Rosa Raisa
Encyclopedia
Rosa Raisa was a Polish
-born, Italian
-trained, dramatic operatic soprano
. In 1926 she created the role of Turandot
at La Scala
, Milan.
in 1893. Her family fled Poland
when she was 14 due to the pogroms, emigrating to Italy
. There Raitza met Dario Ascarelli, who recognized her talent and potential and sponsored her at the Naples Conservatory (San Pietro a Majella). Her teacher at the conservatory, the contralto
Barbara Marchisio (1833–1919), had been one of the most prominent Italian singers of the mid-19th century. (See Marchisio's entry in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, edited by Harold Rosenthal and John Warrack, Oxford University Press, second edition, 1980.)
Marchisio brought Raisa in 1912 to Cleofonte Campanini
, the leading operatic conductor and impresario. He engaged the 20-year-old singer for the Parma Verdi Centenary and signed her for his Chicago Opera. In her Chicago Aida
debut at the famous Auditorium, she revealed "a voice the like of whose power had never been heard on that stage."
Debuts and successes followed rapidly for Raisa: Parma, Philadelphia, Chicago, a tour of North America, London and Paris. During the early period of World War I
she made debuts at Rome, Milan (La Scala
), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón) and Rio de Janeiro
. She returned to the Chicago Opera in 1916 as a well-established dramatic soprano. Enrico Caruso, who sang with her in London and Buenos Aires, considered her the "greatest dramatic soprano in the world". Triumphs followed rapidly; she was acclaimed for her Aida, Norma
, Maliella in I gioielli della Madonna
, and Rachel in La Juive
.
In 1924, Arturo Toscanini
brought her back to La Scala for the creation of Boito
's Nerone
(in the role of Asteria). At that time Giacomo Puccini
heard her again (he had first heard her sing in 1916) and told her he wanted her to create the lead role in his new, as yet unfinished opera, Turandot
. Puccini died in November of that year and left Turandot unfinished. Turandot had its world premiere at La Scala on 25 April 1926, under Toscanini's baton, with Raisa appearing as Turandot and Miguel Fleta
as Calaf. It was at this performance that Toscanini stopped the performance at the exact point where Puccini had left off; the finale, prepared by Franco Alfano
from Puccini's musical sketches, was given at the second performance the following night. Toscanini believed her to be the "most gifted of dramatic sopranos".
Rosa Raisa married the Italian baritone Giacomo Rimini
(1887–1952) in 1920; the couple had first met five years earlier. Their careers merged and after retirement in 1938 they opened a voice/opera school together in Chicago. Their daughter was born in July 1931. They sang hundreds of concerts together, especially in the United States, many of them sponsored by Jewish groups as Raisa had become a beloved ethnic icon. She often closed her recitals with the Yiddish song "Eili, Eili".
On 4 November 1929, she was awarded the honor of opening the new Chicago Civic Opera House in a performance of Aida with a stellar cast personally selected by Civic Opera president Samuel Insull, the Chicago industrialist who later ran foul of the law. Rosa and Giacomo Rimini invested their considerable earnings in Insull securities and eventually lost their fortune, on paper estimated in the range of a million dollars.
An anthology of these recordings was issued in 1998 on CD by Marston Records (number 53001-2). The Marston issue also contains an audio interview with Rosa Raisa, while its liner notes feature valuable biographical information about her and an evaluation of her voice.
, California
in 1963, aged 70, from undisclosed causes.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
-born, Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
-trained, dramatic operatic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
. In 1926 she created the role of 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...
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...
, Milan.
Career
She was born as Raitza Burchstein, the daughter of Herschel and Frieda Leah Burchstein, in BialystokBialystok
Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Located on the Podlaskie Plain on the banks of the Biała River, Białystok ranks second in terms of population density, eleventh in population, and thirteenth in area, of the cities of Poland...
in 1893. Her family fled Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
when she was 14 due to the pogroms, emigrating to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. There Raitza met Dario Ascarelli, who recognized her talent and potential and sponsored her at the Naples Conservatory (San Pietro a Majella). Her teacher at the conservatory, the contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
Barbara Marchisio (1833–1919), had been one of the most prominent Italian singers of the mid-19th century. (See Marchisio's entry in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, edited by Harold Rosenthal and John Warrack, Oxford University Press, second edition, 1980.)
