Bidu Sayao his second wife 2

Bidù Sayao, Danise’s last wife

She and the baritone Giuseppe Danise were married in 1947, and he gave up his career to manage hers.

Biography

Bidú Sayão was one of the most beloved sopranos in the entire history of opera. She was known for her ethereal, silvery tone and a stage presence of delicacy and refinement.

Born (1907) to an upper-class family, she was named Balduina de Oliveira Sayão after her grandmother. Her father died when she was five years old. She wanted to be an actress, but as going on the stage was "out of the question for a girl born in a respectable family," she studied voice with the aid of an uncle. Her talent led her to one of the world's leading teachers, Elena Theodorini. Some sources say an appearance in Lucia di Lammermoor at Rio's Teatro Municipal, when she was 18, removed family opposition to her dream of singing. Sayão continued studies with Theodorini in Europe. In 1922, she became a pupil of Jean de Reszke, a tenor with one of history's purest vocal techniques. After he died, she returned to make a stunning second debut in Rio, in 1926, as Rosina in The Barber of Seville. She sang widely in Europe, with performances in Paris at La Scala and in Rome.

Toscanini, hearing her in Traviata, engaged her for her U.S. concert debut with him at the New York Philharmonic in 1935. For the next two years she performed primarily in her native Brazil. But in 1937, she was booed outrageously as Micaela in Carmen, allegedly by a claque organized by the singer playing Carmen. The outraged Sayão said she would not sing in Brazil. She joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera, debuting in 1937 as Massenet's Manon. Other favorite roles were Mimì in La Bohème, Debussy's Mélisande, and Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro.

It was Sayão who is credited with convincing Heitor Villa-Lobos to change the solo part of Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, from violin to wordless soprano. The work became the composer's most famous piece, and the 1945 recording the most famous of Sayão's 35 78 rpm releases and her dozen LPs. Sayão made extensive concert tours, and endeared herself by frequently singing for wounded servicemen during World War II. She left the Met's roster in 1951 and retired from opera in 1954. She came out of retirement three years later, at the request of Villa-Lobos, to sing on his recording of his composition Forest of the Amazon, perhaps her only recording in stereo. It may have been the act of singing this intensely Brazilian music that prompted her to relent in her ban on singing in Brazil, for she made one farewell appearance in Rio, in 1958. After that she retired with her second husband, the well-known Italian baritone Giuseppe Danise, to their home in Lincolnville, ME, a North Atlantic seaside town (Danise died in 1963). There, she lived a quiet life caring for her cats and frequently playing cards with her local friends and visitors.

The coming of compact discs prompted reissues of many of her recordings, a fact which, she told a São Paolo newspaper, made her feel "relieved," since she had been "tormented" by the idea that all her work had been forgotten. She had a nearly fatal stroke in 1993, but recovered fairly well, considering her age of 92. In 1995, she returned to Rio for the last time, when she learned that the Beija-Flor Samba School had chosen her life story as the subject for its presentations in the great Carnival parade of that year. That was her last public appearance. She died of pneumonia, at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, ME, at the age of 97.

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Name/Bidu-Sayao/Performer/19574-2

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Giuseppe Danise was a very popular lyric baritone during the war years, both here in the U.S., in Italy, and all over the world.

He met Bidu Sayao in Naples, at the San Carlo Opera Theater, in 1935, which at the time was run (believe it or not) by Bidu's first husband, Walter Mocchi, a great Italian impresario who lived for many years in Brazil and Argentina.

Danise was the teacher of several opera stars, the last of which, American tenor Barry Morell, very recently died. Danise told his student, Morell, that his voice category was not that of a baritone, but of a very excellent tenor. Morell went on to a career at the Metropolitan Opera and other American theaters, and even recorded some albums of opera arias, but he did not have a major career. Still, he had a beautiful voice.

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Bidu Sayao layed It Straight

August 24, 1986

Interview by WALTER PRICE, Los Angeles Time

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Balduína "Bidú" de Oliveira Sayão

(May 11, 1902 – March 12, 1999 was a Brazilian opera soprano. One of Brazil's most famous musicians, Sayão was a leading artist of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1937 to 1952.

Life and career

Bidú Sayão was born to a cultured family in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro. Her father died when she was five years old and her mother struggled to support her daughter's costly pursuit of a singing career. At the age of only eighteen, the gifted Bidú Sayão made her major opera debut in Rio de Janeiro. Her acclaimed performance led to an opportunity to study with the famous Elena Teodorini, first in Brazil and then in Romania; and then to study with the renowned Polish tenor and tutor, Jean de Reszke, in Nice. During the mid 1920s and early 1930s, she performed in Rome, Buenos Aires, Paris, as well as in her native Brazil. While at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, she met impresario Walter Mocchi (1870–1955). After his wife, soprano Emma Carelli, died in 1928, the two became romantically involved and were married.

However, it did not last and in 1935 Sayão married the Italian baritone, Giuseppe Danise (1883–1963).

In 1930, she debuted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and in the next year she sang a successful Juliette, in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, at the Paris Opera. In the same year, she gained a great success with her debut at the Opéra Comique as Lakmé. She soon became one of the leading lyric coloratura sopranos in Europe, especially in Italy and France. Her repertoire included Lucia di Lammermoor, Amina in La sonnambula, Elvira in I puritani, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos and Cecilia in Il Guarany, among other roles.

Metropolitan Opera

Bidú Sayão made her U.S. debut in a recital at Town Hall in New York City on December 30, 1935. Her U.S. operatic debut followed not long thereafter, on January 21, 1936, when she and Danise sang in the penultimate production of the Washington National Opera, a semi-professional company not associated with its modern namesake; the performance, of Léo Delibes's Lakmé, was marred by a fractious dispute in which the orchestra musicians declined to play without payment in cash, and ultimately the performance was accompanied by a portable organ, with some singers appearing in costume and some in street clothes owing to a similar demand by the stage hands and costume man.[3] Altogether more dignified was her performance a few months later with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall singing La damoiselle élue by Debussy. Her performance was under the baton of Arturo Toscanini, who would become her greatest supporter and lifelong friend. She sang her first performance at the Metropolitan Opera as Manon on February 13, 1937, replacing the Spanish soprano Lucrezia Bori. The critics, including Olin Downes of the New York Times [1], raved about her performance and within a few weeks she was given the lead in La traviata, followed soon thereafter by Mimì in La bohème. She also contributed to the Mozart revival at the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the pre-eminent Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro) of her generation.

As the favorite singer of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, she had an artistic partnership with him that lasted many years and made a number of recordings of his compositions, including a famous recording of the Bachiana Brasileira No. 5.

Bidú Sayão and her husband Giuseppe Danise purchased an oceanfront property in Lincolnville, Maine. After fifteen years with the Metropolitan Opera, she gave her last performance in 1952, choosing to retire from opera while still at the top of her form. For the next two years she was a guest performer throughout the U.S., but in 1957 she decided to retire completely from public performance; two years after that she made her final recording as the soprano soloist on Villa-Lobos's world premiere stereo recording of his cantata Forest of the Amazon with the composer conducting the Symphony of the Air.

Following the death of her husband in 1963, Bidú Sayão lived a quiet life at her home in Maine. She returned to visit Brazil a last time in 1995, for a tribute to her during the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, and died a few years later at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine. Her ashes were scattered across the bay in front of her home.

Although Brazilians have always been strong patrons of the opera, at the time Bidú Sayão was struggling to launch her career there was little in the way of government assistance for aspiring singers; throughout her life she spoke about this lack of support. Following her last visit to her homeland, the government prepared plans to honor her memory. In 2000 the Bidu Sayão International Vocal Competition was established to promote Brazilian operatic talent through a world-class competition.

Bidú Sayão's portrait hangs in the lobby at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Brazzil - Music - January 2004

http://www.brazzil.com

Bidu Sayao and Carmen Miranda: Two Brazilian Charmers

The old truism that "good things come in small packages" was never more so than in describing the physically compact and vocally alluring attributes of the lovely Bidu Sayão and the electric Carmen Miranda. They were the central figures in Brazilian opera and popular entertainment for the better part of 30 years.

Joe Lopes

http://josmarlopes.wordpress.com/

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BRAZIL'S FAT LADY CAN'T SING—ACT FOUR

Intermezzo: When the Stars First Came Out

As the soprano concluded the last of her encores, and was savoring the applause of an appreciative American public gathered to hear her command performance at the White House in Washington, D.C., then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt enthusiastically approached the fragile-looking figure before him and complimented Bidu Sayão on a most enjoyable concert program.

In the same breath, he casually proposed to the Brazilian singer an immediate American citizenship, most likely a calculated gesture on his part, and motivated by his administration's bold dedication to the policy of the "good northern neighbor."

