Victoria de los Ángeles López García was born on November 1, 1923, and passed away on January 15, 2005. She was a Spanish soprano singer and recitalist, meaning she performed solo concerts. Her career began after World War II, and she became most famous between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s.

Early life

Victoria de los Ángeles López García was born in the porter's lodge of the University of Barcelona. Her father was Bernardo Lopez Gómez (or Gamez), a university porter, and her mother was Victoria García. She learned how to sing with Dolores Frau and learned to play the guitar with Graciano Tarragó at a music school in Barcelona. She graduated from the conservatory in 1941 after three years of study when she was 18 years old.

Career in music

In 1941, while still a student, she began singing in operas as Mimì in La bohème at the Liceu. After this, she continued her music studies. In 1945, she returned to the Liceu to perform professionally as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro.

After winning first prize in the Geneva International Music Competition in 1947, she performed the role of Salud in Falla's La vida breve with the BBC in London in 1948. Many of her early recordings were accompanied by Graciano Tarragó and his daughter, the guitarist Renata Tarragó.

In her early years, she often sang florid music, which refers to old-style music. Although she later performed in operas less frequently, she continued to give recitals focusing mainly on French, German Lieder, and Spanish art songs, including songs with Nahuatl texts by Mexican composer Salvador Moreno Manzano, until the 1990s.

In 1949, she made her first appearance in the Paris Opéra as Marguerite. The following year, she performed for the first time in Salzburg and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Mimì, and gave a recital in the United States at Carnegie Hall. In March 1951, she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Marguérite and sang with the company for ten years. In 1952, she became a favorite performer in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Colón as the title role in Madama Butterfly. She returned to Buenos Aires many times until 1979. She performed at La Scala in Milan from 1950 to 1956 and at the Vienna State Opera in 1957.

After making her debut at the Bayreuth Festival as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser in 1961, she focused mainly on concert performances. However, for the next twenty years, she occasionally performed in one of her favorite operatic roles, Carmen by Bizet. She was among the first Spanish-born operatic singers to record the complete Carmen, which she did in 1958 in a recording conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, using recitatives added by Ernest Guiraud after Bizet's death. Though Carmen fit well within her vocal range, she also performed major soprano roles, including Donna Anna, Manon, Nedda, Desdemona, Cio-Cio-San, Mimi, Violetta, and Mélisande.

James Hinton, Jr. praised the unique methods she used to portray Rosina in the 1954 Metropolitan Opera production of The Barber of Seville.

She regularly performed in song recitals with pianists Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons, and occasionally joined other notable singers, such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Her recitals of Spanish songs with pianist Alicia de Larrocha, a fellow Barcelona native and close friend, were also highly regarded. She performed at the closing ceremony of the 1992 Summer Olympics at age 68.

She recorded many widely praised performances, including La vida breve, La bohème, Pagliacci, and Madama Butterfly. The last three recordings featured the renowned tenor Jussi Björling. She greatly admired Björling's unique talent. In her biography by Peter Roberts, she noted, "Despite technical improvements, none of the Jussi Björling recordings capture the true sound of his voice. It was a far more beautiful voice than what can be heard on the recordings he left."

In 1994, the government of France honored her with the title of Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.

Personal life and death

She married Enrique Magriña in 1948. He and one of their two sons died before her. She was taken to the hospital for a bronchial infection on December 31, 2004. She died from respiratory failure on January 15, 2005, at the age of 81. She was buried in Montjuïc Cemetery, Barcelona.

Recognition

Her death notice in The Times (UK) stated that she should be considered “one of the greatest singers of the second half of the 20th century.” James Hinton, Jr. described her voice as “very beautiful in the middle range.” Elizabeth Forbes, writing in The Independent (UK), said, “It is impossible to imagine a more beautifully pure voice than that of Victoria de los Ángeles during her peak years in the 1950s and early 1960s.” She was listed as number 3, following Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland, in the BBC Music Magazine’s list of The Top Twenty Sopranos of All Time (2007).

The municipal music school in Sant Cugat del Vallès is named after her (Escola Municipal de Música Victòria dels Àngels) and is located on a plaza that also bears her name (Plaça Victòria dels Àngels). This school keeps her first grand piano, a Steck model number 49253 from 1913, which she bought in Barcelona in 1948. Many cities in Catalonia and other parts of Spain have streets named in her honor.

In 2007, a private foundation was created to protect her legacy. It is called Fundació Victoria de los Ángeles.

