Ponselle met Puccini a short time before he passed away. She visited Puccini at his home in Italy. Ponselle sang for Puccini the aris, Vissi D'arte a with 5 different endings and asked Puccini which eneding he preferred. Puccini responded, Cara, any way you sing it is just fine with me. He held his head in his hands and said Why did I not know you much earlier. I would have written an Opera for you. He just kept shaking his head over and over and saying it.
The incredible emotive sensitivity here is astonishing, given that she is not performing on stage and has only the piano to evoke/enhance the feelings expressed. Also, she is in her late 50's and had not sung on stage for 15 years at this point. Such genius!!!
Enrico Caruso understood great singing like no one else; and when he discovered Rosa Ponselle and brought her to the stage (I believe in 1918), he gave to the world a priceless gem. Only a Ponselle could have brought to this amazing aria such passion and depth of feeling supported by her masterful voice. Surely this is what Puccini had in mind when he created this role. Thank you for sharing this wonderful recording.
These old recordings are the best to learn from. You can hear in all her recordings how terrible sounding all the pianos are, like bar pianos from a western. All the colors, the beauty of the sound, power and projection is created solely with her instrument through a great understanding of how to sing. Thanks for singing a true vocal master that can teach us today what to aspire to.
My partner once met an elderly singing teacher in London who heard Ponselle sing Norma there. She said it was the supreme experience of her life. This performance is by a soprano who had been retired for fourteen years - staggering! I once chatted with an American baritone who had a coaching session with her in the 1970's. She started to sing along in the Traviata duet and he burst into tears at hearing that famous voice.
Some time in the 1970s, baritone Ryan Edwards (who told me this story in Fort Worth, TX) sang for Ponselle at Villa Pace in Baltimore. After singing a few arias, he was asked to go outside and take a walk in her garden while the committee talked amongst themselves. Later, he was called back in and there was a microphone standing in front of the grand piano. Ponselle stood up, walked up to him and asked, "Would you like to sing the Traviata duet with me?" It was recorded. What I'd give to hear that!
@@donaldcollup Haha! It was Ryan Edwards who told me the story! He was singing Enrico in Lucia with Deutekom for Edmonton opera in 1983. It was my first production there as chorus master.
He also told me that they promised to give him a copy of the tape. When I was a student at Peabody, I heard a private recording of Ponselle singing the final duet in Aida as a solo - I kid you not - in ragtime!
@@donaldcollup I think her bio says she enjoyed fooling around on the piano like that during rehearsals - to ease the tensions.I once had an evening coffee and cookies with Rose Bampton and Wilfred Pelletier. I nearly dropped my cup when he told me he coached Ponselle and Caruso in La Juive!
@@donaldcollup: As her biographer (twice), I heard her play and sing the "O terra addio" the way she did to break up Caruso at rehearsals for "Forza." She sang it entirely in chest voice. She also delighted in playing "Under the Bamboo Tree" to get him to sing it, since it was his favorite novelty song at the time. Nina Morgana, whom he had discovered in 1908 and did a number of concerts with him as an assisting artist in 1917-18, said that among the encores they sang after their concerts, he occasionally added "Under the Bamboo Tree" to get a laugh from the audience.
There have been so many wonderful sopranos now and in the past but Rosa Ponselle surpasses them all. Just unbelievable. I just want to cry. No wonder Puccini said what he did Brava. Bravissima.
I've wanted to hear this famous, rare, recording for years! She was at the piano in her home. OMG! Callas has nothing on Ponselle when it comes to drama. HOW BEAUTIFUL!
@@alfredoloyola921 Callas was an admirer of Ponselle let me start by saying. also, Callas was a great interpreter but even her rendition of this aria wasn't as dramatic as Ponselle's here
@@alfredoloyola921 Because Callas's huge following dominate the opera boards and it is generally assumed by them that if Callas sung anything, no one else could possibly do a better job. Callas is very famous for her interpretation of this aria. Ponselle is from a generation before Callas and not as well known. I, too, had thought Callas had done the preeminent interpretation of Senza mama till I discovered this.
Thank-you, I had never heard this beautiful, heartrending recording previously. I assume she recorded it at Villa Pace but it's not included on my 1996 Romophone set of the 1954 Villa Pace recordings. Happy 125th Birthday Madame Ponselle!
This is a true vocal miracle. Looking at the picture and the self-accompaniment it is likely she is in her mid-fifties here and retired for more than a decade yet her voice sound finer than every other recording of this aria [I have just listened to all of the ones available on RU-vid] and the combination of beauty, technique, and emotive involvement cannot be matched.
Thanks for the great story! NO doubt, that Puccini would have NO doubt, that any of the five endings (of vissi d'arte) would be FINE with this wonderful composer, at that stage. The composer, and one of the GREATest of all sopranos, were a true MATCH, and this rendition ... Ponselle with simple (expressive) piano ... is truly remarkable.
Many years ago I had the privilege of spending part of an evening with the retired soprano Rose Bampton and her husband conductor Wilfred Pelletier. Over coffee ands cookies he casually mentioned he'd coached Ponselle and Caruso in La Juive. I nearly dropped my cup!
@@jimdrake-writer I still have a note from Rose Bampton signed 'Mrs. P.' A Met broadcast of Die Walkure was recently posted - with Melchior, Bampton and Traubel. Amazes me to think I met both women (long retired) !
@@vanmusician You'll remember their two-story Manhattan townhouse, parts of which can be seen in this video. I was fortunate to be there on this milestone occasion: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pXVeSmI5qVY.htmlsi=poNZHZdEtZWVilPG
BRAVA 🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺 I sing opera and play the piano for myself all the time when my accompanist is not available or teacher !!!! It's not an easy thing trust me!
Si vogliono fare paragoni assudi tra la Ponselle e la Callas. Sono due voci e due personalita' opposte completamente. Che qualche inflessione ricordi l'altra puo' darsi. La Callas disse di apprezzare la Ponselle..avra' avuto tra le mani qualche disco, non ne circolavano tanti come oggi, costavano cari. La Callas non s'e' mai incontrata con la Rosa, non ne ha sentito la necessita'...la Callas e' una cantante del tutto "autonoma" che non deve dire grazie a nessuna del passato. La De Hidalgo, sua maestra, gli avra' dato una quadratura musicale e un'aggiustata alla tecnica, come in tutti i cantanti che insegnano..pero' dalla classe della De Hidalgo, tranne la Maria, non e' uscito altro, quindi "autonoma" per davvero. E' nata Callas da sempre. Ci sono alcune analogie di inflessioni qua' e la' nella Violetta del Met del '35 della Ponselle, ma dubitiamo che la Callas avesse la registrazione di quella recita per imparare qualche inflessione. Anche volendo fare paragoni, considerando due epoche interpretative differenti, la Callas era una interprete somma, straordinaria, la Ponselle solo una bellissima voce ma piuttosto allineata alle usanze musicali che richiedevano il suo tempo, bellissima voce, colore superlativo, e basta. Fermo restando che questo "Senza mamma", anche se troppo rallentato, e' molto affascinante. Brava Rosa.
reducing this to merely a beautiful voice and that's all, is silly and lacks observation. To compare Ponselle to Callas in such a diminishing way would be similar to comparing Michaelangelo's sculpture to Madame Tussaud's wax work ,and faulting Michelangelo because humans don't look so perfect as that, and favoring the wax work for looking more "realistic" There are different types of reality, and the voices that possessed astonishing beauty had marble for their carving material. Sometimes it is we who must elevate our capacity to see the the art in that which is more beautiful than we ourselves are, instead of diminishing the artists who can see that beauty.