Obviously flattered by her host's generous offer, the gracious Bidu politely declined. "Thank you, Mr. President," she was acknowledged to have stated, "but I am a Brazilian artist, and would like to die as one." The date was February 1938.

A little over a year later, on May 17, Broadway producer Lee Shubert, of the Shubert Brothers Theatrical Company, was getting ready to greet another Brazilian artist, one whose ship had just pulled into New York harbor, with her band and retinue in tow.

She was scheduled to make her U.S. debut in the Shubert's 1939 musical revue "The Streets of Paris," a show that also featured the local appearance of comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. The artist's name was Carmen Miranda.

Disembarking from the S.S. Uruguay, she was met by a horde of big city newspapermen, all eager to record the spontaneous comments of this sizzling new Latin sensation.

Carmen did not disappoint them. Her first words to the waiting crowd were reported to have been, "I say money, money, money, and I say hot dog! I say yes and no, and I say money, money, money, and I say turkey sandwich, and I say grape juice," and so on.

These two radically distinct responses, and seemingly unrelated occurrences, would come to denote to the Brazilian artistic community that, for a precious lucky few, living and working in North America—even while earning fame and fortune on her streets and in her theaters—would prove to be a most illusory pursuit.

They would also serve to teach multi-talented Brazilians some valuable life lessons in the world outside their native land: that the pains and compromises, glories and frustrations, triumphs and disappointments all such artists regularly endured for their art were no substitute for the loss of their Brazilian identity.

To paraphrase a line from Rudyard Kipling, rare were the artists that could keep their own heads, when all about them others were losing theirs. And there exist no finer examples of this than the stories of these two marvelous Brazilian singers.

Certainly, the old truism that "good things come in small packages" was never more so than in describing the physically compact and vocally alluring attributes of the lovely Bidu Sayão and the electric Carmen Miranda.

In reverse proportion to their small stature, they were the central figures in Brazilian opera and popular entertainment for the better part of 30 years.

Act Four, Scene One: Prima Donna Par Excellence

Formally trained in Brazil and Europe, deeply influenced by the legendary Polish tenor Jean de Reszke and by her second husband, the Italian baritone Giuseppe Danise, Bidu Sayão was Brazil's most well known classical vocal export, and every inch an opera star of the first magnitude.

Although christened Balduína de Oliveira Sayão after her paternal grandmother, she would forever be known by the simple nickname "Bidu." Indeed, simplicity and restraint, in matters both personal and professional, were to become the hallmarks of her fame.

She was born in Rio de Janeiro on May 11, 1902 to a socially prominent upper-class family, which relocated to the beachfront district of Botafogo when Bidu was five years old. Tragically, her father died shortly thereafter, thus depriving her of a masculine role model and leaving the poor girl to her own juvenile devices.

Playful and tomboyish, with a unique flair for fun and mischief, the incorrigible Bidu was never to attend public school with the other children of her age group; she was instead to receive private tutoring at her mother's home up through the age of 16.

But the independence and resourcefulness she first exhibited in her youth would later manifest themselves on the operatic stage in many of her most memorable comic parts, especially those of Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Adina in The Elixir of Love, and Rosina in The Barber of Seville.

Soon after her father's untimely demise, Bidu's older brother would assume his rightful place as the family patriarch, but the real seat of power would always remain with her mother, Maria José. Significantly, though, the absence of a strong male figure in her formative years may well have been one of the causes of Bidu's early marriage to a man three times as old as herself.

Yet even before this would come to pass, the choice of a theatrical profession for a society debutante from Rio was much frowned upon at the time by the privileged upper stratum. Recalling the event some years later, Bidu commented that "going on the stage was absolutely out of the question for a girl born to a respectable family."

This aspect of her early career struggles was charmingly captured in a 1940s comic-book depiction of her life entitled Boast of Brazil. In it, the young 14-year-old is shown being scolded by her parents (the father's death a decade before notwithstanding) about her wrongheaded career decision, and told, in no uncertain terms, how disgraceful it was "for any well-brought up Brazilian girl even to consider such a thing."

Not to be dissuaded, the typically resilient teenager pleaded with her lawyer uncle, Alberto Costa, to take up her cause. As a result, the musically inclined Costa became instrumental in swaying the mother's opinion about a potential singing career for her daughter, having earlier arranged for his niece to take private lessons from Romanian soprano Elena Theodorini, a former star of La Scala—who personally thought the girl too immature, and the voice too small, for such a serious undertaking.

Nevertheless, Bidu persevered, and with patience, practice and stubborn persistence managed to survive Madame Theodorini's rigid voice sessions. This led to her informal 1916 debut at Rio's Teatro Municipal in the Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor, an appearance that would permanently put to rest the question of a career in the theater.

Theodorini's resolute decision in 1918 to retire from teaching and return to her native country coincided with the end of World War I; it also gave good cause for the adventurous Bidu to accompany her instructor back to the Continent, the first time the blossoming prima donna had ever been away from her family.

The time she spent abroad, however, was indeed fruitful, as Bidu applied for and was admitted to Jean de Reszke's famed vocal school in Nice, France, where she was the only one of his personally handpicked pupils to have hailed from Latin America.

The still-elegant Polish tenor had been a leading man with New York's Metropolitan Opera long before Caruso's debut there, and was a fixture at the house for many years prior to his retirement in 1904. He would be the next to take on the role of surrogate father to the little Brazilian novice, helping to refine and perfect her diction, and instructing her in the long-lost tradition of French singing style and vocal technique:

"De Reszke had an extraordinary ability to evaluate the text, integrating it to the music until they became one. This was to be of enormous help to me…(the score) became a real part of me, so many were the times he made me go over it, concentrating on the words' essence and producing sounds that would enhance them."

Bidu Sayão

With the death of De Reszke in 1925, and Theodorini's own passing the following year, Bidu was forced to seek assistance elsewhere in planning for her operatic future. She journeyed to Italy for the express purpose of establishing contact with former diva Emma Carelli and her husband, the noted impresario Walter Mocchi, whom she had previously heard about while living in Brazil.

The couple ran the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, and since 1910, Mocchi had also been responsible for the opera performances at the Teatro Municipal in Rio, as well as the summer seasons at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

Mocchi took quite a fancy to the young Brazilian beauty, as did his wife. Suitably impressed by the little songbird's talents, Signora Carelli referred her to maestro Luigi Ricci for training in operatic repertoire, and on March 25, 1926, Bidu Sayão made her official European debut at the Teatro Costanzi as Rosina in The Barber of Seville, later adding Gilda in Rigoletto, and Carolina in Il Matrimonio Segreto, to her growing list of stage roles.

Her success in the Italian capital paved the way for Bidu's triumphant return to the Brazilian one; she reappeared in Rio de Janeiro as Rosina in June of that year. In the meantime, Mocchi had gone ahead and contracted her for several seasons at São Paulo's Teatro Municipal, where he had previously accepted the management's offer of a full-time directorship.

Bidu went on to perform there in various works, including the part of Sister Madalena in the opera of the same name by, of all people, her uncle Alberto, a sentimental payback of sorts for his having served as the family intermediary ten years prior.

How much Mocchi's new position had to do with the singer's extended local engagement, however, is not known, but it soon became a situation rife with romantic speculation. Irrespective of the rumors that might have been generated by the proximity of these two individuals, fate would inevitably thrust them even closer together, for in 1928, Emma Carelli was involved in a fatal car accident in Italy. Her sudden death left a personal void in the busy professional life of Walter Mocchi, who now looked to Bidu for consolation.

It would be easy to suggest that her subsequent marriage to the much older Mocchi was a relatively stable one, but the enormous 40-year difference in their ages proved a difficult gap for Bidu to close. She later admitted her mistake, claiming "I have always searched for my father in the husbands that I married." They separated after a time, and were finally divorced in 1934.

The following year, Bidu would at last meet her prospective soul mate in the person of Italian opera star Giuseppe Danise.

It was during a 1935 performance of Rigoletto in Naples, quite possibly in one of the many moving numbers they had so often sung together at rehearsal, that soprano and baritone decided to transform their budding emotional relationship into a permanent love duet.

They tied the knot soon afterward, and remained constantly devoted to one another until Danise's own departure from this world in 1963. He was 19 years her senior.

Act Four, Scene Two: The Brazilian Bombshell Bursts onto the Scene

Amazingly enough, Bidu Sayão was a close contemporary of another popular entertainer, the exceptionally-gifted Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, better known by her professional name as Carmen Miranda.

Born in the town of Marco de Canavezes in Portugal on February 9, 1909, Carmen came to Brazil with her family when she was not yet two, and grew up in the city of Rio, at about the same time that Bidu was learning to climb trees in her backyard.

