“His teaching on Callas has had a paradoxical result on his own figure: on the one hand, it has helped him not fall into oblivion, but, on the other, its blinding light has overshadowed his own career as a singer.” The words of Juan Villalba, biographer of Elvira de Hidalgo (1891-1980), perfectly summarize another historical injustice committed against one of the great voices of the first third of the 20th century.
Elvira Juana Rodríguez Roldán, stage name Elvira de Hidalgo, was recognized by critics and the public internationally as the best Rosina of her time, the unforgettable protagonist of Rossini’s famous opera The Barber of Seville.
In her extensive biography Elvira de Hidalgo. From prima donna to teacher of Maria Callas (Fórcola, 2021), the writer rescues from oblivion one of the great sopranos of her time, whose vocal virtuosity dazzled in the best theaters throughout Europe, Latin America and the United States.
Elvira sang with the great figures of the gilded age of opera. “Tenors like Caruso, Fleta, Lazarus, Gigli, Smirnov, Bonci, Shipa or Lauri-Volpi; baritones like Battistini, Campanari, Montesanto, Galeffi, Stracciari or Ruffo; and basses like Chaliapin, Didur, Journet or De Angelis,” explains the writer and music expert.
Its success flooded the most exalted stages in the world, such as the Metropolitan in New York, Covent Garden in London, La Scala in Milan and the Paris Opera. He also reigned in other high-level ones such as the Liceo in Barcelona, ??the Teatro Real in Madrid or the Colón in Buenos Aires. His long life seems like something out of a movie.
“He rubbed shoulders with presidents, princes and dukes; Tsars and kings entertained her; The Aga Khan and a Romanov wanted her; she married a marquis and a millionaire; and she was friends with Anna Pávlova, Coco Chanel, Loïe Fuller and Josephine Baker,” recalls Villalba.
Elvira de Hidalgo was born on December 28, 1891 in Valderrobres (Teruel). Her father, who was fond of music, wanted her children to receive training in that discipline, learn music theory and play an instrument. Except for Elvira, none of her other three siblings (Pilar, Irene and Luis) would dedicate themselves professionally to that art.
In Barcelona, ??where the family had moved their residence, Elvira began her singing studies with Concepció Bordalba Simón and María Barrientos at the Liceo Superior Conservatory of Music, where she entered at the age of six. María Barrientos, a child prodigy of only thirteen years old, was not only her music theory teacher, but also a dear friend and an example of what a meteoric career could be.
In 1899 María debuted with great success at the Gran Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona, ??playing Lucía di Lammermoor. A year later she performed at the Teatro Lírico in Milan, and, shortly after, she conquered the stages of La Scala, Covent Garden or the Teatro Real in Madrid.
Elvira, for her part, continued her singing studies in Milan, the nerve center for all those who wanted to make a future in the world of opera, under the teaching of Melchor Vidal. On April 20, 1908, at just seventeen years old, the young performer fascinated the audience at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples in the role of Rosina in The Barber of Seville, by Gioachino Rossini.
“Rosina was going to be the character of his life, he played her with great stage confidence, displaying all the fire of feminine seduction; She sang it with an Argentine voice and clear diction and defined it with deep psychological penetration: lively, mischievous and somewhat capricious, all mixed with touches of candor and melancholy,” explains Villalba.
Il Giorno, a Naples newspaper, and much of the Italian and Spanish press echoed its shocking success. From then on she became part of the exclusive list of Spanish sopranos who amazed the public with her unique voice. A diva was born.
Elvira de Hidalgo thus begins an unstoppable race towards stardom. She became one of the great soprani d’ agilità of her time, playing the protagonists of such famous librettos as Linda of Chamounix, Rigoletto, The Puritans and Lucia of Lammermoor, among many others.
His warm and crystalline voice conquered the best theaters in Italy, Europe and America. In 1923, the year of Primo de Rivera’s coup d’état, the great attraction of the season at the Teatro Real in Madrid was the interpretive duel of the two great divos of the time: the Catalan Hipólito Lázaro and the Aragonese Miguel Fleta. Elvira de Hidalgo, the prima donna of that season, slipped between both excessive egos, achieving enormous success. It was her last performance at the Madrid coliseum.
The great performer became, over the years, an operatic celebrity. Her legendary performances allowed her to earn large sums of money and enjoy a comfortable financial situation. She was an admired and powerful woman who rubbed shoulders with high society, exuding glamour. Although she married twice, she always kept her maiden name, thus reaffirming her independence.
She continued to perform regularly until 1930 and sporadically until 1936. The swan song of this great lady of opera would come on March 16, 1938, at the Kimon Rallis Concert Hall in Piraeus. She thus concluded her stage as a singer by dropping the curtain with a final performance of Lucía’s great aria, Regnava del silenzio. Here she finished her career, but she continued as a full-time teacher,” recalls Juan Villalba.
“She had an expression in her eyes… Although she didn’t understand the language, she sang in Italian. She looked at me all the time. With that mouth. That huge mouth. And her eyes spoke. She caught my attention a lot.” This is how Elvira de Hidalgo recalled years later on a French television program her first encounters with her most famous student, a very young Maria Callas.
Retired from the stage, the Aragonese artist had taken up residence in Athens, dedicating her time to teaching bel canto. At that time, Evangelia Dimitriadis had abandoned her husband and her life in the United States to settle with her two teenage daughters in Greece. The little girl was a diamond in the rough that Elvira de Hidalgo did not take long to discover.
Without the teaching of the Spanish performer, the meteoric career of Maria Callas, the great diva of the 20th century, cannot be explained, since she did not limit herself to educating her voice, but also taught her the importance of staging. “A diva, in addition to singing and performing, has to be a goddess in everyday life,” the Greek artist would confess years later, a good example of the implementation of the Aragonese woman’s wise advice.
An objective to which Luis, Elvira’s younger brother, who went on to become a recognized name in Italian fashion, also contributed. His contribution would be decisive in turning Callas into the most elegant woman of 1957. An amazing voice wrapped in irresistible glamour.
In this way Maria Callas conquered the world. “This is how De Hidalgo molded Callas, from excellent clay she produced an authentic Greek goddess, a true opera diva made in her image and likeness, but with a broader and more complete voice,” explains Villalba.
During the time they met in Greece, an unbreakable friendship was forged between teacher and student that lasted a lifetime. Even when Maria Callas was already a globally recognized star, Elvira de Hidalgo continued to be the lighthouse and the necessary support point to dispel doubts or insecurities. When she undertook a complicated project, the great diva did not hesitate to consult her former teacher or ask her to come to the hotel where she was in order to perfect a role.
Also on a personal level, Elvira de Hidalgo was an indispensable support for Maria Callas. The Spanish artist became her friend and confidant, and both women maintained an intense correspondence throughout her life, in which the student confessed to her tutor the stormy love swings that upset her.
Maria Callas died on September 16, 1977. “The doctors diagnosed a heart attack, but those who knew her well knew that she had let herself die, she had lost the desire to live and nothing mattered anymore, the pain had grown in her chest until suffocate her voice and kill her,” says Juan Villalba.
Italian-American opera singer Lina Pagliughi would later state: “She died alone and abandoned. On stage everyone loved her, but off stage no one truly loved her.” For Elvira, the death of her most beloved student was a very bitter blow.
The Aragonese diva died three years later at the age of eighty-eight in Milan. She was an extraordinary soprano, capable of working the “Callas miracle”: recovering a vocal type that had been extinct for decades, the sfogato soprano, the unlimited soprano, capable of singing all types of operas.
