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LINA CAVALIERI L C INA AVALIERI The Life of Opera’s Greatest Beauty, ¡874–¡944 Paul Fryer and Olga Usova McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARYOFCONGRESSONLINECATALOG Fryer,Paul,¡955– Lina Cavalieri :the life of opera’s greatest beauty,¡874–¡944 / Paul Fryer and Olga Usova. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. Discography:p. Filmography:p. ISBN-¡3:978-0-7864-1685-1 (softcover :50# alkaline paper) [¡.] Cavalieri,Lina,¡874. [2.] Sopranos (Singers)—Biography. [I. Title.] ML420.C388F7 2004 782.¡'092B—dc22 200302369¡ British Library cataloguing data are available ©2004 Paul Fryer and Olga Usova.All rights reserved No part ofthis book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical,including photocopying or recording,or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover photograph:Cavalieri as Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata(Reutlinger Studio, Paris ¡90¡,from the collections ofthe author and Svetlana Vlasova) Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company,Inc.,Publishers Box 6¡¡,Je›erson,North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com To Andrei,Gleb,Danila and Nigel A CKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Historic Singers Trust: and the invaluable assistance of Emilia Rudaya, Mikhail Talalai, Alexander Pozdnyakov (of Lenfilm), Mike Mashon (Library of Congress), Robert Tuggle (Metropolitan Opera Archives), Amedeo Gigli, Marvin Lyons, Ulla Tillan- der-Godenhielm, Dr.William McRae, Erio Tripodi, Anna Shoulgat, Tom Kauf- man,Bob Kosovsky (New York Public Library Performing Arts),Barbara Karn,Stella Wright (Massenet Society,London),Kevin Brownlow,Edward Morgan,Pierre Vidal (Biblioteque Musee de l’Opera),Alice Bloch,Charlotte Revollon-Lubert (Opera Monte Carlo), Marcella Ilari, Patrizia Lazzari, Svetlana Vlasova; the sta› of the British Library Newspaper Library;the sta› of the State Museum of Theatre and Music, St.Petersburg;and the sta› of the Music and Motion Picture Divisions of the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. vi C ONTENTS Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 I. Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 II. The Queen of Variety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 III. The Opera Star I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 IV. The Opera Star II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 V. The Film Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 VI. Endings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Chronology of Operatic Roles and Appearances. . . 167 Filmography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Discography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 vii P REFACE Even the most casual observer who happened across a reference to “the most beautiful woman in the world”might be intrigued enough to find out who she was. The authors of this,the first English-language biography of Lina Cavalieri,certainly were. Starting from entirely opposite points, they became captivated by the rags- to-riches’ story of this woman who rose from the streets of Rome to international fame as a cabaret singer, an operatic diva and a silent movie star. Lina Cavalieri became an icon of beauty and fashion: a media personality whose image appeared on postcards all over the world,who enjoyed notorious love a›airs,entering into a scandalous liaison with a Russian prince and marrying into one of the world’s rich- est families.And yes,as the numerous photographs published here prove,she was very beautiful. Cavalieri was one of the greatest stars of her era:Her reputation filled theaters from St.Petersburg to London and Paris.She shared the stage of New York’s Met- ropolitan Opera House with Enrico Caruso and was the first major opera star to appear in a feature-length film.Yet today,she is almost forgotten. Distinguishing between fact and fiction in the examination of such a colorful life story has been a problematic task. Much of what has been previously written about Cavalieri originates from unreliable,anecdotal sources:Her self-styled auto- biography,Le Mie Verità (Rome,¡936),littered with inaccuracies,has provided the major source for most previous accounts. This book attempts the first scholarly assessment of her life and career,accessing,for the first time in English translation, a wealth of material relating to her hugely successful career in pre–Revolutionary Russia.For example,the largely adulatory accounts of her stage personality and per- formance technique which exist in several sets of memoirs and later in studio-gen- erated publicity material have been replaced in this study by the far more probing critical assessments of some of her colleagues and the many writers who dismissed the force of her sheer physical presence to provide us with a vivid picture of a singing actress of distinction and considerable potential. Some questions about her life remain unanswered,but this has only added to the intrigue,and knowledge of the star suggests that this is exactly what she would have wanted.Here we can witness again the opera star that so impressed Puccini in the New York premiere of Manon Lescautand of whom Massenet conceded the value of her beauty gave her the right to make mistakes from time to time. In an era in which crossover performances from one genre or medium to another 1