She was called "Carmen" in honor of the Spanish protagonist made famous by the eponymously titled Bizet opera, or so the story goes. Otherwise, her connection to the art form was minimal, if non-existent.

She, too, was the offspring of a well-to-do family. In her father's case, he was the owner of a successful wholesale produce business, after first starting out as a barber (!), although some sources are in disagreement over this.

But whatever the family's financial condition had been, the naturally plucky and irresistible personality that characterized the young Portuguese immigrant was already in evidence. Little Carmen left no doubt as to what her future aspirations might be: she would tell everyone that she was predestined by the entertainment Muses for a career on the stage and in the movies.

Like most working-class youngsters in Brazil at the time, she was forced to quit school at an early age to go into the business world, holding down a variety of low-paying jobs, including one as a chatty salesgirl, and another as a "singing" store clerk, which resulted in her being fired by an irate boss for deliberately distracting her co-workers.

Luckily for her, and for the labor market, Carmen was snapped up by several local radio stations while simultaneously cutting her first records for the Brunswick label. She eventually landed a contract in 1928 with RCA Victor, later with Odeon-Brazil and American Decca. Her large recorded output of popular songs, sambas, and other more obscure material would reach into the literal hundreds.

Some revisionist authors have described her early singing style as a Carioca version of Elvis Presley, that is, of a poorly educated white person with a modicum of musical talent who just so happened to incorporate the soul and substance of African descendants into her entertainment vocabulary, and in the process made them virtually her own.

While the jury may still be out on Elvis, it is an unfair indictment in the case of Carmen Miranda. In the first place, she was neither poor nor uneducated, nor was she a "pale" imitator of a prevailing ethnic trend; in the second, the growth of choro, marcha, maxixe, modinha, and samba had already spurred on many of Brazil's early songwriters and composers to write down and interpret them as far back as 1915, most strikingly by Ernesto Nazaré, Chiquinha Gonzaga, Pixinguinha, and Heitor Villa-Lobos, joined later by the likes of Noel Rosa, Ary Barroso, João de Barros, and Dorival Caymmi.

Carmen's particular genius was in taking the basic raw elements found in this multitude of musical styles and thoroughly reinvigorating the form by applying to it her own unique blend of crystal-clear vocalism, rapid-fire verbal patter, and razor-sharp rhythm. This would ultimately lead to her creation of a black-white composite of the streetwise baiana, an endearing (and idealized) cultural by-product of Northeastern Brazil, accessible to even the most sophisticated of theater-minded audiences.

She would develop this character further in her later domestic and 20th Century-Fox film work, but for now she strived hard to concentrate on her nightclub routines with younger sister Aurora. The two of them would appear frequently throughout the thirties at the Cassino da Urca in Rio, and usually backed by the Bando da Lua combo.

Such bubbling effervescence as Carmen Miranda seemed to exude should have been a veritable shoe-in for the nascent Brazilian film industry; and, true to form, she soon appeared in her first feature O Carnaval Cantando no Rio, in 1932, although she sang in only one musical number. A Voz do Carnaval was released the following year, along with Alô Alô Brasil and Estudantes (both 1935), Alô Alô Carnaval (1936), and Banana da Terra (1939), where she introduced moviegoers to her Bahian alter ego.

During one of her many flamboyant performances at the Urca, visiting American impresario Lee Shubert decided to hire the flashy entertainer for his new Broadway extravaganza, to premiere in New York in the summer of 1939.

The stage was now set for the Hollywood phase of Carmen Miranda's showbiz career, a change not as readily accepted, or as welcomed, by fellow Brazilians as her "O que é que a baiana tem?" (What is it that the Baiana has?) period.

Act Four, Scene Three: Enter Arturo Toscanini and the Old Met

That most formidable of early 20th Century classical musicians, Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, would once again influence the direction of Brazilian opera by his fortuitous intervention in the burgeoning American career of soprano Bidu Sayão.

There exist several versions of their fabled encounter, but suffice it to say that the notoriously demanding maestro may have been moved by the Brazilian singer's sensitive portrayal of the consumptive Violetta Valery in Verdi's La Traviata, given in 1935 at Milan's historic Teatro alla Scala, where Toscanini had once served as director.

At a formal reception for the diva in 1936 at Town Hall in New York City, Toscanini introduced himself to Bidu, and immediately piqued her musical interest in a work she had not previously performed in: French composer Claude Debussy's poetic cantata La Demoiselle Élue (The Blessed Damozel), originally written for mezzo-soprano, a voice category the normally stratospheric coloratura was unaccustomed to.

Undaunted by the challenges inherent in this offbeat proposal, Toscanini offered to coach "la piccola Brasiliana" in the difficult piece, and even recommended an alternative higher key for her comfort, to which he likewise supplied a revised vocal score. Needless to say, Bidu was hooked by this rare chance to work with the renowned Italian taskmaster, and willingly swallowed the bait.

With the experienced hand of Arturo Toscanini leading her and the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra and Schola Cantorum Singers, Bidu Sayão made an auspicious Carnegie Hall debut in the Debussy work on April 16, 1936, to rave reviews in the press.

Taking advantage of the increased exposure her New York appearances had provided, Bidu spent the next several seasons commuting to and from her native Brazil, and her soon-to-be-adopted North American homeland. She gave innumerable performances on both continents, but paid particular attention to Brazilian shores, by some accounts appearing in as many as 200 different locales spanning the length and breadth of the country.

Upon her return visit to the States, the board of the Metropolitan Opera (at Toscanini's insistence) tapped the busy soprano to appear in a part not generally associated with South American artists: that of Jules Massenet's wholly and beguilingly Gallic young heroine, the beautiful and coquettish Manon Lescaut.

Although he himself no longer had any direct involvement in running the company, Toscanini nonetheless proved relentless in persuading the Met's stodgy leadership to take on the Brazilian nightingale for this plum assignment—this despite the fact that Manon was not a role that required the kind of vocal fireworks that Bidu was then capable of, nor was it yet a regular staple of her core repertoire.

Fortunately for the Met, the singer had been slowly expanding her roster of parts to encompass the more lyric roles of Violetta in La Traviata, Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and Mimì in Puccini's La Bohème, even before she had met her second husband, Giuseppe Danise. It was to Danise's lasting credit, however, that he was able to confidently guide his wife further along this newfound path, thereby stretching her usual list of soubrette parts by including more dramatic vocal opportunities.

This admittedly opened up fresher avenues for Bidu to explore, now that she had been performing ad infinitum the same well-worn roles of Lucia, Susanna and Rosina over the entire course of her career, even though audiences still flocked to see her in them.

With her authentic French diction and remarkable ability to breathe dramatic life into increasingly complex characters, Bidu Sayão was ideally poised to conquer the stages of North America, just as she had done in Europe and Latin America for the last 10 years.

Finally, on February 13, 1937, on a cold and wintry Saturday afternoon, the captivating Brazilian soprano stepped out from behind the golden curtain and into the warm glow of the stage at the old Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway and 39th Street, to bask in a well-deserved ovation for her premiere performance in Massenet's Manon. She delivered what many of her staunchest fans would come to regard as her most elaborately prepared, most fully realized, and most passionately heartfelt portrait to date.

Manon would go on to become her third most requested role (22 performances in all) during her Met tenure, lagging behind only Susanna and Mimì (46 performances each), and Violetta (with 23), in number of times sung.

It is noteworthy to point out that Bidu Sayão had established a firm foothold on the legitimate Broadway stage two years and four months before Carmen Miranda was to do so, and a full three years prior to Carmen's own footprints were to be permanently enshrined on Hollywood's immortal Walk of Fame.

Intermission

Sources & Recommended Reading:

"A Bidu Sayão Album: 1902-1999," from the Metropolitan Opera Archives, www.metopera.org/history/week-990920.html, 1999.

Academia do Samba: "Bidu Sayão e o Canto de Cristal," www.academiadosamba.com.br/passarela/beijaflor/ficha -1995.htm, 1995.

"Carmen Miranda: Sambas," www.wwoz.com/html/rev_three_brazillian.html, no date.

"Cultura e Conhecimento: Prima Donnas," www.brasilcult.pro.br/teatro/painel31.htm, no date.

"Ecco! Bidu Sayão," www.ecco.com.br/vita_mia/oriundi_tradcar.asp, no date.

Iosue, Giancarlo, "Beyond the Bananas," Brazzil Magazine, February 2003, www.brazzil.com/pages/p136feb03.htm.

Dibbell, Julian, "Notes on Carmen: A Few Things We Have Yet to Learn from History's Most Incandescent Cross-Dresser," The Village Voice, October 29, 1991.

