A life with a crown

"I was just a child in Burgas, Bulgaria, where I was born, when a gypsy woman stopped me to read my palm," says Raina Kabaivanska, sitting on a couch in her home in Modena on a foggy autumn morning. "My parents said ‘Come away, come away.’ But, of course, I stopped. She took my hand and, after studying it, said, I see you as a tsarina, with a magnificent crown on your head."

In fact, Raina has worn many crowns during her life on stage, and her name, which means "river nymph" in Bulgarian, sounds a lot like "reina" or "queen" in her adopted language, Italian. Raina Kabaivanska turns 90 on December 15, and in her beautiful, bright home full of art, she indulges in her memories despite the foggy weather. And she does so with the personality and intelligence she has always displayed throughout her 70-year career, on and off the stage.

There is something very Balkan about the way she talks about herself. She is aware of the importance of her career, but her smile is welcoming and wry, even though she knows she always wears a crown. That fatalism is deeply Balkan, a constant reminder that her life has turned out the way it has by sheer chance, thanks to happy little steps that happened without too much effort on her part. And then there is her sense of humour, her lightning-fast ability to pick up on funny details. Checking herself in the reflection of a flower vase I had brought her, she began humming "Poor Flowers" by Adriana Lecouvreur. A poor tulip in the composition is sadly wilted: "buds of the meadows dying today..."

Otherwise, Raina Kabaivanska is the most Italian of singers. She trained in our country after she arrived in 1958 on a Bulgarian scholarship. She knew music well and she had a diploma in singing and piano from the Sofia Conservatory, but she knew nothing about performing, theatre or the operatic environment. Young and inexperienced, she parachuted into Milan from another planet.

"As a girl, I was the only woman in the Bulgarian military choir," she recalls. "I was always among these little soldiers, and we travelled around the country in military trucks that threw us all over the place. Most of the time I would stay to the back of the truck as best I could. But I sang, I always sang.

The artist before me today is the result of work and study that has lasted 70 years and continues to this day. "I had a scholarship from Bulgaria. And in Milan I had a bed in the house of a Motta worker, in Viale Piave, with traffic that made it seem as if cars were passing over my head. The person I thought was my landlady was actually a tenant herself. She slept in the hall, and I slept in the living room. When I would open the door to leave, the door would slam on my roommate's bed. From that little house I would change two or three trams, go to the central station and take a train to Vercelli, where I attended the Viotti music high school. I was supposed to study with Miss Tess, a former singer with very noble poise. However, I went to listen to the lessons of the other class, where Mrs. Zita Fumagalli Riva was teaching, and there I realized that she held the truth and not Tess. I secretly began to study with her, and she immediately welcomed me as a student. She was kindness personified. Just think, many years later I helped her because she didn't even have a pension. She was a great teacher for me. She taught me until she died at the age of 104. We singers have long lives, who knows, maybe it's the breathing. Just think that Fumagalli, who gave free lessons, was able to pay me when I accompanied her students on the piano. And she often shared a meal with me, which was usually just a saffron risotto. Sometimes today I ask myself: What did I eat then? Did I eat or did I not eat?

DANIELE CASSANDRO Whether you were eating or not, your La Scala debut came in 1961. You sang Agnese in Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda, alongside a Joan Sutherland who was herself almost a debutante. It was a mezzo-soprano part...
RAINA KABAIVANSKA Although I have always had a soprano voice, when I auditioned at La Scala, this old maestro Bianchi, who was already half blind, heard me. I sang the aria from Massenet's Thaïs, with the pianissimo in B flat. I did everything instinctively. I remember the jury as if it were yesterday. Bianchi stood up and said: 'This girl will be singing at La Scala in two months' time.' And so it was. I didn't realise where I was or what I was doing. For me it was work.

When I told Mrs Fumagalli that I wanted to take part in the competition for La Scala, she told me not to. Without a recommendation it would have been impossible. I went anyway, and she wanted to accompany me. During my audition, she hid up the stairs at the artists' entrance. When I finished, she jumped out and hugged me. And then they hired me. I debuted as Agnese, which was an easy role. I had a beautiful costume, which I remember very well. There were still those grand old productions, with the velvet curtains, the lace and the embroidery.

After the premiere, I was all alone in my dressing room when I heard a knock at the door. It was a tall, very elegant gentleman who said, 'Would you like to sing at the Met? I said, 'Where?' He said, 'New York. We made an appointment for lunch the next day at Biffi Scala to discuss it. A little later there was another knock and it was another elegant gentleman: 'Would you like to sing at Covent Garden in London?' 'What is Covent Garden? I didn't even know. He also took me to lunch at Biffi Scala, but I was already busy. It sounds like a fairy tale, but that's how it happened. The night of that debut, I was not afraid. When I think about it, I was always happy to sing. When I was on stage, I was natural. I was myself. When I came out in real life, I was not so comfortable. 

