# Jean Madeira Anyone????



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Are any of you familar with the simply gorgeous contralto Jean Madeira? Check out her Erda:



. I have heard her mostly on historic broadcasts from the Met from the middle of the last century. The only other contralto I have heard with such a huge, rich, low voice is Ewa Podles. She sounds like she would look like a tank, but she looks like a Hollywood starlet. I've heard her in Klytemnestra, Erda, and I believe Ulrica on live recordings. I also think she has a fabulous name.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

A bit of Madeira, my dear?

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I never knew she was a contralto. I always thought she was a mezzo. The only thing I am familiar with hearing her in, and she was splendid, was as Musetta in _La Boheme_ with Richard Tucker.
PS. You might want to add Marian Anderson to your list of "sing"ular contraltos.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> I never knew she was a contralto. I always thought she was a mezzo. The only thing I am familiar with hearing her in, and she was splendid, was as Musetta in _La Boheme_ with Richard Tucker.
> PS. You might want to add Marian Anderson to your list of "sing"ular contraltos.


Nina, oops, forgot. They play Anderson's "They crucified my lord" on SiriusXM a lot with all those low D's. I can't imagine Jean as Musetta. It is not listed in her discography. She is listed as a mezzo, but the color is contralto with a very powerful lower register. One listen to the Erda and you'll know what I mean.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Ms. Madeira's (her surname was from her husband, Francis Madeira) career was basically built singing mezzo roles, though she also tackled some contralto.

She was singing small roles at the MET in the early 1950s: Berta, Marcellina, Maddalena, Preziosilla, La Cieca (she was often twelve years younger that her daughter, sung by Zinka Milanov),... and then also Ulrica and Amneris, but her real breakthrough was singing Carmen at Vienna, and later in Bayreuth and her more acclaimed role, Klytämnestra, a role that was first sung by Ernestine Schumann-Heink.

Ms. Madeira was indeed a beautiful woman. Below as Maddalena at the MET:


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I also have her doing Suzuki with Tucker and Steber in Butterfly.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

She did the Erda and Waltraute on Knappertsbusch's 1956 Bayreuth Ring. Not bad, but not super outstanding or anything.


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