Higginbotham, Carlton, "Opera Shop: Bidu Sayão," www.bassocantante.com/opera/sayao.html, 2000.

Jackson, Denny, "Biography for Carmen Miranda," Internet Movie Database, http://us.imdb.com.name/nm0000544.bio, no date.

Jackson, Paul, "Obituaries: Bidu Sayão, 1902-1999" Opera News Magazine, New York, June 1999.

Luís, Émerson, "Silenced Nightingale," Brazzil Magazine, March 1999, www.brazzil.com/pages/p11mar99.htm.

Sachs, Harvey (editor and translator), "The Letters of Arturo Toscanini," Knopf Publishers, New York, 2002.

São Paulo ImagemData, "Bidu Sayão," www2.uol.com.br/spimagem/bidu/melhor.html, no date.

Stevenson, Joseph, "Bidu Sayão," All Classical Guide, www.allclassical.com.cg/acg.dll?p=acg&sql=1:50887~C, no date.

Warrack, John, and West, Ewan, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1992, updated 1994.

Joe Lopes, a naturalized American citizen born in Brazil, was raised and educated in New York, where he worked for many years in the financial sector. In 1996, he moved to Brazil with his Brazilian wife and daughters. In January 2001, he returned to the U.S. and now resides in North Carolina with his family. He is a lover of all types of music, especially opera and jazz, as well as an incurable fan of classic films.

You can email your comments to JosmarLopes@msn.com

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O BEIJA FLOR DO CARNAVAL

www.ecco.com.

Bidu Sayão no desfile da escola de samba Beija-Flor, no Rio de Janeiro, no Carnaval de 1995.Não apenas na música popular exerceram influência os italianos. Considerada uma das maiores cantoras líricas do mundo, a carioca Bidu Sayão recebeu em 1984, mesmo depois de afastada dos palcos já 20 anos, o Hall of Fame, prêmio dedicado apenas às gravações raras, da National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, dos Estados Unidos, por sua interpretação das Bachianas Brasileiras número 5, do maestro Heitor Villa-Lobos. Em 1936, a primeira aparição de Bidu num palco estrangeiro, mais precisamente no Carnegie Hall, se deu pelas mãos do maestro Artur Toscanini.

Bidu tem sua história intimamente ligada à Itália e sua cultura. Seja pela condução musical do apadrinhamento de Toscanini, seja pelos dois casamentos de sua vida, com italianos ligados à música. A franzina moça fascinava pela beleza e voz e cantou pela primeira vez em 7 de julho de 1926, no Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, no papel de Rosina, da ópera O Barbeiro de Sevilha, de Rossini. Desde então, foi como se tivesse sido descoberta pelo mundo da música. Ela se casou muito cedo, como era costume em seu tempo. Tinha 19 anos de idade e seu marido, o italiano Walter Mocchi, era à época o maior empresário da América Latina. Quarenta anos mais velho, Mocchi foi talvez o maior entusiasta da carreira de Bidu Sayão. Anos mais tarde, os dois se separaram e, pouco tempo depois, ela conheceu na Itália um dos tenores de maior expressão de seu tempo, Giuseppe Danise. Cantou com ele O Rigoletto, em 1935, e tornou-se sua mulher. Danise, assim como Mocchi, guiou a carreira de Bidu. Ela nunca se cansou de dizer que Giuseppe a conduziu ao canto lírico. O próprio Danise fez carreira por quinze anos no Metropolitam, de Nova York.

Bidu Sayão com Corícia Baroni em Nova Iorque (fevereiro de 1959).Esse estímulo, associado ao fato de a cantora ter caído nas graças de Toscanini, durante um encontro dos dois no Scala, de Milão, lhe valeu um convite para a estréia do maestro em 1936, no mesmo Metropolitan, que um ano depois assistiria deslumbrado à primeira apresentação de Bidu em Manon, de Massenet. A Segunda Guerra também a tornou uma figura popular para os americanos, já que cantava de norte a sul nos hospitais onde se encontravam convalescendo os soldados feridos. Em toda sua carreira conviveu com verdadeiros mitos, como Carmem Miranda, Judy Garland e o Presidente Franklin Rosevelt. Batizada no cartório do Rio de Janeiro como Balduína, em homenagem à avó, a soprano virou Bidu e fez o mundo. Hábil com as palavras, a frágil Bidu declarou, em dezembro de 1994, aos 90 anos, ao aceitar o convite para desfilar na escola de samba carioca Beija-flor, de Nilópolis, que compôs um samba-enredo em sua homenagem: "Não sou mais a prima-dona da ópera, mas o beija-flor do carnaval".

Bidu Sayão cantou em várias partes da Europa e se encantava de poder divulgar o nome do Brasil. Seu orgulho de ser brasileira se acentuava à medida que sua nacionalidade era destacada nos cartazes que anunciavam seus espetáculos. Certa vez, quando ainda era uma menina, com 17 anos, cantou para o Imperador Hiroito, do Japão. Ao final, o monarca lhe rotulou de "o rouxinol do Brasil", um título que ela ostenta como uma comenda das mais significativas.

Misto de erudito e popular, o pensamento de Bidu pode ser traduzido em suas personalidades preferidas, como a admiração que tem por Pelé, segundo ela "o Caruso do Futebol".

BIDU SAYÃO

MAY 11, 1902 -- MARCH 12, 1999

Occasionally a singer steals your heart and never returns it. For opera-lovers of a certain age, Bidù Sayao was just such an accommodating thief. Though the act may be considered criminal, her weapons (both personal and artistic) in the assault on our affections were entirely legitimate.

Born Balduina de Oliveira Sayao, in Rio de Janeiro, she early determined on a stage career despite family opposition. Three mentors of exceptional integrity guided her artistic development: Elena Teodorini, former La Scala prima donna, ripened her infantile voice and ingrained a solid technique; Jean de Reszke, epitome of elegance in the Met's early decades, developed her stylistic authenticity; and Giuseppe Danise, Met baritone and Sayao's second husband, astutely expanded her coloratura-oriented repertory to include lyric roles. Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia served for her stage debut, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in 1926, followed by Gilda (Rigoletto) and Carolina (Il Matrimonio Segreto). During the next decade, she appeared throughout Italy, and in Paris, Lisbon, Buenos Aires and Rio. Her roles included Lucia di Lammermoor, Amina (Sonnambula), Elvira (I Puritani) and Zerbinetta (Ariadne). A 1936 appearance under Arturo Toscanini in La Damoiselle Élue precipitated her Met debut as Massenet's Manon, on February 13, 1937. Thereafter her career was largely confined to the Met and San Francisco Opera and American concert tours.

I recall hearing Sayao in recital in 1947. She was elegantly attired, enchanting in manner, stylistically acute (playful in Brazilian folk songs) and scrupulous in vocalism. In opera, critics called her stage persona bewitching. During her sixteen Met seasons she appeared 226 times in twelve roles, most often as a delightfully spunky Susanna and piquant Mimì (each forty-six times), Violetta (23), Manon (22), Zerlina (21), Rosina (19) and Adina (18). Appearances as Mélisande, Norina, Gilda, Juliette and Serpina (La Serva Padrona) numbered in the single digits.

Of her commercial recordings, the Manon excerpts and an assortment of Mozart arias (plus her intoxicating Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5) reveal her distinctive gifts. Notable is her exquisite spinning of the Mozart line in tones of porcelain delicacy while never failing to suggest specific character traits. (Cherubino's and Zerlina's aria pairs are remarkable in that regard.) Not surprisingly, her partnership with Ezio Pinza in Edward Johnson's 1940 Le Nozze di Figaro sparked the Mozart revival in America. Mozart was included in De Reszke's regimen, and the sense of style, musical rectitude and vocal perfection that reflect his training permeate her Mozart and other records.

When we turn to her Met performances (about two dozen preserved from her thirty-four broadcasts), another side of the singer's artistic profile is revealed -- and quite startling it is! In live stage performances, Sayao often prefers truthful dramatic and musical communication to mere vocal beguilement. Self, rather than tutelage, comes to the fore. She was no namby-pamby soubrette. Yes, wheedling and coy as need be, but always she sought out the humanity in these willful minxes. Her Adina, Norina and Rosina are marvels of comic portraiture, yet adorable creatures whose technical aplomb in roulades and grace in cantilena are mesmerizing. Unrivaled in the "ina/ana" repertory, she shone also in lyric parts, even while contending with Jarmila Novotná, Licia Albanese, Eleanor Steber and Dorothy Kirsten. Sayao's commercial discs of Manon's arias are exemplars of characterization, technical virtuosity and tonal purity, but in three preserved broadcasts she gives full rein to her passionate nature, yet maintains vocal poise. As Juliette (1947), she is the embodiment of Roméo's "belle enfant," floating the waltz song with utmost ease and mingling coquetry and passion in the duets.

