Donald Macleod explores the life and music of the 19th-century French singer, pianist, composer and influential society figure, Pauline Viardot. Today he looks at her early training as a member of the Garcías, a family of singers, originally from Spain.
“When I want to do something, I do it in spite of water, fire, society, the whole world,” an indicator, if ever there was one, of the inner steel of this week’s composer.
Born in 1821, Pauline Viardot possessed an array of exceptional qualities. As one of the opera stars of her age, she was admired from Paris to St Petersburg as a sublime interpreter of Rossini, Bellini, Handel and Gluck. Beyond her incomparable voice, her twice-weekly artistic salons were a high point in Parisian cultural life. She knew, and was admired by Chopin, George Sand, Delacroix, Liszt, Fauré, Tchaikovsky, and Saint-Saëns to name but a few. While having, according to Saint-Saëns, an unnecessarily modest view of her talent, she was also an accomplished composer. A talented linguist with five languages at her command, her compositions include a substantial body of songs, one or two instrumental works and a series of highly appealing operettas.
Across the week, Donald Macleod will be exploring different facets of her extraordinary life. We’ll be hearing from a range of Viardot’s compositions as well as some of the operatic roles she made famous. He’ll be examining her role in Parisian cultural circles, and her friendships with leading writers among them Charles Dickens, and in particular Ivan Turgenev, and composers such as Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Meyerbeer and Gounod, all of whom created roles specifically for her incredible voice.
Les filles de Cadix
Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano
Myung-Whun Chung, piano
Scène d’Hermione (Andromaque)
Act IV: Je ne t’ai point (pas), Cruel?
Györgyi Dombrádi, mezzo-soprano
Lambert Bumiller, piano
Manuel Garcia Snr: La figlia dell’aria: È non lo vedo…. Son regina
Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano
International Chamber Vocalists
Zurich La Scintilla Orchestra
Ádám Fischer, conductor
Liszt: El Contrabandista - Rondo Fantastique sur Un Thème Espagnol, S.252
Valentina Lisitsa, piano
Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia (Act 2)
Don Basilio! Cosa veggo? …… briconi, birbanti
Hermann Prey, baritone, Figaro
Teresa Berganza, mezzo-soprano, Rosina
Luigi Alva, tenor, Count Almaviva
Enzo Dara, bass, Dr Bartolo
Paolo Montarsolo, bass, Don Basilio
London Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor
Rossini: Otello (Act 3, Sc 1)
Canzone del Salice: Assisa a pie d'un salice
Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano, Desdemona
Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Edoardo Müller, conductor
Producer: Johannah Smith Show less