Marchisio brought Raisa in 1912 to Cleofonte Campanini
Cleofonte Campanini
Cleofonte Campanini was an Italian conductor. His brother was the tenor Italo Campanini.Born in Parma, Campanini studied music at that city's conservatory, making his debut with a performance of Carmen, also in Parma, in 1883...
, the leading operatic conductor and impresario. He engaged the 20-year-old singer for the Parma Verdi Centenary and signed her for his Chicago Opera. In her Chicago 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...
debut at the famous Auditorium, she revealed "a voice the like of whose power had never been heard on that stage."
Debuts and successes followed rapidly for Raisa: Parma, Philadelphia, Chicago, a tour of North America, London and Paris. During the early period of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
she made debuts at Rome, Milan (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...
), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón) and Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
. She returned to the Chicago Opera in 1916 as a well-established dramatic soprano. Enrico Caruso, who sang with her in London and Buenos Aires, considered her the "greatest dramatic soprano in the world". Triumphs followed rapidly; she was acclaimed for her Aida, 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...
, Maliella in I gioielli della Madonna
I gioielli della Madonna
I gioielli della Madonna is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani, based on news accounts of a real event....
, and Rachel in La Juive
La Juive
La Juive is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on February 23, 1835.-Composition history:...
.
In 1924, Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
brought her back to La Scala for the creation of Boito
Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito , aka Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito, pseudonym Tobia Gorrio, was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele...
's Nerone
Nerone (Boito)
Nerone is an opera in four acts composed by Arrigo Boito, to a libretto in Italian written by the composer. The work is a series of scenes from Imperial Rome at the time of Emperor Nero depicting tensions between the Imperial religion and Christianity, and ends with the Great Fire of Rome...
(in the role of Asteria). At that time Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
heard her again (he had first heard her sing in 1916) and told her he wanted her to create the lead role in his new, as yet unfinished opera, 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...
. Puccini died in November of that year and left Turandot unfinished. Turandot had its world premiere at La Scala on 25 April 1926, under Toscanini's baton, with Raisa appearing as Turandot and Miguel Fleta
Miguel Fleta
Miguel Burró Fleta was a Spanish operatic tenor....
as Calaf. It was at this performance that Toscanini stopped the performance at the exact point where Puccini had left off; the finale, prepared by Franco Alfano
Franco Alfano
Franco Alfano was an Italian composer and pianist. Best known today for his opera Risurrezione and above all for having completed Puccini's opera Turandot in 1926. He had considerable success with several of his own works during his lifetime.- Biography :He was born in Posillipo, Naples...
from Puccini's musical sketches, was given at the second performance the following night. Toscanini believed her to be the "most gifted of dramatic sopranos".
Rosa Raisa married the Italian baritone Giacomo Rimini
Giacomo Rimini
Giacomo Rimini was an Italian-born, naturalized-American operatic baritone. He was most admired for his interpretations of the works of Giuseppe Verdi.-Biography:...
(1887–1952) in 1920; the couple had first met five years earlier. Their careers merged and after retirement in 1938 they opened a voice/opera school together in Chicago. Their daughter was born in July 1931. They sang hundreds of concerts together, especially in the United States, many of them sponsored by Jewish groups as Raisa had become a beloved ethnic icon. She often closed her recitals with the Yiddish song "Eili, Eili".
On 4 November 1929, she was awarded the honor of opening the new Chicago Civic Opera House in a performance of Aida with a stellar cast personally selected by Civic Opera president Samuel Insull, the Chicago industrialist who later ran foul of the law. Rosa and Giacomo Rimini invested their considerable earnings in Insull securities and eventually lost their fortune, on paper estimated in the range of a million dollars.
An anthology of these recordings was issued in 1998 on CD by Marston Records (number 53001-2). The Marston issue also contains an audio interview with Rosa Raisa, while its liner notes feature valuable biographical information about her and an evaluation of her voice.
Death
Rosa Raisa died in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in 1963, aged 70, from undisclosed causes.