When playing Juliette, Violetta, Mimì and Gilda, Sayao's commitment to verisimilitude occasionally imperiled her modest vocal resources or caused aberrant sounds -- in these moments she deemed character and situation of greater importance than vocal niceties. As Mimì, sometimes she seems more Mürger's girl than Puccini's gentle love, but her musical subtlety and theatrical craft in the "Addio" and final act redress the balance. In her 1937 Traviata, she triumphs in "Sempre libera," turning it into fervid delirium; the introductory "gioir"s emerge as defiant flourishes, the entire scene more abandoned than her lovely but rather chaste commercial recording.

And she wanted even more than these roles could offer her: "My life was total renunciation," she cried during a 1981 broadcast-intermission interview, as she hankered after Butterfly, Desdemona, Manon Lescaut. She did add Margherita and Nedda in 1952 for San Francisco, though by then the end was near. But whatever the mode, coloratura or lyric, comic or tragic, the soprano filled her roles to the brim with her silvery tone and vivid portraiture.

The Johnson régime was Sayao's playground. During Bing's reign, she sang only four performances of Mimì (including her farewell to the house, on February 26, 1952) and a final Manon with the company in Boston, on April 23 of that year. Her 1951 Bohème broadcast confirms that, unlike many who claim perspicacity, Sayao did leave at the top of her form. By 1958 her retirement was complete; thereafter she spent much of her time at her home in Maine. Fortunately, opera-lovers have long memories, and recent CD reissues of her recordings ensure that many new hearts will be purloined.

PAUL JACKSON is the author of Saturday Afternoons at the Old Met (Amadeus 1992) and Sign-off for the Old Met (Amadeus 1997).

Taken from http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/_archive/699/obits.699.html

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Bidu Sayao, 94, Star Soprano of the 30's and 40's, Dies

By GLADYS BOURDAIN

13 march 1999

Bidu Sayao, a Brazilian soprano whose gossamer voice and vivacious personality made her one of the most popular stars of the Metropolitan Opera from the late 1930's through the 40's, died yesterday at Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Me. She was 94 and lived in Lincolnville, Me.

The diminutive Miss Sayao, restricted by her small voice to the lyric and coloratura repertory, often expressed regret that she could not sing such heavier roles as Tosca and Butterfly. But her interpretations of Manon, Violetta in ''La Traviata,'' Mimi in ''La Boheme'' and Susanna in ''Le Nozze di Figaro,'' among other roles, received consistent praise, with critics stressing her expressiveness, sensibility, girlishness and excellence of phrasing.

Balduina de Oliveira Sayao was born on May 11, 1902, into a wealthy family in Rio de Janeiro. Although her childhood dramatizations in front of a mirror convinced her that she had a future as an actress, the family conviction that it was a metier for loose women dashed that hope. Piano lessons, too, were a decided failure, but when she was 13 a music-loving uncle helped arrange lessons with a celebrated former soprano, Elena Theodorini.

After several years of study and appearances at the court of Romania, her teacher's native country, Miss Sayao studied recital repertory in France with the tenor Jean de Reszke. An eventual audition in Rome led to an engagement as Rosina in ''Il Barbiere di Siviglia,'' and by her late 20's she had sung at many opera houses in Europe and South America.

In a review of her first performance in the United States, a Town Hall recital on Dec. 30, 1935, Noel Strauss of The New York Times wrote that Miss Sayao's voice ''if light, was one of pronounced sweetness; silky and caressing when used at its best.''

Soon afterward, Arturo Toscanini, who was preparing an all-Debussy program for the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra -- precursor of the New York Philharmonic -- engaged the young soprano whose years in France had perfected her pronunciation, and gave her one week to learn ''La Demoiselle Elue.'' A short time later the Metropolitan Opera, which had recently lost Lucrezia Bori, a stalwart of French repertory, to retirement, invited Miss Sayao to sing the title role in ''Manon'' in February 1937.

In The Times, Olin Downes wrote of the debut, ''Miss Sayao triumphed as a Manon should, by manners, youth and charm, and secondly by the way in which the voice became the vehicle of dramatic expression.'' The singer never again left the Western Hemisphere. The Met was her base, the San Francisco Opera her alternate headquarters and South America the only foreign territory to hear her in live performance.

A month after her first Met ''Manon,'' Miss Sayao sang the lead role in ''La Traviata.'' Two weeks later she sang her first ''Boheme'' in the house, and Howard Taubman wrote in The Times that she sang with ''freshness and simplicity.''

In all, the soprano sang more than 200 performances of 12 different roles at the Metropolitan. She made several opera and song recordings and gave many recitals. In December 1943 she and the baritone Lawrence Tibbett were soloists with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Artur Rodzinski for the inaugural concert at the City Center of Music and Drama. The United States Government decorated her for her many performances in Army camps and hospitals during World War II.

Miss Sayao resigned from the Metropolitan Opera in April 1952, a month before her 50th birthday. ''I am proud, and I did not want to wait until I was asked to leave,'' she said in an interview in 1987. And in 1957 after a performance of ''La Demoiselle Elue,'' which seemed to bring her career full circle, she abruptly retired, canceling many engagements for subsequent seasons. She told an interviewer years later that it was hard to stop but that being able to smoke again was a pleasure.

The soprano's first marriage, to the Italian impresario Walter Mocchi, who headed the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires for a time, ended in divorce. She and the baritone Giuseppe Danise were married in 1947, and he gave up his career to manage hers.

After her husband's death in 1963, she divided her time between the Salisbury Hotel in Manhattan and her home in Lincolnville. She was often seen at vocal events in New York City, a tiny woman in high heels, her reddish hair pulled back in the chignon familiar to several decades of opera fans.

Correction: March 16, 1999, Tuesday Because of an editing error, an obituary of the Brazilian soprano Bidu Sayao on Saturday misstated her age. She was 96, not 94. The obituary also omitted Ms. Sayao's most celebrated recording. The piece, ''Bachiana Brasileira No. 5,'' is a vocalise -- an aria without words -- transcribed for her by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.

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HER LAST VISIT TO BRAZIL DURING THE “CARNEVAL OF RIO”

SINOPSE 1995

Bidu Sayão e o canto de cristal

Introdução

Como linguagem mundial de emoção através de belas histórias, afinação da voz humana e produções caprichadas, a Opera “Il Guarany” de Carlos Gomes e a “La Traviata” de Verdi, celebram uma das mais elevadas expressões da inteligência e sensibilidade humana.

O Brasil é um dos poucos países a ter marcado tão especial presença nesse respeitado campo artístico, em sua capital mundial que é New York e em seu templo, o Metropolitan Opera House, graças ao trabalho abnegado e espírito determinado de uma “carioca da gema” que foi considerada a “maior soprano lírico do mundo, em todos os tempos”: BIDU SAYÃO!

Mas não lhe bastou triunfar no “The New York Times”, “Le Figaro” e outros respeitados jornais do Globo. Ela queria mostrar à gente simples do interior do Brasil sua voz e a beleza do canto lírico. pois muito lhe interessava que sua terra natal também afirmasse ter ela o “canto de cristal”. Durante dois anos (1937 e 1938), o “rouxinol” brasileiro(“the Brazilian nightgale”) embrenhou-se em mais de 200 cidadezinhas do Brasil, apresentado-se de Livramento, no Rio Grande do Sul à Manaus, Amazonas numa temporada que muitos consideravam suicida para uma “Diva” que nada mais tinha a provar ao mundo.

Mas a “Prima Dona” amava e ama o seu Brasil e pouco lhe importava pagar do próprio bolso as despesas, viajar de navio e cantar para tribos indígenas, ter corno palco caminhões e tetos de armazéns. O que Bidu Sayão queria era brindar todos quantos quisessem com o seu “bel canto”. “Eu venho de um grande país da América do Sul que se chama Brasil”, exclamou ela para o príncipe herdeiro do Japão, Hiroíto e a Rainha Maria da Romênia.

Recusou à naturalização americana quando cantava na Casa Branca para Roosevelt, dizendo ao presidente americano que “era artista brasileira e queria morrer como tal”. A “piccola brasiliana” (apelido dado pelo grande maestro italiano Arturo Toscanini), foi a exigida por Mussolini na Gala Operística, que o estadista oferecia em homenagem às bodas do Príncipe Humberto, herdeiro do trono italiano com a Princesa Maria de Savóia da Bélgica.

