Rosa Ponselle

The first paid job of Rosa Ponselle was as singer in a small theater in Meriden, CT, called The Star. She was 15 years old, and was already an acomplished piano player. She was instantly succesful and was hired ...

Incredibly enough, having a voice that seemed chiseled to sing some of the Puccini heroines, Ponselle never performed in a staging of any opera by the Toscan composer.

In part, this was due to the MET's politics ...

Below we can find the repertoire on stage of Rosa Ponselle. The list is ordered by number of performances, and contains:

Opera - Composer - Number of performances ...

Rosa Ponselle adored Enrico Caruso, and considered him the greatest singer ever. With the great Italian tenor she sung two operas: La Forza del Destino, of which ...

Ponselle was not a great Mozartian singer, to be sure. However, she did sing the role of Donna Anna in the MET, in 1930, and offered 15 performances, with people like Gigli, Schipa, Ezio Pinza, Elisabeth Rethberg, Maria Müller,... ...

Rosa Ponselle retired in 1937, barely forty years old, due to a variety of reasons we will review in coming articles.

After her retirement, she lived in Baltimore, in ...

Cavalleria Rusticana was the second opera sung by Ponselle in the MET, giving her first rendition of Santuzza in December, 1918. She was to sing the role on stage 37 ...

Rosa Ponselle sung La Gioconda for the first time in Philadelphia, ...

Carmen was the last role Ponselle added into her repertoire. Her first performance was in December, 1935, at the MET. Hardly one year later, her last MET performance ...

Norma was absent from the MET, since the times of Lilli Lehmann, whose last performance in the role was back in 1891.

Lehmann ...

Of course, Rosa Ponselle was first and foremost a verdian soprano. One of the greatest Verdi sopranos of all time.
...

Rosa Ponselle's most cherished operatic project was to sing Violetta. She was powerfully attracted by the dramatic weight of the role. From a purely vocal point of view, after having ...

In 1921, Ponselle made her debut in Ernani, singing the difficult role of Elvira. With her on stage were Giuseppe Martinelli, Giuseppe Danise and José Mardones. ...

Ponselle sung Aida for the first time in 1921, still very young. Everything was positive at the beginning, with the audience, the critics and the singer all quite happy ...

Apart from her contract with the MET, Ponselle offered recitals all along the US (and made a solid profit singing them), and also participated often in radio broadcasts.

Of course, she sung a few operatic arias in those events, but most of her repertoire were popular songs, other well known pieces and even some lied.

We can listen to Ponselle below in this other ...