Partial discography

• 1952: Il Barbiere di Siviglia: Tullio Serafin (conductor), Milan Symphony Orchestra; Gino Bechi (Figaro); Nicola Monti (Count Almaviva). EMI
• 1953: Pagliacci: Renato Cellini (conductor), RCA Victor Orchestra; Jussi Björling (Canio); Leonard Warren (Tonio); Robert Merrill (Silvio). RCA Victor
• 1953: La Vida Breve (complete): Manuel de Falla, EMI, HMV ALP1150-1151/ RCA Victor Red Seal, LM-6017, 1953, with Emilio Payá (baritone), Rosario Gomez (mezzo-soprano), Pablo Civil (tenor). Ernesto Halffter, conductor, with the Barcelona Opera Symphony Orchestra
• 1953: Faust: André Cluytens (conductor), Paris Opera Orchestra; Nicolai Gedda (Faust); Boris Christoff (Mephistopheles). EMI
• 1954: Madama Butterfly: Gianandrea Gavazzeni (conductor), Rome Opera Orchestra; Tito Gobbi (Sharpless); Giuseppe di Stefano (Pinkerton). EMI Records
• 1955: Les nuits d'été: Hector Berlioz, Charles Munch (conductor), Boston Symphony Orchestra. RCA Victor/EMI
• 1955: Manon: Pierre Monteux (conductor), Chorus and Orchestra of the National Opera-Comique. EMI
• 1956: La bohème: Thomas Beecham (conductor), RCA Victor Orchestra; Jussi Björling (Rodolfo); Robert Merrill (Marcello); Giorgio Tozzi (Colline); Lucine Amara (Musetta). RCA Victor/EMI
• 1957: Simon Boccanegra: Gabriele Santini (conductor), Rome Opera; Tito Gobbi (Boccanegra); Victoria de los Ángeles (Amelia/Maria); Giuseppe Campora (Adorno); Boris Christoff (Fiesco). EMI/Warner Classics (remastered in 1990)
• 1958: Faust: André Cluytens (conductor), Paris Opera Orchestra; Nicolai Gedda (Faust); Boris Christoff (Mephistopheles). EMI
• 1959: Carmen: Thomas Beecham (conductor), Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra; Nicolai Gedda (Don José); Janine Micheau (Micaëla); Ernest Blanc (Escamillo). EMI
• 1959: La traviata: Tullio Serafin (conductor), Rome Opera Orchestra; Carlo del Monte (Alfredo); Mario Sereni (Germont). EMI
• 1959: Madama Butterfly: Gabriele Santini (conductor), Rome Opera Orchestra; Jussi Björling (Pinkerton); Mario Sereni (Sharpless). EMI
• 1962: Cavalleria rusticana: Gabriele Santini (conductor), Rome Opera Orchestra; Franco Corelli (Turiddu); Mario Sereni (Alfio). EMI
• 1962: Il Barbiere di Siviglia: Vittorio Gui (conductor), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Sesto Bruscantini (Figaro); Luigi Alva (Count Almaviva). EMI
• 1962: Requiem (Fauré): André Cluytens (conductor), Paris Conservatory Orchestra; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. EMI
• 1964: Les Contes d'Hoffmann: André Cluytens (conductor), Paris Conservatory Orchestra; Nicolai Gedda (Hoffmann), Jean-Christophe Benoît (Nicklausse), Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (Giulietta), Gianna d'Angelo (Olimpia), Jacques Loreau (Andres/Nicklausse/Frantz/Pittichinaccio). EMI
• 1965: La Vida Breve (complete): Manuel de Falla, EMI CD M 7 69590-2, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (conductor), Spanish National Orchestra, Donostia Choir; Inés Rivadeneira (grandmother); Carlo Cossutta (Paco); Ana Maria Higueras (Carmela)
• 1965: Dido and Aeneas: John Barbirolli (conductor), English Chamber Orchestra; Peter Glossop (Aeneas); Heather Harper (Belinda). EMI
• 1966: L'enfance du Christ: André Cluytens (conductor), Paris Conservatory Orchestra; Nicolai Gedda; Ernest Blanc; Roger Soyer; Xavier Depraz. EMI
• 1968–69: Werther: Georges Prêtre (conductor), Paris Orchestra; Nicolai Gedda (Werther); Mady Mesplé (Sophie). EMI
• 1977: Orlando Furioso: Claudio Scimone (conductor), I Solisti Veneti; Marilyn Horne (Orlando); Lucia Valentini-Terrani (Alcina). Erato
• 1990: Chants d'Auvergne: Joseph Canteloube, EMI Studio DRM CD M 7 63176-2, Jean-Pierre Jacquillat (conductor), Lamoureux Concerts Orchestra
• 1992: Traditional Catalan Songs, with Geoffrey Parsons (pianist). Collins Classics
• 1993: The Fabulous Victoria de los Angeles (4 CD boxed set, with recordings from 1960 through 1993). EMI
• 2008: Victoria de los Angeles: The Voice of an Angel (Overview of career on 7 CDs / 165 tracks on mp3). EMI