Biography:Jan Schmidt-Garre studied philosophy at the Hochschule für Philosophie der Jesuiten in Munich from 1982 to 1986...
's film Opera Fanatic.
She died in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Italy, on June 20, 2001, at the age of 101.
Studio recordings
BelliniVincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
- Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
- Gina Cigna, Ebe Stignani
Ebe Stignani
Ebe Stignani was an Italian opera singer, who was pre-eminent in the dramatic mezzo-soprano roles of the Italian repertoire during a stage career of more than thirty years.-Career:...
, Giovanni Breviario
Giovanni Breviario
Giovanni Breviario , was an Italian operatic tenor, particularly associated with Italian dramatic roles.Breviario was born at Bergamo. He studied in Milan with Dante Lari, and made his stage debut in Pola, as Manrico, in 1924...
, Tancredi Pasero
Tancredi Pasero
Tancredi Pasero was an Italian bass who enjoyed a long and distinguished singing career in his native country and abroad.-Career & recordings:...
- Vittorio Gui
Vittorio Gui
Vittorio Gui was an Italian conductor and composer.Gui was born in Rome in 1885. In 1933 Bruno Walter invited him to be guest conductor at the Salzburg Festival....
- 1937
Puccini - Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
- Gina Cigna, Francesco Merli
Francesco Merli
Francesco Merli was an Italian opera singer, particularly associated with heavy roles such as Otello, Canio and Calaf. He ranks as one of the finest dramatic tenors of the inter-war period....
, Magda Olivero
Magda Olivero
Magda Olivero is a soprano of the verismo-school of singing. She was born in Saluzzo, Italy. Olivero made her operatic debut in 1932 on Turin radio in Cattozzo’s oratorio I misteri dolorosi. She performed widely and increasingly successfully until 1941, when she married and retired from performing...
, Luciano Neroni - Franco Ghione
Franco Ghione
Franco Ghione was an Italian conductor and violinist. He graduated from the Parma Conservatory and became a violinist for the Parma Theatre and the Augusteo in Rome. He began a conducting career in 1913 and conducted in many opera houses, including La Scala...
- 1938
Sources
- Dictionnaire des interprètes, Alain Pâris, (Éditions Robert Laffont, 1989) ISBN 2-221-06660-X
- Guide de l’opéra, R. Mancini & J-J. Rouveroux, (Fayard, 1995) ISBN 2-213-01563-6