Biography
Bidu Sayão emerged as Brazil’s leading soprano during the 1940s, celebrated for an otherworldly tone, precise musicianship, and vivid dramatic presence. Born into an affluent Rio de Janeiro household in 1902, she displayed unmistakable vocal promise while still a child, yet her parents resisted the idea of a professional career on grounds of social propriety. At thirteen an uncle secured lessons with renowned Romanian soprano Elena Theodorini; Sayão accompanied her mentor to Romania and continued training there. Returning home in 1920, she made her stage debut as Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at the Teatro Municipal, a triumph that finally persuaded her family to endorse her ambitions. Two years afterward she moved to France for recital coaching with retired Polish tenor Jean de Reszke, whose crystalline timbre became a hallmark of her own singing. Following Reszke’s death she reappeared in Rio in 1926 as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, after which engagements multiplied across South America, Paris, Rome, and La Scala. During those years Arturo Toscanini encountered her Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata and promptly invited her to New York, where she debuted with the New York Philharmonic in 1935. She performed again in Brazil for the next two seasons before returning in 1937 for a celebrated Toscanini-led Manon. Over the following fifteen years she appeared in more than two hundred Met productions, establishing herself as the era’s foremost soprano. She also worked closely with composer Heitor Villa-Locos, persuading him to set Bachiana Brasileiras No. 5 for wordless soprano; the resulting score became his best-known work, and her 1945 recording of the vocalise remained her signature release. Shortly before turning fifty in 1952 she withdrew from the Met, retiring from opera altogether in 1954. Villa-Lobos later enticed her back to record his Forest of the Amazon, and she accepted occasional further engagements until a final 1958 farewell in Rio. She then settled in Lincolnville, Maine, with her husband Giuseppe Danise. After his death in 1963 she devoted herself to her cats, card games with friends, and occasional trips to New York for concerts and galas. A near-fatal stroke struck in 1993, yet she recovered fully. In 1995 she revisited Rio, where the Beija-Flor Samba School honored her by depicting her life story in its Carnival parade. Four years later pneumonia ended her life at age ninety-six in Rockport, Maine’s Penobscot Bay Medical Center. Since that time numerous recordings have been reissued on the Sony Classical, Cembal d’amour, and Cantus Classics labels.
Albums
