# Why Was Latin America Such An Opera Singer Magnet And Is No More?



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I am rereading The Last Prima Donnas, and so many such as Gina Cigna, Eva Turner and of course more famously Callas, had some of the most important gigs of their careers in Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Why was that market so important for opera 70 years ago and today I never hear any mention of famous singers today singing there. Does anyone have an explanation. Could there have been more European immigrants to fuel the desire back in the day?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Wow! It's a good thing I read your post after the title because I had already discovered 6 tenors from Latin America I was already to list who were (are) superb singers.
(but you didn't mean that, did you!)


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I am rereading The Last Prima Donnas, and so many such as Gina Cigna, Eva Turner and of course more famously Callas, had some of the most important gigs of their careers in Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Why was that market so important for opera 70 years ago and today I never hear any mention of famous singers today singing there. Does anyone have an explanation. Could there have been more European immigrants to fuel the desire back in the day?


I think it has to do with Art and Culture in those countries. Patrons of the Arts there, people with money, wanted to show they could afford to import singers from Italy (mostly) or singers famous worldwide (like Birgit Nilsson in Wagner). Callas, for instance, was invited to both São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (along with Tebaldi and others) as imported singers from Italy, possibly as singers from La Scala. In later years, while I was living there, they would invite a whole company, like the Teatro San Carlo from Naples, to present one or two operas there. I suppose that their impresarios traveled to Italy to discover which singers to invite, or simply contacted agents in Italy to do so.

The teatro Colón of Buenos Aires, Argentina, for instance has had a rich history of presenting important and rising singers during their opera seasons there. The teatro Colón is considered "the first of a sextet of great opera houses" in which Callas sang (Michael Scott). Callas, in 1949, traveled with Serafin, Barbieri, and Rossi-Lemeni, and I surmise they may have been recommended to the Colón as a package deal by someone in Italy (Bonardi?).

Callas in Mexico we know about. What is interesting is that the management there recognized what they had in their hands - an extraordinary revelation, "La Prima Donna Assoluta Del Siglo," as they termed her.

I know that, as late as the 1980s, São Paulo's Teatro Municipal invited Wagnerian soprano Helga Dernesch to sing in one of their season's operas *Salome* (R. Strauss) to be repeated in Rio de Janeiro's Teatro Municipal.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I am rereading The Last Prima Donnas, and so many such as Gina Cigna, Eva Turner and of course more famously Callas, had some of the most important gigs of their careers in Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Why was that market so important for opera 70 years ago and today I never hear any mention of famous singers today singing there. Does anyone have an explanation. Could there have been more European immigrants to fuel the desire back in the day?


I read a theory here that: "The Colon was part of the 'circuit' for international opera stars of the 1930s and 1940s, which saw them spend December-May in New York, May-June in London, August-September in Buenos Aires and November in San Francisco. Recordings survive from as early as 1936 and capture some artists in roles they rarely performed elsewhere."
Source: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/cas/staff/lockley/colon/


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

The collective wisdom of this group is amazing. I had always wondered why it was such an opera mecca in the early to middle 20th century. THANKS


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Wow! It's a good thing I read your post after the title because I had already discovered 6 tenors from Latin America I was already to list who were (are) superb singers.
> (but you didn't mean that, did you!)


No, there has always been plenty of Latin American talent.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> No, there has always been plenty of Latin American talent.


Hahaha. But I love your tricky title. And the Last of the PD's is one very special tome. In fact you've spurred me on to take it down from my dusty (thanks Covid) shelf and peruse it once again.:tiphat:


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I read a theory here that: "The Colon was part of the 'circuit' for international opera stars of the 1930s and 1940s, which saw them spend December-May in New York, May-June in London, August-September in Buenos Aires and November in San Francisco. Recordings survive from as early as 1936 and capture some artists in roles they rarely performed elsewhere."
> Source: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/cas/staff/lockley/colon/


In those days, of course, the artists traveled by ocean liner, so the singers generally arrived with rested voices! The great opera houses (La Scala, Paris Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Colón) and others, shared the talent - they could generally tempt a singer with a new role, that other houses didn't want, or couldn't present, or excellent conditions (Helga Dernesch, for instance, thought singing in San Francisco was "like a vacation!"). The Metropolitan Opera, for instance, had singers put into a mold, and would rarely stray from that, so that offer of a different role in Chicago might tempt a singer to accept singing in Chicago instead of New York.


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## ManuelMozart95 (Sep 29, 2018)

I am from Argentina. Teatro Colon is still one of the most important and famous theaters in the world when it comes to acoustics and we still receive visits by major International figures of course. We still had René Fleming, Netrebko, Camarena and mostly all the major Opera figures singing here, you just may not have heard of it.
The reason it's not as prominent as it used to has to do mostly with the fate of the country as a whole.
Argentina has been in constant crisis since the 70's, more poverty and as a result less funding for the arts and for anything really.
We still are the most important country in Latin America when it comes to Classical music though. Buenos Aires is still the city with more Opera theatres and concert halls in Latin America, we have at least two other major Opera houses apart from Teatro Colon and we have built a new purely symphonic hall.
You still can find a good variety of Operas and Classical music in general to enjoy during the year and the quality is generally good.

But yes, things are far from perfect and our politicians will surely destroy the little good things that are left. Our music, literature and film industry have been losing prestige for a long time sadly.

During the early 20th Century lots of important Operas like Der Rosenkavalier got their performance in Buenos Aires before some major capitals of Europe.
The first country Puccini visited in the Americas was not the US but Argentina.

Sadly those days are gone and the country has gone down the tubes.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

ManuelMozart95 said:


> I am from Argentina. Teatro Colon is still one of the most important and famous theaters in the world when it comes to acoustics and we still receive visits by major International figures of course. We still had René Fleming, Netrebko, Camarena and mostly all the major Opera figures singing here, you just may not have heard of it.
> The reason it's not as prominent as it used to has to do mostly with the fate of the country as a whole.
> Argentina has been in constant crisis since the 70's, more poverty and as a result less funding for the arts and for anything really.
> We still are the most important country in Latin America when it comes to Classical music though. Buenos Aires is still the city with more Opera theatres and concert halls in Latin America, we have at least two other major Opera houses apart from Teatro Colon and we have built a new purely symphonic hall.
> ...


So nice to hear from someone who is familiar with both the history and the arts of Argentina. I am very intriqued with the landscape of your great country. Thanks again.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

MAS said:


> In those days, of course, the artists traveled by ocean liner, so the singers generally arrived with rested voices! The great opera houses (La Scala, Paris Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Colón) and others, shared the talent - they could generally tempt a singer with a new role, that other houses didn't want, or couldn't present, or excellent conditions (Helga Dernesch, for instance, thought singing in San Francisco was "like a vacation!"). *The Metropolitan Opera, for instance, had singers put into a mold, and would rarely stray from that, so that offer of a different role in Chicago might tempt a singer to accept singing in Chicago instead of New York*.


Most famously NY native Maria Callas sang her first two USA opera seasons at Chicago Lyric (not the MET)

Some of the opera houses in latin/south america are just amazing, Callas had many performances early at Mexico City and that building is so beautiful with huge sprawling complex.....interior views are even more amazing


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