TESTAMENT

oadcasting frequently for Italian Radio.
Still she had not been taken up by the leading opera
houses outside of Italy, but John Christie, founder of
Glyndebourne Opera, must have heard her and been
impressed, booking her to be his Lady Macbeth in 1939
under Fritz Busch. As Michael Bott notes: “Few sopranos
have the vocal armoury to tackle the enormous difficulties
of Lady Macbeth, a role which demands tremendous vocal
agility and ranges from a low B to the pianissimo D flat of
the famous sleepwalking scene… with substantial vocal
athletics including powerful chest tones, trills in all
registers and two octave runs.”
It was this role that established Grandi’s reputation
internationally. Astonishingly, Verdi’s Macbeth had not
been performed prior to 1938 in England – but these ten
performances were a revelation and a triumph for Grandi.
“Anyone who heard Margherita Grandi sing [“Vieni,
t’affretta”] at Glyndebourne or Edinburgh knows that it
can, with its cabaletta... produce an effect of tigerish
ferocity, and it is not unreasonable to assume that this is
what Verdi had in mind and could obtain in his own day,”
wrote Lord Harewood in his new edition of Kobbé in
1954. The Sunday Times noted that “she is magnificently
voiced; it was thrilling to hear those notes… rolling out
with such power and freedom”, and The Observer
commented that she was “the prima donna that appears
only in the dreams of conductor and producer”.
In more normal times, she would have gone on to
become a great international star but the Second World
War loomed. Initially she was sent to a camp at Avellino,
near Naples, but her husband retrieved her and she
retreated to the Italian Alps near Bergamo for the duration,
only emerging occasionally, most notably taking the lead
role in the Italian première of Richard Strauss’s Friedenstag
in Venice in January 1940, and as Ottavia in Monteverdi’s
L’incoronazione di Poppea in Rome in April 1943 under
Serafin. In the mountains she is said to have actively
supported the partisans, helping to smuggle Allied airmen
to safety in Switzerland.
This enforced break was particularly disastrous for her.
In 1939 she was still in her prime at 47 years old, but by
the end of the war she was already 53 (late for a dramatic
soprano) and would soon begin to decline vocally.
However, she did pick up her career again in 1945, reemerging
in Verdi’s Requiem under Serafin at the Teatro
Lirico (the temporary home of La Scala) in Milan in June,
then in La Gioconda (with Stignani and Gigli) in July 1946
in Rome, opening Verona Festival’s first post-war season in
August in Aida.
Quite soon she came back to Britain, the scene of her
pre-war triumph as Lady Macbeth, repeating that success
with Glyndebourne Opera when they opened the first
Edinburgh Festival in 1947. There were nine performances
of Macbeth between 25 August and 13 September, and it
was the broadcast of that production on 27 August that
TESTAMENT
booklet note
English
forms the largest part of this new CD. After Edinburgh, she
sang Senta in a BBC broadcast of Wagner’s The Flying
Dutchman, then returned to Italy, giving Verdi’s Requiem
again under Serafin, this time at the Palazzo Ducale in
Genoa.
She also sang with the highly-regarded New London
Opera Company at the Stoll and Cambridge Theatres in
London between 1946 and 1949 (Donna Anna in Don
Giovanni and Tosca), her husband Giovanni with her as
director and designer. In the latter year she returned to the
Edinburgh Festival with Glyndebourne Opera as Amelia in
Un ballo in maschera under Gui, a role she shared with
Ljuba Welitsch.
She also finally made her Covent Garden début in
September, creating the role of Diana in Bliss’s The
Olympians. There, soon after, she gave five performances
of Il trovatore, and her stage career ended at Covent
Garden on 27 November 1951 as Tosca. Her husband,
Giovanni, retired as director of scenic design at La Scala
two years later. Margherita Grandi died in Milan in 1972.
Considering her stature, Grandi made a pitifully small
number of commercial recordings – her most famous
scenes as Lady Macbeth, recorded in 1947 and 1948 with
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Beecham,
Elisabetta’s aria from Don Carlo (also with the RPO, under
Erede), and “Pace, pace” from La forza del destino
(unfortunately destroyed) – these all for HMV. For Decca,
she recorded under Beecham the role of Giulietta in his
complete Tales of Hoffmann, the soundtrack to Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1947 film (which starred
Robert Helpmann, Moira Shearer and Frederick Ashton).
All her other surviving performances are from late in
her career, derived from radio broadcasts and rare ‘private
recordings’ – perhaps there are more still to be discovered?
For years collectors and connoisseurs have sought out
individual recordings by Margherita Grandi. Here, for the
first time, is a whole CD devoted to her ravishing artistry –
a unique opportunity for a new generation of singers and
opera-lovers to discover her.
Roger Neill, 2006