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Vivian Della Chiesa 1914-2009

by | 10:59 am | Jan 23, 2009

Vivian Della Chiesa, “Toscanini’s favorite soprano,” died on Tuesday. She was 94.

Della Chiesa is heard in the Trio from I Lombardi with Jan Peerce and Nicola Moscona, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, in a radio concert from January 31, 1943.

“Qui posa il fianco… Qual volutta trascorrere”

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40 Comments

40 comments

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  • Logie on fire says:

    One hundred years ago at the Met! Artie the T had something going on with Olive Fremstad( he went to her dressing room alone before each time he conducted with her). Olive may or may not have been bi(with Willa Cather et al.) (Maestro was an admirer of Bruno Rasa).

    on January 24, 2009 at 1:48 AM
  • mrs. miller says:

    Vivienne was an Italian American girl from Chicago. There are a few videos on youtube of her singing.

    on January 24, 2009 at 2:11 AM
  • Doris Godunov says:

    Anyone know the live NBC broadcast – the only recording ever – of the premiere (and almost derniere) of Montemezzi’s l’Incantesimo – she is ravishing and rapturous in the final pages.

    on January 24, 2009 at 6:01 AM
  • idreno says:

    Logie, surely you want to say Lina Bruna Rasa (she was definitwly a woman)

    on January 24, 2009 at 6:50 AM
  • Tessi Toura says:

    Chiesa had a career on a local Cincinnati TV talk show on WLW-T (in the late 60′s?) where she would sing a number or two, interview local guests and general chat with the audience. Daytime TV in those days had lots of local shows with “stars” you’d never know outside the area. At that time her voice was rich and mellow, not what you’d think of as a soprano voice (Jane Froman comes to mind). She was a very engaging, talkie sort of person and always full of good fun. When in college in the 70′s I ran across the Lombardi except (on an album that includes the last act of Rigoletto with Wareen, Peerce, and Milanov). That was the first time I heard her in her soprano voice. She seems to have had a very active life. Brava to her!

    on January 24, 2009 at 4:01 PM
  • Hippolyte says:

    And wasn’t Nick Clooney (father of George, brother of Rosemary) VDC’s sidekick on said Cincinnati show?

    on January 24, 2009 at 5:34 PM
  • Tessi Toura says:

    Correct, Hippolyte, Nick Clooney was the sidekick. I had forgotten that.

    on January 24, 2009 at 6:54 PM
  • Logie on fire says:

    I did mean Lina Bruna Rasa. Something I have been wondering about. Was there a publicity machine in old Europe that promoted Lina as “the crazy woman you want to come to hear sing.” I’ve wondered that too about Frehel(and maybe even Piaf): come see this messed up woman and maybe she will fall apart onstage. I am getting obsessed with finding more and more 20s-40s singers on youtube I have never heard of before. Bless the invention of YouTube.

    on January 24, 2009 at 9:23 PM
  • Reggiani says:

    This is the first I’ve heard of della Chiesa in sixty-some years. She was one of the main sopranos on radio when I was a kid. It’s interesting to learn now that she was legit. Some of the other ladies weren’t…Jean Dickinson, Jean Tennyson, Marion Clair.

    on January 25, 2009 at 4:17 AM
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