DC So, you have never had anxiety or fear? Fear of a conductor or fear of the audience?
RK Of the audience, never. Of conductors, maybe I should have been more afraid, but I wasn't. Maybe because I was dumb. One day, I was still in the younger school at La Scala, they called me to sing for maestro Karajan. I don't even remember what I had sung. I found myself cast as Nedda in Pagliacci. And I also had to do the filming of a movie based on the opera. The maestro says to me, “Your profile is very beautiful; you should always stay like that.” My problem was that, standing in profile, I couldn't see him, “Maestro, I don't see you though,” I told him. He said, “It doesn't matter.” And then, according to him, I was moving too much, so he told me I should stay still. But I told him, “I do Nedda this way. If you don't like it, I can leave.” I went out, took the streetcar and went back to my little house in Via Piave.

DC That’s so courageous. And how did it go?
RK When I got home, the was phone ringing off the hook. It was Superintendent Ghiringhelli saying, “Are you crazy? Do you know who Maestro Karajan is?” Finally, repentant, I went back to the theatre.

DC But then how did it go with Karajan? Could your surge of pride possibly have affected him positively?
RK No, honey. For ten years or more he kept me grounded. And he was right to do so. Only later did he bring me back with Trovatore.

DC On stage the singing Raina never overpowers the acting Raina and vice versa. Has this focus on acting, on theatre, been built up over time or is it a natural talent of yours?
RK It's all natural. I always pay attention to the text. Opera is not just notes, it is also gestures, intentions. When I approach a character, it's like a second skin. Actually, the first one. I went straight for it. When it came to studying the role of Cio-Cio-san in Butterfly, one of my favourite characters, I wanted to learn real Japanese movements to get away from clichés. In New York, I met a great Kabuki performer who allowed me to watch him dressing and putting on his make-up. I remember the limousines waiting for him outside. I spent hours on my knees watching him. In Kabuki theatre, women do not go on stage; he was a middle-aged man who was transformed before my eyes into a fifteen-year-old Japanese girl. I learnt all the gestures, the looks, the expressions, and then showed the audience the Puccini woman behind all the ritual. Madama Butterfly has always been an easy opera for me, it came naturally to me.

DC Yet when they proposed it to you early in your career you turned it down...
RK I didn't feel ready. It's a mature artist's role.

DC Over the years, you continued to develop the character of Cio-Cio-san...
RK I set out to read all of Puccini's musical directions. He really wrote with theatre in mind. When he composed, he had a model on which he moved the characters. Inside Puccini's music, the gesture is already written. Everything is there.

DC You taught a lot and still teach today. What has changed for younger singers compared to when you sang?
RK Everything has changed. A few days ago, I found an old calendar of mine in which I had marked all my engagements. In one month, I would have four performances a week, and when I was not busy in the theatre, I would give concerts. Nowadays, theatres produce much less and there is less singing. The audience has also changed. Today I see a lot of white hair. A few young people, of course, but many, many white-haired people. But I try to be a bit of a mother to my students, like Fumagalli was to me. They confide in me, they introduce me to their boyfriends or girlfriends, and I have to approve them, whether I like them or not.

DC Let's play a game. I’ll name some characters you've played, and you describe them to me in two words, as if they were people you knew. Let's start with Cio-Cio-san...
RK Unfortunate. A believer.

DC Floria Tosca.
RK If Cio-Cio-san is a believer, Tosca is a doer. They're two opposite characters.

DC Violetta Valery.
RK Violetta is everything. She is the most complete character there is. To really sing her you would need two or three different sopranos. For me, the music of the first act of La Traviata was a big obstacle from a technical standpoint. The first time I tried it, I had just got engaged to the man who was to become my husband. I was mute for days, which had never happened before. I did not speak to save my voice for the damned: 'gioir...gioir...'.

DC Manon Lescaut
RK Manon is beautiful because she is very feminine. When she is dying in the desert, she asks for a kiss. But she asks for water, doesn't she?

DC Are you happy?
RK Happy is a bit much. I can say I'm happy. But mostly I am satisfied. Because I still live in music.

 

Daniele Cassandro
Daniele is a journalist who works with Internazionale and is one of the voices of Pagina 3 Internazionale, Radio 3's cultural press review. He is the author of Dischi volanti - 40 album alieni da Duke Ellington a Lady Gaga (Curci)
Translation by Alexa Ahern