The Archive - Victoria de los Ángeles

The Archive - Victoria de los Ángeles

Today’s ‘The Archive’ pays homage to Victoria de los Ángeles who, along with Teresa Berganza and Montserrat Caballé, was one of the great Spanish divas of the past century. Our selection gives a sense of the range of her talent, from German lieder to Italian opera, without overlooking the music of her countrymen, whom she brought to the world’s attention, performing their work in concerts alongside the music of Schubert, Schumann, and Fauré. This episode opens with a recording of Victoria de Los Ángeles from 1957, in which she’s accompanied by the very best pianist in the genre, Gerald Moore, in a programme of Brahms, de Falla, and Schubert. Indeed, whenever she could, she included his ode to her art, ‘An die Musik’, in her recital, bringing her audience a moment of shared emotion. After seeing the recitalist, we turn to Victoria de los Ángeles in her capacity as opera singer, for a 1962 BBC recording: under the baton of Georges Prêtre she moves effortlessly from the ‘Barber of Seville’ to ‘Madama Butterfly’. We start with Elisabeth’s entrance aria from Act II of ‘Tannhäuser’, a souvenir of her performance at the Bayreuth Festival, where the iconoclastic Wieland Wagner caused a scandal by casting a Spanish Elisabeth alongside a black Venus, sung by Grace Bumbry.