The anatomy of an opera diva

The opera diva has always been the stuff of legends and the subject of almost idolatrous adulation. Before she even sings, her very entrance on stage already holds us spellbound in anticipation. And when she finally delivers that aria, we are simply in awe of such divine gifts unfolding before us, holding us in thrall until she sings that last note when we are on the verge of tears at her tragic denouement. Granted she is not all that makes an opera but then again she makes the opera and is therefore worshipped by fans and opera lovers both for her persona on stage as well as out of it.

But what exactly makes a diva? The word actually came about in the lexicon of opera quite late. In its original meaning as “goddess” it predates the Caesars and the Oxford English Dictionary dates its first appearance in English in 1883 in a Harper’s magazine reference to “the latest diva of the drama.” A few years later, the French dramatist Victorien Sardou used the word to describe his fictional Roman prima donna Floria Tosca in a letter she reads aloud from Paisiello, the composer of a cantata that he wants her to perform: “Need I add, diva, that this improvisation will lack a certain merit unless you lend to it your prestigious talent?” Its first mention in an opera text was probably in the 1890s when the librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa adopted Sardou’s play and used it for one of the lines in Puccini’s opera: “The cantata still lacks its diva,” as said by Scarpia at the start of Act II of Tosca, one of the most beloved operas of all time about a celebrated singer.

This no doubt helped make Tosca one of the quintessential diva roles that every soprano aspired for. Aside from playing an opera diva within an opera, the character is the ultimate drama queen: She falls in love with a painter only to find out that his revolutionary activities make them both a target for the police. He is eventually arrested and is up for execution but Tosca is offered a way out by Scarpia, the chief of police who promises his release in exchange for her affections.

Tosca agrees but stabs the police chief instead, exclaiming, “This is what a kiss from Tosca feels like!” As if this wasn’t enough, her final exit is even more spectacular when after her boyfriend is executed, she runs to the parapet crying, “Scarpia, we meet before God!” and hurls herself over the edge to her death.

If the character of Tosca is intense, the singing is even more so, requiring a very flexible voice stretching from the high notes when she screams, all the way to the lower registers when she sneers, not to mention a lot of tricky rhythms like when she has to sing in groups of three beats while the orchestra is playing in groups of two. One of history’s greatest divas, Maria Callas, mastered this role, not just because of her superb acting skills but also because of the incredible flexibility of her voice and musicianship.

With her training in bel canto singing, she had superb mastery of phrasing and coloring which she achieved through hard training which she described as “ a sort of straight jacket that you’re supposed to put on whether you liked it or not. She actually did not have a naturally beautiful voice like her rival, Renata Tebaldi. The Italian critic Rodolfo Celletti even said that it was “essentially ugly, a thick sound . . . lacking those elements described as velvet and varnish.” But Callas recalls how her teacher, the Spanish coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, taught her that “no matter how heavy a voice, it should also be kept light, it should always be worked in a flexible way, never to weigh it down. It is a method of keeping the voice light and flexible and pushing the instrument into a certain zone where it might not be too large in sound, but penetrating.” Celletti, in fact, qualifies that “because of its natural lack of that velvet quality, Callas’ voice could acquire such distinctive colors and timbers as to be unforgettable.”

But her most distinctive quality was her ability to breathe life into the characters she plays or “to translate the minute particulars of a life into a tone of voice,” as cultural commentator Matthew Gurewitsch would say. Italian critic Eugenio Gara notes how the diva can “transfer to the musical plane the suffering of the character she plays, the nostalgic longing for lost happiness, the anxious fluctuation between hope and despair, between pride and supplication, between irony and generosity, which in the end dissolve into a superhuman inner pain.

The most diverse and opposite of sentiments, cruel deceptions, ambitious desires, burning tenderness, grievous sacrifices, all the torments of the heart, acquire in her singing that mysterious truth, that psychological sonority, which is the primary attraction of opera.”

When Callas started her career, she had the stereotypical figure of the opera diva — a hefty 200 lbs. for a 5 foot 8-1/2 inch frame. Was this in fact a prerequisite for divahood? Callas apparently began to think otherwise when during her performance of Medea in 1953, she realized that she needed a leaner face and figure to do dramatic justice to this role as well as other roles she was planning to take on in the future. She then went into a rigorous diet to shed 80 lbs, transforming herself into a svelte fashion icon that catapulted her into international fame.

With fame, of course, came a string of controversies that seemed to hound her for the rest of her life. Rumours started circulating about her weight loss: from unsavory methods like swallowing tapeworms to claims by Rome’s Panatella Mills that it was her eating their “physiologic” pasta that did the trick. 

In 1956, right before her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, Time printed an unflattering cover story, calling attention to the difficult relationship with her mother whom she would blame for a very unhappy childhood, among other resentments. That same year, after a Madama Butterfly performance in Chicago, she was photographed with glaring eyes and her mouth contorted in a diabolical snarl at US Marshal Stanley Pringle, one of eight process servers who had just handed lawsuit papers from her agent. This photograph made it around the world and gave rise to the myth that she was a vicious prima donna “Tigress.”

