(Click HERE to see a letter from Luciano Pavarotti about Madame Zeani, and HERE to see a letter from Joan Sutherland to Madame Zeani)

 

Vero Beach Opera proudly presented opera legend Virginia Zeani for a special Opera Studies program on Sunday, January 23, 2011 at  2:00 p.m. at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. Tickets were $20.

 

During the first half of this Opera Studies program, VBO Opera Studies Chairman, Wayne Kleinstiver, introduced the program and gave a history of her life, which was followed by an interview of Madame Zeani by Dr. James A. Drake, renowned biographer of opera legends Richard Tucker, Rosa Ponselle and Lily Pons. Dr. Drake and Mme. Zeani discussed her successful and long operatic career as well as her professional and personal experiences with some of opera’s most famous singers such as Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Alfredo Kraus and Arrigo Pola, Pavarotti’s voice teacher.  Mme. Zeani's voice teachers, the great tenor Aureliano Pertile and the great Bolshoi coloratura soprano Lydia Lipkovskaia, also were discussed.  Video clips of performances by Mme. Zeani during her lengthy career were shown and some costumes worn by her and her late husband, basso Nicola Rossi-Lemeni in various operatic performances were on display.

During the second half of the program, Mme. Zeani conducted a Master Class with three singers as a vehicle for discussing the Art of Singing.  Audience will experience how this world-class master opera singer listens, instructs and critiques the technique of opera singing.  This Master Class lesson highly informed and enlightened the aspiring singers as well as the general public about the opera singing genre.

This event was sponsored by the Vero Beach High School Choral Department

 

 

 

Background on Mme. Zeani:

 

Born in Romania, Mme. Zeani's operatic career spanned 35 years from 1948, when she debuted as Violetta in La Traviata in Bologna, until 1983, when she performed in the Dialogues of the Carmelites in San Francisco.  She created the role of Blanche in the Dialogues of the Carmelites in 1957 at La Scala.

 

Mme. Zeani has performed 71 leading roles in major opera houses of the world; La Traviata was her signature role in which she appeared an estimated 648 times.  In 1950, she appeared opposite the great tenor Gigli in Cairo before King Farouk and the royal family.  She debuted in La Scala in 1956 in Handel's Julius Caesar opposite bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, who she married shortly thereafter.  Unlike many divas, Mme. Zeani canceled only twice during her 35 years on stage which is a tribute to her incredible singing technique.  She still can  sing a brilliant soprano high "B" at age 85 years of age which she will celebrate on Oct. 21, 2010.

Mme. Zeani sang during the era of Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi but was virtually unknown to US opera fans.  Nonetheless, in a 1999 article in Opera News, conductor Richard Bonynge, named his list of three top sopranos, other than his wife, Joan Sutherland …."the voices I most remember are Flagstad, Virginia Zeani and Renata Tebaldi."

 

 

Upon retirement from the stage, Mme. Zeani and her husband, Nicola, taught voice at the University of Indiana, and both were honored as "Distinguished Professors."  Nicola died in 1991, and she has continued to teach from her home in West Palm Beach. Her teaching career spans 30 years.  Among her famous students are Angela Gheorghiu, Marilyn Mims, Susan Patterson, Sylvia McNair, Stephen Mark Brown, Elizabeth Futral, Vivica Genaux, Angela Brown, Mark Nicolson, and Heidi Klassen.

Classical Singer Magazine voted her the 2010 Voice Teacher of the Year, and the Marcello Giordani Foundation will honor Mme Zeani with their Lifetime Achievement Award on December 8, 2010 in New York City.

 

For a podcast of Virginia Zeani performances go to: http://handelmania.libsyn.com/2008/07

 To see an Opera News article on Madame Zeani go to: http://www.operanews.com/operanews/templates/content.aspx?id=11122