Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A Catalan soprano, best known for her operatic performances.
On the island
Eight records
Die Walküre: Act II, Brünnhilde's Entrance
Because big it when I heard. His voice, the way she sings this entrance, is something immense.
La Juive: Rachel, quand du Seigneur
because of Richard Tucker. ... At the beginning in my career in America, in the United States I sang with him several times. It was something like a human being trying to do his job the best he could. trying to help other people. to growing up in a career. He was a peasant that loved music over everything. And the respect He has, for all the rest of his colleagues, this something as an example, and because as exemple is the only tenor I take with me in the island.
Die Zauberflöte: Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön
because when I was in Bremen, my first my fourth year of career, my first year season in Bremen, they called me to do Sauber Freud in the festival in Lausanne and they explained to me that Wunderlich was the tenor. I could believe it, but it was so I went there and at the moment of the Pre Generale, before the dress rehearsal, he was looking for for uh this billnies, you know, the the little thing they have in the hand.
La Sonnambula: L'anello mio... Ah! non credea mirarti
Because, um, like always, I want to have Maria with me, no matter where I am. ... she represents for me the greatest musician and the greatest singer of all times.
Die Walküre: Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond
Because my father loved it, because I love it, because I think that was a real Wagner tenor.
Strauss is one of my Volovo's composers and nobody ever sang Strauss like Elizabeth Batkov. And I choose the last song in Abenrot, because when you are in a desert island again and you have to take eight records I think you have to think in the memories, in the good things, in the nice things, in the musical things and when the time passes, one day you go. So it's good to have a music to prepare yourself. So I think this is a music of that kind, with his magical voice.
Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23
He's like magic. and in this ballad at twenty three Shopping is magic too, so two magicians together I think for a desert island is something superb.
Because I think Really, that is very human prey, this Mendelssohn song. ... And somehow, somewhere, has to be a Lord. And because has to be a Lord, it's good to pray to a Lord, like a human being. And Mendelssohn in this song has produced a song which is a a prayer that prays as a human being To alar. I think in the moment you die, or in the moment you feel you're going to die, you have to pray to a Lord. That is why I choose this Mendelssohn.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:00Was there a lot of music in your home?
Yes, indeed. Because my parents love music. They have uh lots of recordings. We were a very simple family, human family, and very hard times. ... After the world and after the world, so they try very constantly to to buy and and the recordings, they love it. And I was used from my very first moment, I think, in life to listen to music, no matter which kind.
Presenter asks
3:45What do you remember about the Spanish Civil War?
really I I was born on april thirty three, twelfth of april thirty three, and the war began in Spain in thirty six. So I was three years old. My memories of the war are not very clear in my mind. But things I remember, for example, is my father in the hospital, which I went with my mother to visit him ... because he was ... hurt I mean, uh badly hurt. And we went to the hospital, and that I remember. I remember two uh bombing in Barcelona, and my father carrying me ... in his arm, going steps down, very quick, very quick, and I remember sort of soup teranio. Yes. Hundreds of people went there.
Presenter asks
6:06When did you first go to the opera house?
not even eight. It was the first season they reopened at the opera house in Barcelona after the war, and it was with Madame Butterfly, Mercedes Capsire, an old singer of ours, sang Butterfly, and to me it was a great impression because I ever see an opera before, I only listen to the music.
The keepsakes
The book
Not recorded.
Presenter asks
6:36When did you start music lessons yourself?
Well, I begin at the Conservatory in Barcelona with eight only music, sorfego. ... And uh with twelve then I begin I put on piano too, clap clavier. And then they begin to say have a voice, the teachers, in the school, in the conservatorium in Barcelona. So with fourteen then I begin to study voice with a Hungarian teacher, Eugenia Kemeny
Presenter asks
8:45Does your father play your records?
I know, papa never penalised my records. ... No, because papa says ... that really my voice for him. ... My voice is a special sound. and this special sound has been never put in a record.
Presenter asks
37:34How much time do you get at home with your husband and children at the farm?
At the farm, uh every year I am there one month in summer time. And then of course when the children have the the holidays in pack, we are almost there all the time.
“My voice is a special sound. and this special sound has been never put in a record.”
“The encores are the cup of champagne for me.”
“One needs an island where you're going alone to be the rest of your life. You don't try to escape. You accept it. When it's an island that you going and can escape, you don't take eight records.”