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Leyla Gencer (born October 10, 1928 in Istanbul, Turkey) is a world-renowned Turkish soprano opera singer.Known as "La Diva Turca" (The Turkish Diva) and "La Regina" (The Queen) in the opera world, Gencer is a notable bel canto soprano who spent most of her career in Italy, from the early 1950s through the mid-1980s, and had a repertoire encompassing more than seventy roles.
She made very few commercial recordings; however, numerous bootleg
recordings of her performances exist. In particular, Gencer was
associated with the heroines of Donizetti.
Career
Gencer grew up in the Çubuklu district of Istanbul, on the Anatolian
Side of the Bosphorus. She began studying singing at the Istanbul
Conservatory, but dropped out to study privately in Ankara with her
teacher, the Italian soprano Giannina Arangi-Lombardi. Gencer sang in
the chorus of the Turkish State Theater until she made her operatic
debut in Ankara in 1950 as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. During the
next few years, she became well-known in Turkey and sang frequently at
functions for the Turkish government.
In 1953, Gencer made her Italian debut at the San Carlo in Naples as
Santuzza. She returned to Naples the following year for performances of
Madama Butterfly and Eugene Onegin. In 1957, she made her debut at La
Scala in Milan as Mme. Lidoine in the world premiere of Poulenc's
Dialogues des Carmélites. She went on to appear regularly at La Scala,
performing nineteen roles between 1957 and 1983, including Leonora in
La Forza del Destino, Elisabetta in Don Carlos, Aïda, Lady Macbeth in
Macbeth, Norma, Ottavia in L'incoronazione di Poppea, and Alceste. At
La Scala, she also appeared as the First Woman of Canterbury in the
world premiere of Pizzetti's L'assassinio nella cattedrale in 1958.
In 1962, Gencer made her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
as Elisabetta di Valois and as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. She made her
U.S. debut at the San Francisco Opera in 1956 as Francesca in Francesca
da Rimini. She sang at other American opera houses as well, but never
sang at the Metropolitan Opera, though there had been discussions for
her to sing Tosca there in 1956.
In 1985, Gencer retired from the operatic stage with a performance of
Gnecco's La Prova di un'opera seria at La Fenice. She continued to
appear in concerts until 1992. As of 2007, she is still active, and was
recently appointed by La Scala's music director Riccardo Muti to run
its school for young artists.
Throughout her career, Gencer was known primarily as a Donizetti
interpreter. Among her best-known Donizetti performances are Belisario,
Poliuto, Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia, Maria Stuarda, and Caterina
Cornaro. Her most acclaimed and best-known performance, though, was
Roberto Devereux, which she sang in Naples in 1964.
In addition to the bel canto roles for which she is best known,
Gencer's repertory also included works by such composers as Prokofiev,
Mozart, and Puccini. She appeared in many rarely performed operas,
including Smareglia's La Falena, Rossini's Elisabetta, regina
d'Inghilterra, Spontini's Agnese di Hohenstaufen, Pacini's Saffo, and
Gluck's Alceste.
Gencer achieved an international career in a short time and performed
with renowned Italian maestros such as; Gui, Serafin, Gavazzeni and
Muti. She contributed to the improvement of the 'Donizetti Renaissance'
with her great performances of Donizetti's forgotten operas.
Gencer's repertoire consists of 72 roles including works from composers
such as; Monteverdi, Gluck, Mozart to neo-classical period; from
Cherubini, Spontini, Mayr and the romantic period to Puccini,
Prokofiev, Britten, Poulenc, Menotti and Rocca; from a lyric soprano
varying to dramatic colorature.
Chopin's 'Lyric Compositions' she performed in Paris with Nikita
Magaloff, her Liszt-Bartok performance in La Scala and her concert
regarding 'the operas about Turks' within the Venice Carnival at La
Fenice Theatre, show her innovative character as an opera singer. She
concluded her singing career in 1985 with Francesco Gnecco's 'La Prova
di un'Opera Seria' performance at La Fenice Theatre, though she
continued to give concerts until 1992.
In 1982, Leyla Gencer dedicated herself for education of young opera
artists. She worked as a didactic art director of As.Li.Co. of Milan
between 1983-88 and was appointed by Maestro Riccardo Muti to run La
Scala's School for Young Artists between 1997-1998. Gencer is the
artistic director of the academy for opera artists formed in Teatro
alla Scala where she teaches opera interpretation.
Leyla Gencer performed leading roles in many famous operas and she is
known as the 'last diva of the 20th century'. She achieved her strong
presence in the opera world, not only by the variety of her repertoire,
but also with the dramatic nuances that she attributed to the roles she
performed. Being a good researcher and a teacher, she reintroduced many
forgotten works of the romantic period to the opera stages.
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