Obituary, Virginia Zeani (1925-2023)

The Romanian-born soprano Virginia Zeani, who created the role of Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, has died aged 97.

Born Virginia Zehan in the Transylvanian village of Solovăstru, Zeani fell in love with music at an early age after hearing Romani violinists in her home-town and began her formal vocal training in Bucharest when she was thirteen, initially studying as a mezzo. After World War Two she relocated to Milan, where she was mentored by the tenor Aureliano Pertile (a great favourite of Toscanini who had appeared regularly in leading roles at La Scala in the late 1920s and 1930s).

Zeani made her professional debut in Bologna in 1948, when she stepped in for an unwell Margherita Carosia in La traviata; her Alfredo on that occasion was Arrigo Pola, whose most illustrious student Luciano Pavarotti sang in the chorus when Zeani performed the role in his hometown of Modena a few years later and eventually sang Alfredo to her Violetta in Rome. Zeani sang nearly 650 Traviatas over the next three decades, with other Verdi roles including Alzira, Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Gilda in Rigoletto, and (in the later part of her career) even Aida.

Her dark, powerful but flexible voice was also eminently suited to the bel canto operas which were enjoying such a renaissance during the 1950s and 60s, and in 1952 she replaced Maria Callas as Elvira in two performances of Bellini’s I Puritani in Florence, with Italian bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni as Giorgio Valton. The two singers were reunited four years later when Zeani made her La Scala debut in Handel’s Giulio Cesare (singing Cleopatra to Rossi-Lemeni’s conquering hero), and became engaged during the course of rehearsals; they enjoyed a long and happy marriage until Rossi-Lemeni’s death in 1991, and regularly appeared opposite one another on stage.

Both Zeani and her husband were enthusiastic champions of new repertoire, and shortly before their marriage she created one of the great roles in twentieth-century opera: Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, which received its first-ever performance at La Scala (as I Dialoghi dell Carmelitane) in January 1957. (Poulenc stipulated that the work be performed in the audience’s native language, and indeed Zeani was no stranger to singing opera in Italian translation – her repertoire thus far had included Antonida in Glinka’s Una vita per lo zar, Leila in Bizet’s ‘I Pescatore di Perle’, and Margherita in Gounod’s Faust. The French-language premiere of Carmélites took place in Paris six months later, with Denise Duval as Blanche).

Zeani enjoyed a warm relationship with Poulenc, and expressed great affection for the man and his music; later in her career she regularly performed his searing monodrama La voix humaine (both in Italian translation and in the original French), and her farewell operatic appearance (in 1982) was as Mother Marie in an English-language performance of Carmelites in San Francisco. Other composers with whom she worked directly included Barbara Giuranna (who composed the role of Mary Vetsera in Mayerling for her), Jacopo Napoli, and Renzo Rossellini.

Although she defined herself as a fundamentally lyric soprano, Zeani made numerous successful excursions into more dramatic repertoire in the later part of her career, including Wagner’s Senta and Elsa, the title-roles in Puccini’s Tosca and Madama Butterfly (the work which sparked her passion for opera in childhood), and in Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur and Giordano’s Fedora. With the exception of a pair of recitals for Decca in the 1950s (which we hope to be able to make available again soon) she spent very little time in the recording-studio, although several of her major roles are preserved on live recordings.

By the time she retired from the stage, Zeani was already established as a highly-respected voice-teacher; she and Rossi-Lemeni had relocated to the US in 1980, where they both held positions at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and her roster of students over the years included Sylvia McNair, Elizabeth Futral, Ailyn Pérez, Vivica Genaux and Elīna Garanča. Although the two never worked together formally, she was also very close to her compatriot Angela Gheorghiu, who referred to her as ‘Mami Virginia’ and this morning paid tribute to ‘a beautiful soul, a divine woman and one of my closest friends’.

Zeani received numerous awards for her teaching work as well as for her performing career; her honours included the Order of Merit of the Italian Public in 1965, Knight of the Order of the Star of Romania in 2016, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She died at her home in Florida yesterday.

Virginia Zeani - a selected discography