Golden Era soprano Mirella Freni has died. A childhood friend of Luciano Pavarotti, the two actually shared the same wet nurse, as both their mothers worked in a cigarette factory. The children even sometimes wore identical clothing. Later, of course, they would be teamed in the opera house and on recordings.
Freni won acclaim early with her radiant singing as Mimi, Micaëla, Nanetta, and Susanna. By the early ‘70s, she began tackling some of the heavier roles, such as Desdemona and Aida. Even so, she was realistic about how much stress her voice could handle, and she selected her roles carefully.
In the early ‘80s, she married Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, her second husband. He encouraged her to expand her repertoire to include Russian roles. She went on to become a notable Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.”
Freni was 84 years-old. In an afternoon in which I’ll also remember Leontyne Price and Cesare Siepi on their birthdays (to say nothing of film composer Jerry Goldsmith, on his), I’ll celebrate Freni’s artistry, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.