Ensaio Aberto

The “warbler from Brazil”: so was called the soprano that, on February the 13th, 1937, carried away the parquet of the Metropolitan with her interpretation of Manon, of Jules Massenet (the label Naxos owns, on its catalog, the documentation of this historical night). Considered by the composer Edino Krieger “the great dame of Brazilian chant”, Bidu Sayão was one of the great stars of the Met, until she went out of scene in 1957. In 1987, on the 50 th anniversary of that memorable debut, the great New Yorker theater organized a whole year of celebrations, commencing by a new setting of Manon, to which Bidu attended as guest of honor.

People said Bidu had a small voice. And that was true. The keen Oscar Guanabarino discouraged her to pursue career with that “little strip of voice” she had. “Her voice isn’t good not even to chant in a saloon”, said the critic from Rio de Janeiro. “It’s a small room voice.” But “nobody ever had trouble in hearing her”, guaranteed the American critic George Movshon, because she knew how to project her “pure and of exceptional clarity” instrument. She had been a pupil, in Rio de Janeiro, of the Romanian Elena Theodorinu and, in France, of the tenor Jean de Reszke – besides the compositor Reynaldo Hahn, who prepared her to make the outstanding recording of his song Si mes vers avaient des ailes.

Bidu Sayão - ManonEmma Corelli, the rigorous director of the Teatro Costanzi di Roma, gave her her first chance in Italy, in 1926: the Rosina, in Il Barbiere di Siviglia which, on that time, used to be done with a soprano-leggèro. She conquered the public and, soon afterwards, she was shining as Mimì, Manon, Gilda, an unforgettable Mélisande, or Susanna, in Le Nozze di figaro – what made Olin Downes, the New York Times critic, to call her “a complete actress”, when he listened her on this role, at the Met, on January, 1949, under the regency of a Fritz Busch (the live recordings of this show is one of her most precious interpretations).

Bidu, yet, lamented not being able to play other kind of role. On an interview in 1977 to Istoé magazine, she said she didn’t like such “little unhappy, suffering, fragile chamberlains”. She was great in La Traviata, in Lucia di Lammermoor, in Sonnambula, in Rigoletto, or in Roméo et Juliette, of Gounod, of what there is a fabulous register, with Jussi Björling at her side. But she would like to have sung Tosca. In studio, on records, she played a Madame Butterfly conducted by Max Rudolf. But this was a role she could never play on stage. And she confessed: “I had nightmares by knowing that Otello’s Desdemona could ruin my voice forever.”

It was in Lincolnsville, on Maine, that Balduína de Oliveira Sayão lived until the end – she died at the age of 96, of lung complications, at March the 12th, 1999. But she always refused to obtain American citizenship. “I want to terminate my career as a Brazilian artist”, she said to President Franklin Roosevelt who, in 1938, when receiving her at the White House, offered her the American citizenship, with neither delay nor bureaucracy. And it was as one of the artists that had put Brazil on the map of international lyric chant that she was honoree by the “escola de samba” Beija-Flor, in the 1959 Carnival, with the theme Bidu Sayão and the Chant of Crystall. At 92, Bidu paraded in the Marquês de Sapucaí Avenue, on the allegoric car Black Swan, dressed as Carmen Miranda – another singer that, as Bidu, made the name of Brazil well known all over the world.

Her last years were tough ones. In 1963, died her second husband, the baritone Giuseppe Danesi, who had been of capital importance by supporting her at the evolution of her career (“it was him who made me improve and elaborate my voice”, she said.) Six years later, her house on Maine burned down. Rebuilt, it would be, soon afterwards, assaulted, and the robbers took away some precious articles of her collection. That’s why was so important to her, on those last melancholic days, the homage on the most popular Brazilian festivity, the Carnival.

Bidu Sayão - RigolettoA Brazil to where she did not come back many times. She had been very displease with the hoot she received when singing Pelléas et Mélisande at the Teatro Municipal do Rio. Hoot that may have been organized by the claque of the mezzo-soprano Gabriella Besanzoni Lage, whose success in Carmen they didn’t wanted to see overshadowed by the carioca (one who is born in the city of Rio de Janeiro) that had came laureate from the United States. But it could also have been the reaction of the conservative public to the fact that she have chosen, for her presentation in Rio, the discrete Debussy heroin – one of her best roles – instead of a more foreseeable Gilda or Lucia.

But Brazil was always present on her thoughts and career. It was Bidu who gave Villa-Lobos the idea to transform in vocalise for soprano the magic melody, initially written for soprano, of the Bachianas Brasileiras nº 5. Her recording, made with a group of cellos led by the great Leonard Rose, remains, until today, the reference registry of that piece.

In 1959, Bidu would be also a soloist, in the record of the Floresta do Amazonas, originally conceived as the soundtrack the movie Green Mansions and, afterwards, converted into an oratory. That last recording of Villa-Lobos would became of historical importance, as he would die on that same year.

The outstanding soloist of the Damoiselle Élue, of Debussy, recorded in 1936 by Toscanini; the great star of various seasons at the Met; an impeccable interpreter of a small, yet extremely refined repertory, Bidu Sayão was, undoubtedly, the songstress that helped Brazil to become internationally known. Nothing fairer, therefore, to give her name to a contest like this, whose objective is to reveal new talents to this art that owe her so much.

Lauro Machado Coelho