The magnificent Mirella Freni. NYC and the Metropolitan opera adored her.. She was my favorite soprano. Listen to that ovation. She had an amazing career with a phenomenal voice. RIP my dear Freni.
Strange as it may sound, it was, in large measure, Mirella Freni's singing that convinced me, back in the Sixties when I was an undergraduate at Columbia University, just a short subway ride from the Met, that I just had to come to live in Italy. And here I am now, resident in Milan, where I have lived ever since 1980. She was always very kind to me. I particularly treasure the memory of an evening when, having just sung Mimì in Philadelphia, she gave me a lift back to Manhattan in her chauffeured limousine. We talked all the way; she in Italian and I in what was, back then, my rather rudimentary Italian (a language that I had begun studying largely because of her). A lovely person and a wonderful singer!
David Steven Tabbat That is a wonderful story! Are you still living in Italy ? I am thinking about moving there as I am an opera singer needing to polish my Italian! Am unsure where to settle there..Naples , Verona or Palermo..
@@birdlover7776 For reasons having to do with crime and corruption, I would advise you to avoid Naples and Palermo and to choose -- out of the three cities you have named -- Verona, a lovely and livable city.
@@birdlover7776 Among the three cities you have named, I would avoid (for reasons of inefficiency, crime and corruption) Naples and Palermo, and would recommend Verona, a lovely and livable city.
I’m just now learning of Freni’s passing. Very sad. I’ve spent countless hours over the years basking in the beauty of her voice. I saw her live only once, as Alice Ford in Falstaff at the Met. I believe it was in 2002. She was the oldest in the cast by many years, but she still outsang everyone.
Mirella was very cleverly in her career, in her prime , she sung bell canto, then romanticism and finally verismo. Her Adriana is unforgettable 🌹🌷🍀🌺☘️❤️
Freni could spin magic from thin air. I saw her onstage as Mimi, and in the final phrase of Addio senza rancor, she held and caressed that phrase like she was stroking with her hand the curves of the most beautiful antique furniture. It was amazing.
As I always say....The past was always better.... No point of comparison with singers from this generation. Such perfection doesn t exist on them. Present singer will not never achieve it. Today' singers "must" learn from these marvellous artists.... Brava Mirella!!!!!!!
Una gran soprano lírica de gran potencia, y de larga carrera…muy inteligente, que supo escoger su repertorio y cantar hasta los 70 años , para luego ser maestra y jurado en muchos lugares del mundo.
I didn't realize until I was reading through the comments, she just passed a few days ago, what a tragic loss to the opera world!! RIP dear woman, your voice was so absolutely beautiful!
Amazing! What a voice, what a loss. Thank you, RU-vid for preserving this for people who've never seen or heard her, and for those of us who can't get enough.
Because of the wise husbanding of her voice, Mirella Freni managed to have one of the longest careers of any soprano, but more importantly, the quality of the voice became better and better over time and didn't diminish until the very end which came about ten years after this video. The only thing one cannot appreciate from this clip is the bloom of sound as she rose up the scale. You can get the gist of this sound in the last line of the above video...Che al novo di morrà ... on the" di" , listen to how the sound swells and multiply by ten. The note is a G# i think. How wonderful.
Mirella Freni is an amazing singer, and no one would argue that fact. The only argument that bothers me in most of these comments is the disparagement of the current crop of young singers. You simply can't compare a twenty one-year-old singer fresh out of an undergraduate degree to a singer with decades of craft under her belt. Don't blame the singers for the current trend of "younger and prettier". That is a global issue. The wise young singers will, with proper guidance, chose suitable rep that will allow them to develop into great artists. Please don't blame your aesthetic issues on the fact that "young singers don't work hard". That's neither fair nor true. Have a little faith, and, if you are capable, support the programs and schools that allow promising young singers to grow into the great artists that this essential art form needs to thrive for generations to come.
wbs partially agree with you on this! The young generation is no way comparable with the great singers of golden era, which is deadly solid truth! The main reason is that young singers today are either rising to fame too quickly or give it up soon! Opera singers career is highly risky and need a long time experience and extremely careful choosing and organising the roles in right order. The opera market today doesn't allow a RIGHT And SLOW growing period for young singers! And what's more, opera is a way more complex making and designing today ,like the producing a motion picture. The STAR singer might not is as important as before. Image that you would just listened to Di Stefano or Callas fifty yrs back no matter what opera he/she was in. Tims changed now. Today an important opera performance requires a famous director or producer!
Sadly I did not appreciate her earlier work when I first started listening to opera. I preferred big, rich voices. As I got older and she started performing bigger roles, I then began to listen to her earlier works and started to understand the true beauty of her voice. What an amazing artist
Само совершенство, спасибо, что Вы были с нами, Мирелла Френи, мы вас слушаем и будем слушать, как образец высочайшего,настоящего качественного оперного пения ...
I heard her live twice, the first time as Aida and the second as Fedora. Both times I knew there would never be a more beautiful soprano voice than that of Mirella Freni.
