That time has passed is evident in the deterioration suffered by that blue and cream dress, awaiting repair, still fragile to be exhibited.
It was 1951 when Victoria of the Angels, aged 27, made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and opened a long relationship with the city. The diva was dressed in that outfit as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust.
This is another era, but in the majestic opera theater of the Gran Poma, the memory of the Barcelona soprano lives on intact, whose centenary is being commemorated. “He had an extraordinary career in this house and achieved many triumphs,” says Maurice Wheeler, director of the Met’s archives. “The roles he sang became much better known within this operatic community thanks to his work. She was very popular here as a performer and it was clear that she enjoyed performing on this stage”, he adds.
The dress, once repaired in this institution’s workshop, will join four others that the Met exhibits until June 8 in the acts of tribute to the centenary of the soprano’s birth. She sang in this temple 139 times and became one of the favorites of the public and the critics.
The opening took place on February 27 and coincided with the premiere of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, a title she performed in 23 performances and which immortalized her among New Yorkers. On display in the lobby are two kimonos and the original Japanese parasol he used to be Cio-Cio-San. The other two dresses are the one she wore in Massenet’s Manon (1954), and the most brilliant one, by the Countess of Almavivaen in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, also in 1951.
Helena Mora, young soprano and president of the Victoria de los Ángeles Foundation, explains that it was the Met that, after so much time, approached them to ask for the costumes for the tribute. “They haven’t done it for other singers, only for Victòria, still one of the most loved”, he remarks.
“It was essential that Victòria return to the Met, which is the theater where she performed the most”, emphasizes Marc Busquets, artistic director of the foundation and curator of the centenary. This includes the exhibition at the Cervantes Institute in New York of a reduced version of the exhibition in the Catalan capital dedicated to the friendship of the diva and the pianist Alicia Larrocha, two universal Barcelona residents.