Pelos palácios, teatros e cerimônias importantes para o Planeta Terra, lá estava uma pequena, delicada, talentosa e lindíssima “garota” do Brasil, que tanto orgulha a Beija-Flor de Nilópolis por poder trazer ao conhecimento do “povão”. (como fez com a querida Margaret Mee em 94), sua história gloriosa de divulgação da capacidade artística do brasileiro no mundo inteiro.

“Bidu Sayão e o canto de cristal”

É nosso enredo para o Carnaval de 1995!

Um tributo que prestamos ao Carnaval carioca corno Ato Cultural que acreditamos que ela seja, ao talento dos grandes nomes que fazem a História do Brasil mais bela e a alegria e orgulho da nossa população, que não se nega a, quando lembrada, aplaudir e agradecer grandes espetáculos.

Bravo Bidu!

Homenagem à voz límpida e envolvente de Bidu Sayão, urna lenda registrada na história da Opera Mundial corno “a maior Soprano Lírico do mundo, em todos os tempos”.

No dia 11 de maio de 1904, nasce, sob o signo de Touro, BALDUÍNA DE OLIVEIRA SAYÃO.

Esta “carioca da gema”, nascida na Praça Tiradentes, N° 48, tem ascendência portuguesa pelo lado do pai, o advogado Pedro Luís de Oliveira Sayão, e franco-suíça pelo lado da mãe, Maria José Teixeira da Costa Sayão, por sua vez descendente da segunda geração dos fundadores, da cidade de Nova Friburgo, no Rio de Janeiro.

Quando Bidu nasceu, sua mãe não esperava mais ter filhos, pois já estava com 33 anos e o “varão”, Pedro, já se encontrava com 15 anos de idade. O nome Balduína é o mesmo de sua avó paterna.

A menina Bidu nunca foi muito saudável quando criança, tendo inclusive contraído tifo.

Sua família, de posses, construía então uma casa na praia de Botafogo, e logo após a mudança para lá, quando Bidu tinha 5 anos, seu querido pai morreu.

Bidu tornou-se uma menina levada: subia nas árvores, criava problemas, tentando superar a ausência paterna. Sua mãe nunca mais casou-se e até os 16 anos, Bidu recebia seus professores em casa, nunca tendo freqüentado escola primária ou secundária.

Em 1915, aos 11 anos, ela cantou pela primeira vez em público, não profissionalmente. A música escolhida foi uma canção de seu grande incentivador, o tio-médico Alberto Costa: “O Coração tem dois lados”.

A casa do tio Alberto era ponto de encontro de artistas da Ópera, e Bidu se envolveu neste ambiente desde cedo. Por adorar ver Procópio Ferreira representar no Teatro resolveu que seria atriz, o que a mãe e o irmão mais velho consideraram inadmissível para urna moça de família.

Certo dia acompanhou sua melhor amiga, Germana de Lucena Mallet até a aula de canto na escola “Ars e Vox”, na Av. Rio Branco, cuja professora era Grande Mestra romena, Madame Helena Theodorini.

Como não podia ser atriz quis ser cantora, desta forma estaria no palco e poderia interpretar as letras das músicas que cantasse. Apoiada pelo tio, assediou a mestra de canto que a aceitasse corno aluna, e a mãe que a deixasse freqüentar o curso.

Bidu venceu Mdme. Theodorini pelo cansaço, já que a professora a considerava muito jovem para o canto e de “pequenina” voz, mas ficou impressionadíssima com a força de vontade da garota.

Para o “fio de voz” que era Bidu, Theodorini ordenava solfejos e vocalizes intermináveis para que ela pudesse superar as únicas Ires notas que alcançava. Exercitava com “Serenata” e “Canto de Saudade” de Barroso Neto. Bidu só não suportava as aulas de piano.

Durante anos a pequenina Bidu esforçou-se e renegou divertimentos típicos da idade, como festas e namoros, pois tinha em mente um objetivo preciso: o palco.

Em 1916 ela diplomou-se ao lado de toda a turma de Madame Theodorini, no grande palco do Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro.

Começa sua carreira apresentando-se no Teatro Trianon, no Rio de Janeiro, e os críticos cariocas se dividem: enquanto Oscar Guanabarino, do Jornal do Comrnercio, publica que a cantora não servia para cantar nem em Salão, pois tinha “voz de salinha”, o Dr. Carvalho Neto, crítico do Diário da Noite via futuro na carreira de Bidu e a incentivava.

Após o término da Primeira Guerra Mundial, Madame Theodorini aposentava-se e resolve voltar para a sua terra natal, a Romênia.

Madame Theodorini consegue que Bidu seja convidada pela Rainha mãe do Trono da Romênia, Maria, para uma apresentação no Palácio Real de Bucareste, durante a recepção de Gala que Sua Majestade oferecia em homenagem ao Príncipe Herdeiro do Japão, Hiroíto, com a presença de várias cabeças coroadas da Europa.

Bidu descreve a cena do recital no Palácio Real de Bucareste como se estivesse num conto de fadas, “A Rainha de lamê prateado e colar de pérolas...”, quando interpretou para a realeza canções em Romaico e Árias do Barbeiro de Sevilha.

A Rainha mãe da Romênia presenteia a jovem cantora com uma jóia e elogia sua beleza e vivacidade encantadoras. Em seguida, Hiroíto quer saber, “de onde vem voz tão perfeita” à quem Bidu imediatamente responde: “Sou de um grande país da América do Sul chamado Brasil”.

Em 1916. Bidu ainda apresenta-se no Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro com a “Cena da Loucura” da Ópera Lucia de Lamermor de Donizete.

Em 1917, a conselho da Rainha Maria da Romênia, e já convencida do talento da filha, Dona Maria José leva Bidu para estudar com uma das maiores autoridades do canto mundial, na época, o Polonês Jean de Rezke, considerado o maior tenor da ópera francesa, rival de Caruso e que morava em Nice, França.

Bidu foi a única sul-americana aceita por Rezke, e em sua escola ela recebe aula de dicção francesa com Lucien Maratore e aulas de interpretação com Reinaldo Hahn, importante compositor que a ensina especialmente a cantar sua composição “Si me vers”, com letra de Vítor Hugo, gravada depois no disco “French Arias and Songs”.

De 1918 a 1925 Bidu estudou com afinco na escola de Rezke, tendo conseguido apresentar-se para o fechado mundo operístico de Paris pela primeira vez em 1924, oportunidade que deve aos amigos de Jean de Rezke. Apesar de triunfar neste concerto, segundo críticas em importantes jornais franceses, ela, ainda assim, não se sente preparada para enfrentar o público francês em óperas inteiras, e retorna para mais um ano de estudos em Nice.

Com a morte de Jean de Rezke em 1925, Bidu parte para Roma a fim de consultar Emma Carelli e Walter Mocchi, diretores do Teatro Constanzi em Roma. Carelli a põe sob a tutela de Luigi Ricci, o maestro que lhe ensinaria o Repertório Operístico.

No mesmo ano que morre sua grande Mestra, Helena Theodorini, 1926, Bidu Sayão faz sua estréia profissional internacional do mundo operístico, cantando o papel de Rosina, na ópera “Barbeiro de Sevilha” de Rossini, na noite de 25 de março de 1926 no Teatro Constanzi em Roma, tendo ao seu lado Carlo Galefi e sob regência do maestro Edoard Vitale. Nesta mesma temporada interpreta a Ópera “Il Rigoleto”, no papel de Gilda, e a Carolina, da Ópera “Il Matrimônio Segreto”.

Ainda em 1926 Bidu faz a sua estréia profissional no Brasil cantando no Municipal do Rio de Janeiro “O Barbeiro de Sevilha”, na noite de 15 de junho. Antes, cumpriu temporada no Teatro Municipal de São Paulo já que Walter Mocchi, grande empresário da ópera para a América Latina, aceitara o cargo de Diretor do Teatro Municipal de São Paulo e trouxera Bidu consigo para cumprir as duas temporadas cujo repertório. além das consagradas Barbeiro de Sevilha, I1 Matrimônio Segreto, Il Rigolleto e Il Puritane, incluía, por exigência de Bidu, duas óperas brasileiras: Um Caso Singular. de Carlos de Campos e Soror Madalena, de seu tio Alberto Costa.

No Brasil, Bidu aproveita para cantar composições de Francisco Mignone, o Ciclo de Canções Populares de Ernani Braga e canções de Lorenzo Fernandes e Barroso Neto.

Em 1927 Bidu casa-se com Walter Miocchi, 40 anos mais velho que ela. (“sempre procurei meu pai nos maridos que tive”), período afetivo que ela não gosta de recordar, pois considera que “errou”.

Nos dois anos seguintes, 1928 e 1929, além de Roma. Rio e. São Paulo, Bidu passa a incluir em seu roteiro o Teatro Colón, em Buenos Aires.

