Maria Capuana (2 September 1891 – 22 February 1955) was an Italian mezzo-soprano who had a major international opera career during the first half of the 20th century. She possessed a voice with a dark timbre that she used with great expression.
Born in Fano in the Province of Pesaro and Urbino, Capuana was the older sister of conductor Franco Capuana. She was trained in the art of singing and piano performance at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Naples where she was a pupil of Beniamino Carelli. She made her stage debut in 1916 at the opera house in Reggio Emilia as Amneris in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida; a role which she would repeat at many major opera houses internationally later in her career and notably record for the opera's first commercial recording in 1928.
Capuana soon began appearing in leading roles at major opera houses in both Italy and France and by 1920 she had already made appearances at La Scala in Milan, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the Teatro Regio in Turin, and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris among others. She enjoyed several major successes with the role of Brangäne in Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in her early career, and the part helped establish herself as one of Italy's leading Wagnerian singers. Other Wagner roles in her repertoire, included Ortrud in Lohengrin, Venus in Tannhäuser, and Erda, Fricka, Gutrune, and the Second Norn in The Ring Cycle.
In 1921 Capuana portrayed Zoraide in the world premiere of Carlo Adolfo Cantù's Ettore Fieramosca at the Teatro Regio in Turin. In 1923 she had a major triumph at La Scala as Herodias in Richard Strauss's Salome. She continued to return with some frequency to that house through 1928 in such roles as Amneris, Fricka, Ortrud, and Rubria in Arrigo Boito's Nerone. She was seen at the Teatro Carlo Felice periodically between 1924 and 1936 where she sang a number of Wagner roles. She also made a number of appearances between 1927 and 1930 at the Teatro di San Carlo, including the role of Rufina in Riccardo Zandonai's Conchita. She notably created the title role in the world premiere of Emilio Pizzi's Ivania at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo in 1926. During the 1930s she made several appearances at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. In 1931 she toured Italy as a member of the Carro di Tespi.
Outside of Italy, Capuana performed in operas in Barcelona, Lisbon, Cairo, Argentina, Chile, France, and South Africa during the 1920s and 1930s. She was a much loved Amneris at the Teatro Colón in 1925. In 1935 she toured France as a recitalist.
Capuana's performance career ceased around the outbreak of World War II. Other roles she performed on stage included Adalgisa in Norma, Azucena in Il trovatore, Cerinto in Nerone, Charlotte in Werther, Laura in La Gioconda, Leonora in La favorite, Maffio Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia, Marguerite in La damnation de Faust, Princess Eboli in Don Carlos, and the Old Woman in L'amore dei tre re. She died in Cagliari at the age of 63.
MariaCapuana (2 September 1891 – 22 February 1955) was an Italian mezzo-soprano who had a major international opera career during the first half of the...
journalist MariaCapuana, Italian opera singer Mario Capuana, Italian composer of motets and a requiem This page lists people with the surname Capuana. If an...
Civitas Capuana, the town is a medieval place and its proximity to the Roman amphitheatre led the inhabitants to change its name to Santa Maria Capua Vetere...
by the merger of the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto, the Conservatorio di Sant' Onofrio in Capuana, and the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini...
The Tabula Capuana ("Tablet from Capua"; Ital. Tavola Capuana), is an ancient terracotta slab, 50 by 60 cm (20 by 24 in), with a long inscribed text in...
Nazionale del Grammofono Cat: S 5150-5180 1928 Giannina Arangi-Lombardi MariaCapuana Aroldo Lindi Armando Borgioli Tancredi Pasero Lorenzo Molajoli Teatro...
Province of Pesaro and Urbino, he was the younger brother of mezzo-soprano MariaCapuana. He became associated with the Teatro di San Carlo in 1930 and La Scala...
singers Pasquale Amato, Giannina Arangi-Lombardi, Francesco Maria Bonini, MariaCapuana, Fernando De Lucia, Franco Lo Giudice, Riccardo Martin, and Raimund...
spoliated by the Capuans themselves following the transfer of the Civitas Capuana from its old Roman site to Casilinum (the current location of the town)...
Sant'Agrippina Santi Pietro e Paolo Santa Maria Maggiore It is also a site of interest since Luigi Capuana, one of Italy's most famous writers in the...
the creator of the Lambretta motorscooter (died 1966) September 2 – MariaCapuana, Italian mezzo-soprano (died 1955) November 10 – Enrica Calabresi, Italian...
Vincenzo Bellini and Giovanni Pacini, and the writers Giovanni Verga, Luigi Capuana, Federico De Roberto and Nino Martoglio. Catania today is the industrial...
of death. The form lachth (twice on side A) also occurs in the Tabula Capuana along with a variant lachuth, both in line 26. There, it also seems to...
kind of religious calendar, yielded about 50 lexical items. The Tabula Capuana (the inscribed tile from Capua) has about 300 readable words in 62 lines...
The Archdiocese of Capua (Latin: Archidioecesis Capuana) is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in Capua, in Campania, Italy, but its archbishop no...
been highly regarded by writers of Italian literature, including Luigi Capuana, Giovanni Verga, Enrico Thovez, Pietro Pancrazi [it], Renato Serra [it]...
ritual text with around 1400 words Clay Tablet of Capua (Tabula or Tegula Capuana) – ritual text as a bustrophedon with 62 lines and around 300 words Tablet...
triumphant entrance to Naples on 10 May 1734, through the old city gate at Capuana surrounded by the city councilors along with a group of people who threw...
offerti a Maria Bonghi Jovino. Milano 2013 (Quaderni di Acme 134) pp. 323–341 (335) van der Meer, L. B. (2014) "Some comment on the Tabula Capuana", in Studi...
Antonio Corsetto, as well as architect Matteo Carnelivari and composer Mario Capuana. In 1503 King Ferdinand III granted it the title of civitas ingeniosa ("Ingenious...
inscribed upon terracotta tablets, the most famous of which is the Tabula Capuana, conserved in Berlin, still, after more than a century of searching, the...
writer-journalists including Ugo Fleres, Tomaso Gnoli, Giustino Ferri and Luigi Capuana. Capuana encouraged Pirandello to dedicate himself to narrative writing. In...
(Otello), Cesy Broggini (Desdemona), Giuseppe Taddei (Iago) - Orchestra and Chorus of Rai Turin, Franco Capuana - Warner Fonit (1955) Operissimo.com...
(1988) [1976]. Dictionary of Russian literature Since 1917. Translated by Maria Carlson and Jane T. Hedges. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-2310-5242-1...
(premiere in Italian translation) Zandonai: Francesca da Rimini 1961 / Capuana, Gencer, Cioni, et al. Rossini: Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra 1971/Sanzogno...
Maria d'Avellanedo, a Spanish noblewoman and bridesmaid of his stepmother Giovanna, then married to Alfonso Caracciolo, knight of the seat of Capuana...
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