A Rosa of Another Name

 

Rosa Raisa - A Biography of a Diva with Selections from Her Memoirs by Charles Mintzer

 

 

 

A review by Michael Richter
 
Rosa Raisa may be the greatest singer of the first third of the twentieth century to be virtually forgotten by the start of the twenty-first. Critics around the globe searched for superlatives and comparisons, finding 'gorgeous', 'astonishing' and 'unmatched' insufficient and Destinn, Nordica and Sembrich (!) barely in the same league. Yet she left us only 56 recorded sides though she sang 49 roles, some in multiple languages. She herself regarded her recordings as inadequate and was known to break her copies; those who heard her in opera and concert appear to share her opinion, though they treasure the discs and their reissues as mementos of an unequalled voice.
 
Toscanini chose Raisa for two premieres: Boito's Nerone; and Puccini's Turandot. Puccini himself concurred on Turandot after having selected her for Puccini's La Rondine, which she was unable to create and never sang. Not a note of her performance in any of those has come down to us. Indeed, her career is full of such omissions: famed at La Scala and Covent Garden, lionized in Chicago, but never appearing with the Met where she would have rivalled her friend, Rosa Ponselle; finding the German language distasteful and so missing much of the Wagner repertoire which might well have catapulted her to even greater fame.
 
If it seems strange that a single soprano would be selected for the lyric Magda and the steely Turandot, it would be were the protagonists not to be played by Rosa Raisa. She was noted as regularly for her beauty, grace and dramatic sincerity as for her mighty voice - and even with respect to voice as often for her pianissimi and facility as for the immense high notes she produced.
 
Charles Mintzer has attempted a near-impossible task in this biography and has succeeded admirably. Extensive material from Raisa's notes preparatory to an autobiography merge seamlessly with reviews and comments from those who heard her. The connective tissue, the biographer's own text, maintains the style - dated but altogether fitting. The whole reads as though it had come from the soprano's pen, though surely she would have been reticent to include the encomia of others. It must be noted that there is negative criticism as well. Raisa's style was more intense and dramatic than appealed to some and from their observations it is clear that she would push her huge instrument beyond its accustomed golden tones in response to the dramatic situation.
 

Rosa Raisa as Rachel in La Juive
 
Raisa's commitment to her Jewish faith and to her half-Jewish (but practicing Catholic) husband come across clearly. What is not apparent is the extent to which Rimini's lesser achievements held back his devoted wife's career or whether on balance Raisa's devoted Jewish supporters counterbalanced unexpressed anti-Semitism. Such questions might have been unanswerable even if they had been addressed during her lifetime; today, they are beyond reach and the clues in this book are probably as close as we can come to resolving them for ourselves.
 
The biographer adds observations somewhat out of the style of the biography proper which themselves would justify another book:
When one considers such diverse opinions, one has to speculate whether the New York critics had an agenda and were overly exacting, or the South American critics were totally lacking in standards. As in all such cases, the truth probably lies somewhere in between. Raisa's singing was not nearly as unschooled as some New York critics wrote and was not as nearly perfect as the South Americans believed. As a general proposition English and American writers on things operatic tend to favor style and musicality over power and technical brilliance, although ideally all four elements are considered desirable. This dichotomy - perhaps not so evident now as then - between Latin-country operatic observers and Anglo-Saxon critics and audiences is an interesting subject with a very long history that goes far beyond Rosa Raisa. It explains in part why many artists, particularly female singers and tenors, who achieve great success in Italy and South America fail to impress equally certain powerful English-speaking critics and audiences.
 

Rosa Raisa as Norma, a photograph by Mishkin in New York
 
The wealth of resources tapped for this volume is remarkable. Since most of those whose input was essential are no longer with us, there seems little chance that a clearer picture can ever be provided of this remarkable if enigmatic singer. There are many occasions when the biographer's feelings toward his sources can be read clearly 'between the lines', but that does not keep him from reporting what he gleaned from them. We cannot judge the accuracy or candor with which her daughter, 'Jolly', related aspects of her mother's life and actions. We must rely on the biographer's reports and recognize his own skepticism in doing so.
 
I offer some criticism of the book which may reflect my own preferences. The final chapter on 'Perspective' does not summarize Raisa's career, distill her personality or deal sufficiently with her legacy, all of which are detailed in the chronology but would benefit from being brought together here. There are too few reminders of the year under discussion so that the reader can lose track of the overview in the specifics of engagements and events. For example, in discussing a trip to South America beginning on a small Swedish vessel, the reader is told that a larger vessel would have been endangered by the war, but must trace back many pages to find the specific year to establish the historic context.
 
I am reluctant to comment here on the form of the book as it will be published in December since the review copy is boldly identified as an 'ADVANCE UNCORRECTED PAGE PROOF'. I trust that the photos will be recognizable and the captions correctly assigned; that the paper will not be mottled with ink picked up from the facing page; that the promised index will be added and the page headings will correspond to the chapter titles. As a matter of taste, I would have preferred a more graceful typeface than the one chosen (Zapf Aldus) both to reflect the art of the subject and to make extended reading easier.
 
There are few artists of the twentieth century whose story needs telling as does Rosa Raisa's. There is little chance that it will ever be done as well again. Decades of research and assessment have been distilled in these pages and the history of twentieth-century opera is substantially enriched thereby.
 
© Michael Richter, 9 September 2001
mrichter@cpl.net
 
Charles Mintzer, Rosa Raisa - A Biography of a Diva with Selectrions from Her Memoirs, is to be published by Northeastern University Press, 360 Huntington Avenue, 416 CP, Boston, Mass 02115, USA, on 3 December 2001. 288pp with notes, discography, performance chronology, concert repertoire, (index?), ISBN1-55553-504-6. The price is US 30 dollars (cloth edition) 
 
Michael Richter was born in Philadelphia in 1939. After graduating from the University of Chicago in 1960, he worked in various technology fields, largely aerospace systems engineering, until being disabled by heart disease in 1989. His love of music emerged early, attending symphony concerts in Cincinnati, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. An obsession with music for the voice began with the discovery of Mozart's operas in the early 1960s and has never abated. For the past decade, he has combined professional and musical interests in efforts to preserve our common musical heritage, transferring recordings and publishing volumes of an Audio Encyclopedia, as described at his WWW site www.mrichter.com . He has published numerous articles in engineering journals together with a book on computer programming, but his writings, in both the Opera Quarterly and The Classical Singer, now focus on music and recording technology.