This week’s Opera Night begins with a short note seeking an audition for a radio new talent programme in 1935:
“The writer is a young soprano who has studied music and singing several years. Competent judges have pronounced my voice beautiful but with all that, it is so very difficult to find an opening, an opportunity for a real test to prove exactly what I can do. Your amateur hour I hope, may answer this need. Eagerly awaiting your reply, I remain, Very sincerely, Anita Duval.”
Anita Duval got her audition. Under the name of “Nina Foresti”, the Amateur Hour Talent programme recorded a tape of her Un bel di from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. It was graded “D” and bore the comment “Faint possibility for future.”
“Anita Duval” was Maria Callas. On the occasion of the release of Warner Classics’ new 69-CD deluxe box set of pristine remasters -a set that contains all of the studio recordings that she made for both EMI/Columbia and the Italian label Cetra between 1949 and 1969- Opera Night profiles and celebrates the “voice of the century” Maria Callas
RTÉ lyric fm, Saturday 27th September, 7pm-10pm