Donizetti * Lucrezia Borgia _ Prologue finale / 22-second pianissimo * Montserrat Caballé, 4/20/1965

Donizetti
LUCREZIA BORGIA
Carnegie Hall
April 20, 1965.
Lucrezia Borgia..........Montserrat Caballé
Gennaro......................Alain Vanzo
Maffio Orsini...............Jane Berbié
Alfonso d'Este.............Kostas Paskalis
Jonel Perlea, cond. American Opera Society Orchestra & Chorus
The performance of Montserrat Caballé (12 April 1933 - 6 October 2018) at Carnegie on April 20, 1965 earned her a 25-minute standing ovation. No doubt Montsy was blessed by the gods with that incredibly lucky break. But luck alone could not have made her one of the world's greatest sopranos. Not by a long shot. Yes, a lucky break did drop on her lap when with no time for rehearsals she replaced American mezzo Marilyn Horne, taking New York’s Carnegie Hall by storm with a brilliant, tour-de-force performance in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia and herself to new heights of stardom. It made her famous throughout the opera world, the defining moment of her career, with special attention to this 22-second long pianissimo, which would become her trademark in other roles.
There was no stopping her now. She became one of the world’s leading bel canto sopranos. Montserrat debuted at opera houses and concert halls all over the world, singing from Bellini and Verdi to Donizetti, Strauss and Wagner, from Basel to The Met to La Scala and all the other sancta sanctorums of the opera. She sang in venues like the Arena di Verona Roman amphitheater in an all-star cast production of Verdi’s Don Carlo by Jean Vilar, French director famous for his “people’s theatre” which decentralized the theatre and freed it from the narrow confines of elitism.
In the middle of her packed agenda, she found time to marry tenor Bernabé Marti in 1964. Mr. Marti passed away last month at the age of 93. They had two children, Bernabé Jr and Montserrat Marti.
She also had time to help advance the career of fellow Barcelonian, tenor José Carreras, with whom she did several memorable concerts, including Lucrezia Borgia.
Lucrezia Borgia had its premiere at La Scala in 1833 and is considered a major Donizetti work. It's unique as it has no love interest, except for the intense "friendship" of two men, Gennaro and Maffio, sung by a mezzo soprano wearing pants. The score is incredibly opulent, dramatically urgent and innovative. It anticipates film scores of 100 years in the future. Verdi’s "Rigoletto" and “Macbeth” would have been impossible without this Donizetti masterwork.
No doubt some opera companies are put off by the Oedipus complex and homoerotic elements of the story, loosely based on the historical Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of a ruthless Machiavellian nobleman who connived his way into power and, eventually, the papacy. In the opera Lucrezia is a femme fatale, married to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara. When the opera begins, Lucrezia has tracked down Gennaro, a young warrior and her illegitimate son. Gennaro falls for Lucrezia instantly (not knowing that she's his mother) until he discovers that she is the reviled Lucrezia Borgia, who willfully poisons rivals in love and in politics.
In researching the veiled history of the Borgias and examining the Victor Hugo tragedy from which the opera is adapted, one has come to see Lucrezia as a determined woman, probably a victim of abuse as a girl, trying to survive in a ferociously masculine world in which revenge and murder become “the wages of love."
Donizetti gives his monstrous heroine some of his most anguished and elegant music. Even her fiery calls for vengeance are expressed through eerie outbursts of coloratura roulades that make Lucrezia seem tragically unhinged.
**Thumbnail : Scene V of Lucrezia Borgia in the 19th century.

[@TheSeeker246]

She was incredible👏 A once in a lifetime phenomenon!