| Montserrat Caballé. Famous singers in Spain |
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Montserrat Caballé Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepción Caballé i Folc, better known as Montserrat Caballé (born April 12, 1933), is a Spanish operatic soprano renowned for her bel canto technique and her interpretations of the roles of Rossini, Bellini, and DonizettiCaballé was born in Barcelona. After studying music at the Liceu Conservatory and singing technique under Eugenia Kemmeny, she was awarded with the gold medal; then she joined the Basel Opera in 1956, where she made her professional operatic debut in 1957 as Mimě in La bohčme. For the 1960–61 season, she was engaged by the Bremen Opera, where she developed the foundations of her wide repertoire. In 1962 Caballé returned to Barcelona and made her debut at the Liceu, singing the title-role in Richard Strauss' Arabella.Caballé's international breakthrough came in 1965 when she substituted for an indisposed Marilyn Horne in a semi-staged performance of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at New York's Carnegie Hall. While she had to learn the role in less than one month, and considering this was her first engagement in a bel canto score, her performance created a sensation and made her famous throughout the opera world. The day after the New York Times quoted "Callas + Tebaldi = Caballé". Later that year, Caballé made her debut at Glyndebourne singing her first Rosenkavalier and at the Metropolitan Opera as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust. In December 1965 she also returned to Carnegie Hall for her second bel canto opera, singing the tremendous part of Queen Elizabeth I in Donizetti's recently rediscovered Roberto Devereux. In 1966 she made her debut at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Trovatore (and Pirata in 1967). In 1969 she produced an astonishing performance as Elisabetta of Valois in an all-star cast (including Domingo and Cappuccilli) of Don Carlo at the Arena di Verona. Her la on the final "ah" at the very end of the opera has become famous, lasting for more than 20 bars up to the final accord from the orchestra, driving mad an audience of more than 10.000. In these performances she had to act on crutches because an accident occurred earlier that year in New York City. In the same period she also appeared in one of the most remarkable recitals of her career at the Teatro Corallo, also in Verona. In 1970, she made her delayed "official" La Scala debut in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia and in 1972 her Covent Garden debut as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata. 1974 was probably the year when Caballé reached her peak, with a number of astonishing performances: Aida at Liceu in January, Vespri at the Met in March, Parisina d'Este at Carnegie Hall in March, 3 Normas in one week at the Bolshoi in Moscow, with Adriana Lecouvreur at La Scala in April, Norma in Orange in July (her top single performance, filmed in video by Pierre Jourdain), the recording of Aida under Muti in July, and the Duets recording with Giuseppe di Stefano in August
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