Jolanda Meneguzzer

Jolanda Meneguzzer was born on January 16, 1929, in Cantù, Como, Lombardy, to Augusto Meneguzzer and Mafalda Zonaro, the daughter of the Italian painter Fausto Zonaro. Her mother, a pianist, taught her how to play the piano when she was four and a half years old. Her parents often took her to La Scala in Milan where she developed her love of opera. She was a pupil of Nerina Baldisseri, whose mother had been a pupil of Mathilde Marchesi. In June 1957, she made her debut singing Euridice in Monteverdi's ''L'Orfeo'' at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. In Turin in February 1965, she performed and recorded Thamos, King of Egypt with Carlo Maria Giulini and the Symphony Orchestra of the RAI. She also recorded Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate, K. 165, with the same orchestra and conductor. In the 1960s, she made regular guest appearances at the leading Italian opera houses, such as La Scala in Milan, the Teatro Comunale in Florence, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, the Rome Opera, the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. She also appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, as well as the San Francisco Opera, making her American debut there in 1962 as Maria in Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment. The San Francisco Opera impresario, Kurt Herbert Adler asked her to take over the roles that Graziella Sciutti was originally scheduled to sing in 1962, which led to engagements in San Francisco for the 1963 and 1965 seasons. In 1960, she worked with Franco Zeffirelli, with whom she had been at Art College in Florence, in his direction of Euridice by Jacopo Peri. In October 1962, at the San Francisco Opera, she performed the role of Zerlina in the cast of Mozart's Don Giovanni in which the American bass Giorgio Tozzi was the Don, Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles was Donna Anna, German soprano Elizabeth Schwarzkopf was Donna Elvira, and Sir Geraint Evans was Leporello. She appeared at the Cincinnati Opera House in 1965 and the Los Angeles Opera in the same year. She performed the leading role of Marie in a concert performance of La fille du régiment at the Royal Festival Hall in London in February 1963, to much acclaim. The Stage critic stated: "Let Glyndebourne now do it, and let them put Jolanda Meneguzzer in the title role." He went on to say that her performance had, "musical sensitivity and coloratura ease...and a pert comical charm that could be devastating in the opera house." In 1966, she appeared in '''', a one-act television opera by Roman Vlad with a libretto by Giuseppe Berto and Pier Benedetto Bertoli, based on the short story of the same name by Giuseppe Berto. She sang the role of Autonoe in the Italian premiere of Hans Werner Henze's The Bassarids in 1968. She performed with the leading opera singers of the time such as Tito Gobbi, Joan Sutherland, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Renata Tebaldi,Hermann Prey, Geraint Evans, Victoria De Los Angeles, Fedora Barbieri, , Giulietta Simionato, Rosanna Carteri, Rolando Panerai, Renato Capecchi, Carlo Bergonzi, Luigi Alva, Paolo Montarsolo, Giuseppe Taddei, Sesto Bruscantini, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Italo Tajo, Ruggero Raimondi, Kostas Paskalis, Reri Grist, Marcella Pobbe, Leontyne Price, Renata Scotto, Gianni Poggi and Giuseppe Modesti., Dublin in 1967. Photo courtesy of Opera in Ireland. Her operatic career slowed down in the early 1970s when she then devoted herself to teaching. She also gave opera workshops to graduate students at the Villa Schifanoia in Florence, working alongside Tito Gobbi, William Weaver and Ernesto Barbini. Among her students there are the two italian sopranos twins Paola Cigna and Patrizia Cigna, the tenor Gianluca Sorrentino, the american soprano Alexis Magaro. Her voice was heard on Italian Radio throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s and into the 90s, in operatic performances and song recitals. There exists on archive.org, an audio recording from 1967, when Meneguzzer was engaged by the Dublin Grand Opera Society to sing Lucia in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (Audio recording of Lucia di Lammermoor. Presented on May 31, Jun 2, 7, 13, 1967 at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin as part of the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s Spring Season). Jolanda Menguzzer died on 6 June 2020 in Florence. ==Operatic roles: 1957 (debut) – 1976==