VICTORIA DE LOS ANGELES Spanish De Falla Seven Popular Songs Canciones Populares

$

25

A series of great  Spanish and Latin records, incl Cuban, Portuguese, Brazil, Tangos on 78 rpm Victrola Records

Click this link for more great Latin and Spanish Records in my other listings!

Click this link for more great Opera and Vocal Records in my other listings!

Great Spanish Soprano VICTORIA DE LOS ANGELES w Gerald Moore in a great recording of de Falla - Seven Popular Spanish Songs

Victoria De Los Angeles With Gerald Moore – Falla - Seven Popular Spanish Songs

Label: His Master's Voice – DB 9730 & DB 9731

Genre: Classical
Style: Opera
Falla - 7 Canciones Populares Espan 
A1  El Pano Moruno
Composed By – Manuel De Falla
A2  Seguidilla Murciana
Composed By – Manuel De Falla
A3  Asturiana
Composed By – Manuel De Falla
A4  Jota
Composed By – Manuel De Falla
A5  Nana
Composed By – Manuel De Falla
A6  Cancion
Composed By – Manuel De Falla
A7  Polo
Composed By – Manuel De Falla

Piano – Gerald Moore
Soprano Vocals – Victoria De Los Angeles

Please see top of the page for condition

Her voice could best be described as that of a flexible full lyric soprano with enough weight and volume to sing both lyric and dramatic roles. She also sang some roles more commonly associated with the mezzo-soprano repertoire. In her early years in particular she also sang a good deal of florid music. While she later made fewer appearances in opera, she continued to give recitals, focusing on mostly French and Spanish art songs, into the 1990s.

Life and careerBorn Victoria de los Ángeles López García into a humble family in Barcelona, she studied at the Barcelona Conservatory, graduating in just three years in 1941 at age 18. That year, she made her operatic debut as Mimì at the Liceu, but then resumed her musical studies.

In 1945, she returned to the Liceu to make her professional debut as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro (she had earlier performed Mimì in La bohème as a student). After winning first prize in the Geneva International Competition in 1947, she sang Salud in Falla's La vida breve with the BBC in London in 1948.

In 1949 she made her first appearance in the Paris Opéra as Marguérite. The following year, she made her debut in Salzburg and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Mimì, and in the United States with a recital at Carnegie Hall. In March 1951, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York as Marguérite, and she went on to sing with the company for ten years. In 1952 she became an instant favourite in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Colón as Madama Butterfly. She returned to Buenos Aires many times until 1979. She also sang at La Scala in Milan from 1950 to 1956. In 1957 she sang at the Vienna State Opera.

After making her debut at the Bayreuth Festival as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser in 1961, she devoted herself principally to a concert career. However, for the next twenty years, she continued to make occasional appearances in one of her favourite operatic roles, Bizet's Carmen. She was among the first Spanish-born operatic singers to record the complete opera; she recorded it in 1958, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham using the recitatives added by Ernest Guiraud after Bizet's death.

Though Carmen lay comfortably in her range, she nevertheless sang major soprano roles, best known of which were Donna Anna, Manon, Nedda, Desdemona, Cio-Cio-San, Mimi, Violetta and Mélisande. Like Montserrat Caballé, she was a true exponent of bel canto singing.

James Hinton for Opera magazine[4] described her work in the 1954 Met Barbiere di Sivilgia in terms which praised her characterisation of Rosina as achieved by a curious means: "...she — almost literally – does nothing at all that is in the conventional sense 'effective'. She is rapidly becoming one of those great rarities... a personality who makes everyone believe in her characterizations. Even in that there is a flaw, for she really offers no characterization. The personality is always the same... Yet the audience believes... that this is the way whichever character she happens to be dressed as must have been..."

De los Ángeles performed regularly in song recitals with pianists Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons, occasionally appearing with other eminent singers, such as Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Her recitals of Spanish songs with the pianist Alicia de Larrocha were also legendary. She sang at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992, aged 68.[5]

She made many widely acclaimed recordings, including those of La vida breve, La bohème, Pagliacci, and Madama Butterfly. The last three paired her with the outstanding tenor Jussi Björling. She was particularly appreciative of Björling's unique talent. In de los Ángeles' biography by Peter Roberts, de los Ángeles noted that "in despite of technical developments, none of the Jussi Björling recordings give you the true sound of his voice. It was a far, far more beautiful voice than you can hear on the recordings he left".[6]

On 15 January 2005, Victoria de los Ángeles died of heart failure in Barcelona at the age of 81. She had been hospitalised for a bronchial infection since 31 December. Those close to her said her voice was still beautiful to the end.

De los Ángeles married Enrique Magriñá in 1948 and had two sons, one of whom survived her.