Roma parou para ver o espetáculo de gala que festejava o casamento do Príncipe Humberto, herdeiro do trono da Itália, com a Princesa Maria José de Savóia, da Bélgica, na noite de 10 de janeiro de 1930, no Teatro Real de Roma, quando. por exigência de Mussolini, seu grande admirador, Bidu Sayão foi a única estrangeira incluída num “cast” só de italianos. À ela é reservado o papel principal. Norina, na Ópera Dom Pasquale, de Donizeti, que ela canta ao lado do grande Schippa.

No dia 24 de janeiro do mesmo ano ela interpreta pela primeira vez o papel de Rosa1ina, na Ópera Il Re, de Giordano, em Roma.

No dia 2 de março de 1930, Bidu Sayão faz sua estréia triunfal no Scala de Milão, onde é ouvida, admirada e apelidada de ‘La Piccola Brasiliana’ por um dos maiores maestros de todos os tempos. o grande Arturo Toscanini. então diretor artístico do Scala de Milão.

Em 1931, Bidu Sayão estréia um novo repertório. convidada pela Ópera de Paris, cantando nesta grande Casa de Espetáculo as seguintes óperas: Rorneu e Julieta, de Gounoud. tendo Georges Thill como Romeu e “Fausto”, também de Gounoud.

A interpretação de Bidu para Julieta é recebida com grande entusiasmo pelo Le Figaro, que considera sua performance triunfal.

No mesmo ano apresenta-se na Opera Comique de Paris, interpretando o papel principal da obra Lakmé, de Delibes.

As comemorações do centenário de Bellini em 1932, levam Bidu até a cidade de Catania, na Itália, para cantar uma de suas óperas mais populares: Sonnambula, no papel de Amina.

Parte para Gênova e San Remo onde canta, em italiano, a ópera Ariadne Auf Naxos, de Strauss, no papel de Zerbineta, segundo a própria Bidu seu papel mais complexo.

Em 1933 Bidu Sayão grava no Brasil, para a RCA Vítor “Il Guarany”.

Neste mesmo ano e no seguinte, Bidu cumpre temporada no Teatro Municipal de São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro, quando canta as óperas Lucia de Lamermoor, O Barbeiro de Sevilha e Il Rigoletto.

No final de 1934 ela divorcia-se do primeiro marido, Walter Miocchi.

Em 1935, no Teatro San Carlo, de Nápoles, Bidu conhece o magnífico tenor italiano Giuseppe Danise, com quem canta Il Rigoletto. Ele se tornará o segundo marido de Bidu, 24 anos mais velhos que ela. Neste mesmo ano, após cumprirem a Temporada Brasileira, quando Bidu cantou Manon, I1 Rigoletto, 11 Puritani, Romeu e Julietta, La Traviata, Lakmé e Bohéme, e a temporada Sul-americana, Giuseppe sugere que eles passem em New York antes de retornarem à Itália, pois ele já pressentia instabilidade política na Europa.

Os papéis que Bidu Sayão só cantou na América do Sul e Europa, e jamais cantou nos Estados Unidos, são os seguintes: Lucia de Lamermoor, Amina, em La Sonnambula, Elvira em Puritani e Lakmé.

Em 1936 Bidu apresenta-se no Town Hall de New York e triunfa segundo crítica no “The New York Times”.

Durante uma festa, o grande maestro Arturo Toscanini atravessa todo o grande salão da recepção para cumprimentar a cantora e “agradecer o privilégio de tê-la ouvido cantar anos antes no Scala de Milão”. Na mesma oportunidade, Toscanini convida Bidu para urna audição, pois queria tentar a voz dela, etérea, para interpretar um poema sinfônico de Debussi. Para surpresa da própria Bidu, ela é escolhida, e em abril de 1936 Bidu tem uma noite de glória no Carnegie Hall, cantando “La Demoíselle Élue” e recebendo maravilhosa crítica no “The Tribune”.

Neste mesmo ano, Bidu apresenta-se no Teatro da Paz, de Belém do Pará. Ali conhece Nilson Penna, da Secretaria Estadual de Cultura, e tornam-se grande amigos. Nilson é hoje considerado o maior pesquisador da vida de Bidu Sayão e seu mais ardente fã.

Após cumprir a mesma temporada do ano anterior no Rio e em São Paulo, 1936 mancava o centenário de Carlos Gomes, e a 7 de setembro de 1936 ela canta com Georges Thill, no Rio de Janeiro, II Guarany (canta depois a mesma Opera em São Paulo).

Em 1936 e 1937, Bidu percorre mais de 200 cidades brasileiras, do Rio Grande do Sul ao Amazonas. No interior apresenta-se gratuitamente, usando como palco tetos de armazéns, carrocerias de caminhão e navios (à Manaus ela vai pelo Loyd Brasileiro). Na falta de hotéis, se hospeda na casa de amantes da boa música e muitas vezes paga do próprio bolso as despesas.

No dia 13 de fevereiro de 1937, Bidu Sayão alcança o palco mais importante para a Ópera Mundial neste século, dando com este passo o salto para a imortalidade: como Manon, de Massenet, ela pisa o METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE, o MET. Substituía a grande cantora lírica Lucrécia Bori, e cantava ao lado de Sidney Rayner.

Sobre a estréia no) Metropolitan, Bidu conta uma passagem bem humorada: “Eu não estava nervosa porque tinha ensaiado muito e confiava demais no tenor que cantaria comigo. Em cena, de repente, vi um estranho entrar e se anunciar como meu partner. Pensei: Meu Deus, quem é este homem?, e fui até o tini cantando com o desconhecido”.

Este espetáculo de estréia foi transmitido pelo rádio para os Estados Unidos, Canadá e ao vivo para o Rio de Janeiro.

Foi Toscanini que a apresentou aos cinco diretores artísticos do MET e falou que ela poderia ser a nova Manon, pelo físico bonito e dicção impecável do Francês. Nessa primeira temporada no MET, foram as seguintes as récitas: Manon, 3 récitas, Traviata, 3 récitas e La Bohéme, 2 récitas.

Este ano de 1937 marca um desagradável “embate” entre Bidu e sua rival Gabriela Benzanoni Lage. Na temporada brasileira, onde cumpria o mesmo repertório do ano anterior, após a recita de Il Guarany, Bidu foi vaiada por um grupo de admiradores da rival. No mesmo instante que percebeu a vaia, o teatro inteiro começou a aplaudir e a vaia foi abafada, fazendo o grupo de Gabriela se retirar apressado do Municipal do Rio de Janeiro.

Já consagrada pela crítica Norte Americana, Bidu canta gratuitamente para uma multidão na Praia do Russel, Rio de Janeiro, em 1938. Neste mesmo ano Bidu canta na casa Branca em recital para o Presidente Franklin Delano Roosevelt, quando nega-se a naturalizar-se americana a convite do presidente: “ – Obrigada, Mr. Presidente, mas eu quero terminar a minha carreira como artista brasileira”.

Além das já costumeiras temporadas no MET (onde canta Manon com o grande tenor Tito Schippa), no Municipal do Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo. e no Teatro Cólon de Buenos Aires, o ano de 1939 traz um novo convite para Bidu: Apresentar-se na maravilhosa Ópera de São Francisco, uma das grandes Casas dos Estados Unidos.

Em 1940, Bidu interpreta pela primeira vez o papel de Susana na ópera Le Nozze de Figaro, de Mozart, no MET, papel este que é o que ela mais executou ao longo da carreira, num total de 45 récitas.

Apesar de nunca ter cantado a Opera Madame Butterfly por completo, ao vivo, esta sempre foi uma das grandes paixões de Bidu. Entretanto, em 1941 ela grava para disco a ária UN BEL DI Bidu Sayão canta La Traviatta no Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro com Tito Schippa, em 1942. Grava para disco as árias King of Thule e Jewel Song, da Ópera Fausto, de Gounoud, interpretando o papel de Margharite, em 1945. Neste ano ela ouve as “Bachianas Brasileiras n° 5” de Villa Lobos, seu grande amigo, e pede que ele altere o arranjo de 8 violoncelos e 1 Violino para 8 violoncelos e 1 voz, a dela, para que ela pudesse gravar e cantar em recitais, o que acontece antes do final deste ano.

Quando a guerra termina. Bidu recebe em 1946 o Certificado da Defesa Civil dos Estados Unidos da América e do Pentágono. por ter se apresentado nos hospitais e alojamento de soldados que combateram na Segunda Grande Guerra Mundial.

