“This girl has neither voice nor musicality nor personality, she has nothing,” conductor Ugo Tansini gave his verdict, upon auditioning Magda Olivero. At the time, he would never have thought that he was to direct her in the most fascinating performance in that great scene in La traviata which was to win the Oscar del Disco award in 1965 competing against 35 other entries. When composer and vocal teacher Luigi Gerussi decided to take an interest in Olivero, he was to teach her all the secrets of the old Italian School. With a small and limited voice at the outset, Olivero mastered her instruments, thanks to agility exercises. “[Having played] Gilda (Rigoletto) at 25, she retained from the virtuosos the ‘messa di voce’ that is a sound which is attacked piano, [and] is strengthened and amplified at will. Her miracle was that she applied this excellent technique to veristic singing,” wrote Georges Farret in his notes for the LP, Magda Olivero: 50 ans de carrière. 

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Olivero was one of the most unique sopranos of the 20th century. Though her voice was not one of conventional beauty, it possessed every musical and emotional colour that was ever demanded of a singing actress. After appearing with Olivero in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at the Verona Arena in 1970, Plácido Domingo said, “I was amazed at Magda’s strength. You may or may not like the voice but as an artiste she is remarkable. She was so absolutely believable as the young Manon that after the death scene the audience was in a frenzy. About 500 people broke through the guard rail and swarmed to the stage. It was frightening. We had to have police protection. You only get that in baseball or football. It is hard to find someone who generates that reaction. Olivero is one of a kind whose style has disappeared.”

Olivero was born in the small town of Saluzzo near Turin on 25th March 1910. After studying at the conservatory in Turin, she made her debut in 1932 in Nino Cottozzo’s I Misteri Doloresi. The following year she sang her first leading role as Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi and soon after made her La Scala debut in Nabucco with Gina Cigna, Ebe Stignani, Carlo Galeffi and Tancredi Pasero. During the 1930s, she sang in a wide variety of operas including La favorite, Rigoletto, Falstaff, Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Manon, Don Giovanni and La bohème. Though she was trained in coloratura roles by Tullio Serafin she soon found her niche in the verismo operas of Giacomo Puccini, Riccardo Zandonai and Francesco Cilea.

In 1939 she sang the title role in Adriana Lecouvreur, her most famous one in which she starred opposite Beniamino Gigli’s Maurizio. In an interview with The New York Times, Olivero spoke about performing in verismo operas. She said, ‘My own musical grounding was in bel canto—that is the basis for all vocal technique. My first roles were Bellini’s Sonnambula, which I never sang on stage and Verdi’s Rigoletto, which I did. If you are not secure in vocal technique, verismo can be dangerous and the voice Kaput! In verismo, the first and most important thing is to understand completely the character and to believe in it until death, the final paroxysm—even of one’s own life! Those who do not understand verismo don’t know that when you act, you must forget you are singing. The singing should be a consequence of the acting ... Becoming so identified with a tragic heroine is exhausting, since most of them die and the death scene is very involving. But I must always hold myself back from the emotions I have to express. To feel them too deeply, I may cry during a performance, and in so doing, fail to project to the audience.’ In 1941, while still in her thirties, Olivero retired from the operatic stage to become the wife of Aldo Busch, a successful businessman. For the next 10 years, she confined her singing to an occasional charity concert. Even after World War II, she remained in retirement in spite of numerous offers to resume her career. In the spring of 1950, she received a letter from Cilea in which he expressed his desire to hear her duet again in Adriana Lecouvreur. An artiste has specific obligations towards the public and to his own art. Each of us has a duty which cannot be ignored, he implored her. Cilea also wrote a letter to his publisher, Sonzogno, stating that he was old and ailing and wondering why Olivero was refusing him the pleasure of hearing Adriana in her interpretation. 

After hearing the pleas, Olivero decided to return to the operatic stage, making her first appearance as Mimì in La bohème at Teatro dell’Opera on 20th January 1951. In February, she sang Adriana, but it was too late for Cilea. He had died two months before.

Though she was often overshadowed by Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, during the 1950s Olivero sang with considerable success throughout Italy and elsewhere. In 1967, she made her US debut in a Dallas production of Medea. Of this performance, a critic wrote: ‘All this Olivero accomplished through the power of her awesome intelligence and that wonderful voice of hers. It is like no other voice. It can flutter with a poignancy which stops your breath, wrap a phrase in caress, flash with heated brilliance or chill with an icy thrust. Her face was a register for the myriad emotions she brought and felt as Medea. It all added upto one of the superb singing actresses to be seen today at work. Cherish her. Her breed is rare.’

Following her American success in Tosca, Fedora and Adriana Lecouvreur, Olivero created theatrical excitement to sold-out houses wherever she sang. The Voice – New York Daily News described her voice quality as one of ‘completely individual timbre and flexibility in the role she chooses. The notes are there, including high Cs sopranos half her age would envy. Vissi d’arte has never been better presented. In every measure of her role she gave a vocal, dramatic and musical lesson in her art. The evening belonged to Magda Olivero in a major debut which despite its tardiness, belongs to the legendary annals of the Metropolitan Opera.’ 

In addition to being a great opera singer, Olivero also triumphed on the concert platform. She gave recitals in New York and Dallas. Of her New York recital, The New York Times wrote: ‘Magda Olivero’s recital last night in Carnegie Hall was an event for the connoisseur no doubt, but by any standards it was an evening of extraordinary singing.

After retiring from the opera and concert stage, Olivero used to give masterclasses and judge competitions. After turning 80, she sang at The Church of St. Gertrude of Sulden every August. “In my singing you will always find my heart and my soul,” she would say. She was still performing in public when she was 99. She died in Milan in 2014 at the age of 104. 

In our Stuart-Liff Collection, we have Olivero in operas like La fanciulla del West, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescout, Tosca and several LPs of her singing arias from various operas.