Opening the Rome Opera House season in 1958 with Norma, she cancelled after the first act after feeling her voice was not up to par. With the Italian President in attendance at the opening, it was considered a big scandal with newspaper headlines trumpeting “The Rome Walkout of the Temperamental Callas.” Her rivalry with lyric soprano Renata Tebaldi was also a big issue with Callas declaring once at a press conference that comparing her with Tebaldi was like comparing champagne with cognac. A bystander corrected her and said, “No, Coca-Cola!” The story of course stuck that she compared her rival to the soft drink. Tebaldi countered with “I have one thing that Callas does not have: a heart.”

While still married to Giovanni Meneghini’ she had a tempestuous love affair with Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis who was also still married at that time. She eventually divorced her husband and continued the affair, supposedly even after Onassis married Jacqueline Kennedy in 1968, according to a memoir by the Onassis family secretary.

Divas could never really keep their love affairs private. Luisa Tetrazzini, an Italian coloratura soprano, even flaunted it, creating a scandal in 1936 when she married a handsome man 30 years her junior. She was actually not as lucky with her love life as she was with her career: She had three marriages, with the third husband dissipating the large fortune she had amassed, forcing her to give concerts even when her voice could no longer take it.

A more contemporary diva, Angela Gheorgiu, was even more talked about because her husband, the tenor Roberto Alagna, is also an opera singer and just as prominent as she is. They are in fact known as the “Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton” of the opera world with their on-again, off-again relationship. They’re also famous for their tantrums and prima donna ways. In 2006, Alagna walked out of the stage during Aida at La Scala after he was booed and whistled at from the back row audience who found his performance underwhelming.

Gheorgiu was fired by The Lyric Opera in Chicago for skipping rehearsals just to join her husband in New York. She is also notorious among opera management and directors for being very difficult, always wanting to have a say with regard to production details. “These directors want to express their own fantasies, forgetting about the characters. At times, what they put on stage goes against both the story and the music,” she said in an interview. For the 1996 production of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, Franco Zeffirelli called for her character Micaela to wear a blonde wig which she refused to wear, prompting the Met’s GM Joseph Volpe to declare, “The wig is going on with or without you.” She was replaced accordingly with an understudy. In another incident, both Alagna and Gheorgiu were hired to do La Traviata but delayed signing their contract until certain production details were changed by the director. They finally faxed their signed contract one day past the deadline, but Volpe refused to accept it and instead cast Patricia Racette and Marcelo Alvarez.

Another diva which gave the Met management endless headaches was the African-American soprano Kathleen Battle. During rehearsals for La Fille du Regiment, it was reported that she was always subjecting her fellow performers to “withering criticism” and “made almost paranoid demands that they should not look at her.” During the Boston Symphony Orchestra season in 1992, she once informed the orchestra management staff that the Ritz Carlton had put peas in her pasta and that they should reprimand the hotel. She also banned an assistant conductor and other musicians from rehearsals, changed hotels several times, and left behind “a froth of ill will,” according to the Boston Globe. On another occasion, calling from her limousine while in California, she told the management staff all the way in New York to tell her driver to turn down the air-conditioning instead of making the request directly herself. All her prima donna ways reached a climax when after one show at the Met, the soprano Carol Vaness told Battle as they were taking their bows, that on behalf of everyone else in the show, she hoped that they would never work with her again. When Volpe later announced that the Met was firing Battle for unprofessional behavior, the cast and crew cheered and applauded. Battle’s manager asked Volpe to reconsider, reminding him that his predecessor was always known as the man who had fired Callas from the Met: “Do you want to be known as the man who fired Battle?”  Volpe replied confidently, “Kathy Battle is no Maria Callas.”

Of course, for every cantankerous opera star there is the professional one who delivers without any difficulties. Joan Sutherland, the famous coloratura soprano known for her portrayal of the title role in Lucia Di Lamermoor, would be problem-free and just quietly do her knitting backstage when she wasn’t needed.  Kiri Te Kanawa who became known to millions after singing at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, had a lengthy career of over 40 years on the opera stage, thanks to her professionalism. Among the divas today, the lyric soprano Renee Fleming has a flourishing career with a repertoire that includes the classic opera greats like Mozart and Strauss while crossing over to jazz and even indie rock. 

In the end, a diva’s prima donna ways can only go so far, at least as far as opera management is concerned. They may put up with the most ridiculous demands but only if the singer is truly great and if the public demand is overwhelming. As the diva Leontyne Price once said, “It is for you to hear how beautiful your instrument is. It is from you to them with much, much love. That way you can send it out to the public because they make the careers. Once they accept you and your freedom to be and your love of singing, they never leave you, there is no love like that.”

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Catch the divas of today at the Metropolitan Opera in HD screenings at the CCP Little Theatre. Next show is Thomas Ades’ masterpiece, “The Tempest,” on August 20 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Log on to culturalcenter.gov.ph or call 832-3706 for details.