Em 1947, canta no Metropolitan ‘Romeu e. Julieta’ de Gounoud. ao lado do tenor Bjorling. rm noite considerada histórica Pelos amantes do bel canto. A interpretação de toda a Companhia. considerada impecável e gravada em disco, seria lançada anos depois para comemorar o centenário do Metropolitan Opera House.

Mas dois acontecimentos importantes de 1947: casa-se pela segunda vez cem Giuseppe Danise. e grava para a Columbia Discos a Opera La Bohéme completa.

Em 1950, Bidu Sayão canta pela última vez uma ópera inteira num Teatro Brasileiro, apresentando suas despedidas do Brasil com “La Bohéme”, no Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Neste mesmo ano desliga-se da Columbia Discos.

A mesma companhia lança nos Estados Unidos, em 1951, o disco BIDU SAYAO, BACHIANAS BRASILEIRAS N0 5, ORQUESTRA CONDUZIDA PELO MAESTRO VILLA LOBOS, e a ária AH! FORS É LUI (de LA TRAVIATA).

Bidu começa a ter rouquidões repentinas e decide operar as amídalas. Descobre que estava com um tumor na garganta, e submete-se a uma operação de sucesso, voltando à cena 23 dias depois, na Pensilvânia.

Em 1952, ela interpreta pela primeira vez a Ópera Mefistófeles na Ópera de São Francisco, composta por Boito e no papel de Margherita. Na mesma temporada canta Il Pagliacci de Leoncavallo, no papel de Nedda.

No dia 16 de fevereiro de 1952, Bidu Sayão faz sua última apresentação no MET como Mimi (na sua 46ª récita de La Bohéme), e a 23 de abril apresenta-se pela última vez, com a Companhia do MET, num Tour em Boston, interpretando a Manon (na sua 22ª récita deste papel).

Aqui está o balanço da carreira de Bidu Sayão no MET: Pisou o palco 150 vezes para récitas de Ópera, cumpriu 16 temporadas quando interpretou 16 papéis.

Das 226 performances que Bidu apresentou em New York, 36 foram gravadas em discos que documentam sua interpretação de 11 personagens.

Em agosto de 1955, Bidu apresenta-se em Concerto no Hollywood Bowl de Los Angeles, e a 9 de outubro canta em seis idiomas no auditório da O.N.U..

Em 1957, mesmo ano em que morre o grande maestro e amigo Arturo Toscanini, Bidu Sayão decide encerrar a sua carreira profissional de cantora, que durou 32 anos, de 26 a 57 (recorde, pois para os Sopranos Líricos a média é de 25 anos). Ela escolhe o mesmo lugar e o mesmo poema sinfônico da estréia em New York para se despedir para sempre do público: o Carnegie Hall e a Demoiselle Élue, de Debussi, com a Orquestra Sinfônica de N. York. Ela declara: “Queria sair de cena enquanto ainda fosse aplaudida. Achei que tudo completa um círculo. O meu se fechava ali”.

Estes são os papéis que Bidu interpretou no MET: Violeta, Mimi, Julietta, Susana, Norima, Zerlina, Adina, Mélisande e Serpina de La Serva Padrona.

Em 1959, Bidu abre uma exceção para atender a um pedido pessoal de seu grande amigo Heitor Villa Lobos, grava o disco “A Floresta do Amazonas” sob a regência do próprio, para a United Records (entre as árias “Canção do Amor” e a “Melodia Sentimental”). Segundo Bidu o poema sinfônico era longo e difícil, ensaiavam de manhã à noite. Villa Lobos já estava muito doente, mas a música da Floresta do Amazonas transpira vida e energia. Nunca mais Bidu Sayão voltou a cantar profissionalmente depois da gravação deste disco. Neste mesmo ano Bidu estabelece-se definitivamente na cidade de Camden, Mayne, norte dos Estados Unidos, onde mora até hoje.

Em 1963, morre Giuseppe Danise, o barítono italiano que foi seu segundo marido e grande companheiro. Chocada, Bidu perde 18 Kg. em um mês.

Em 1966, morre sua mãe, Maria José, que sempre a acompanhou, aos 94 anos de idade.

Um grande incêndio destrói completamente a sua mansão no Maine em 1969. Depois de reconstruir a casa, a vida de Bidu é ainda mais uma vez instabilizada: em 1972 sua nova residência é assaltada. Neste mesmo ano Bidu recebe a Condecoração da Ordem do Rio Branco, no Brasil.

Também em 1972, a Columbia Broadcasting System lança o disco Legendary Perfomances. “In Honos of the 35th. Aniversary of her Metropolitan Opera House Bebut” BIDU SAYÃO, Opera Arias by Mozart, Gounoud, Puccini e Leoncavallo.

No dia 19 de novembro de 1973, volta ao Brasil para ser jurada do Concurso Internacional de Canto sob o patrocínio do Museu Villa Lobos a convite da viúva Mindinha Villa Lobos. Aproveita a viagem e grava depoimento no Museu da Imagem e do Som entrevistada por Álvaro Cotrim, Eurico Nogueira França, Aloísio de Alencar Pinto e Francisco Mingnone.

A Columbia Broadcasting System relança o disco LEGENDARY PERFOMANCES Bidu Sayão, French Arias and Songs (antes já editado pela CBS-RCA Vitor), em 1976.

Na cerimônia de comemoração do 40° aniversário de sua estréia no MET, Bidu Sayão recebe um telegrama de parabéns da primeira dama dos Estados Unidos, Rosalynn Carter, e é a capa do número especial da Revista do MET, a Opera News.

No dia 3 de maio de 1977, Bidu é convidada para ser a presidente honorária do Festival Villa Lobos, que se realiza na Academia de Ciências no Kennedy Center Biblioteca do Congresso Nacional, em Washington D.C..

Em 1979 vem ao Brasil ser homenageada pela Funterj no Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, a 14 de julho.

No dia 12 de abril de 1984, o MET homenageia Bidu Sayão lançando o álbum (com 3 discos), comemorativo do Centenário do MET, escolhendo a gravação completa de Romeu e Julietta de Gounoud, gravado em 15 de janeiro de 1947, com ela e o tenor sueco Jussi Bjoerling, fazendo este álbum parte da coleção METROPOLITAN OPERA HISTORIC BROADSCATING (gravações dignas de serem preservadas pela história da ópera).

Também em 1984, recebe o “Hall of Fame” da National Academy of recording Arts and Sciences pela gravação das Bachianas Brasileiras n0 5, honraria esta dedicada às gravações duradouras de qualidade e significação histórica. O Hall of Fame reconhece raridades do passado até 1959 e significa que a interpretação é perfeita e deve ser preservada na história da música.

Em maio de 1987, Bidu recebe do Governo Italiano a “Ordem do Mérito” por sua contribuição à cultura do país. Neste mesmo ano vem ao Brasil para ser jurada do XIII Concurso Internacional de Canto do Rio de Janeiro, na Sala Cecília Meirelles (organizado por Helena de Oliveira).

Grava nesta viagem ao Brasil, no Hall do Hotel Glória, a canção Casinha Pequenina de Hernani Braga, que foi ao ar no programa Voz do Brasil do dia 10 de junho de 1987.

No dia 25 de junho de 1987. recebe a Ordem Nacional do Mérito no Paço Imperial do Rio de Janeiro, das mãos do presidente José Sarney.

Assiste como Patrona de Honra à estréia da nova produção de Manon Lescaut, no MET, celebrando os 50 anos de sua estréia na mesma ópera.

Em 1988, a marca italiana Melodram lança o disco Elisir D’Amore (gravação de 1947 com Bidu e Fenício Tagliavani).

Em 1991 Bidu Sayão sofre o primeiro derrame e em 1993 um outro abala ainda mais a sua saúde.

Em 1994 é o enredo da Escola de Samba Beija-Flor de Nilópolis para o Carnaval 95 e avisa: “Quero ir ao Rio de Janeiro agradecer ao Cristo Redentor por uma vida tão bonita...”

Milton Cunha

Dedico este Enredo a todas “Divas” da Beija?Flor. Entre elas: Fabiola Oliveira, Aline Muller David, Graça Oliveira, Dona Marlene Abraão David, Dona Nadir (primeira Baiana), Marilda Baptista, Sônia Capeta (Rainha da Bateria) e Sônia Regina.

SAMBA ENREDO 1995

Enredo Bidu Sayão e o canto de cristal

Compositores Bira, Zé Carlos do Cavaco, Tião Barbudo, Dequinha Pottiêr e Jorginho

Bela menina, "voz de cristal"

Deslumbrava multidões

O seu talento, dom divinal

Encantou os corações

Grande guerreira que conquistou

Seu lugar ao sol

É festa, é luz, é cor, é poesia

É diva internacional

Neste palco surge ela, Bidu Sayão