Maria Gay (12 June 1876Spanish Civil Registry, Barcelona
year 1876, entry number 2932
– 29 July 1943) was a Catalan opera singer, a

mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano (, ), or mezzo ( ), is a type of classical music, classical female singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A bel ...

born as Maria de Lourdes Lucia Antonia Pichot Gironés. She has sometimes been referred to as Maria Gay Zenatello.

Biography

According to one story, young Maria was arrested for singing revolutionary or nationalist songs. She defiantly continued to sing them in prison, with a voice so fine she was offered a chance to study

bel canto , )—with several similar constructions (, , , pronounced in English as )—is a term with several meanings that relate to Italian singing, and whose definitions have often been misunderstood. ''Bel canto'' was not only seen as a vocal technique ...

. She was a singing pupil of soprano Ada Adini. In 1897, she married the Catalan composer , with whom she had two daughters and a son, all of whom died young: her daughters of illness as teenagers and her son in the war. In 1902, she debuted in the title role of ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the O ...

'' in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

. She was a hit in the role and became one of the best regarded interpreters of "Carmen" of her era. She reportedly shocked and mesmerized audiences, portraying the gypsy girl as an impudent, magnetic, but coarse and unrefined peasant, eating an orange and spitting out the seeds before singing the famous Habanera. In 1906, she debuted at

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

La Scala La Scala (, , ; officially , ) is a historic opera house in Milan, Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as (, which previously was Santa Maria della Scala, Milan, a church). The premiere performa ...

, where she met

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

Giovanni Zenatello. Gay and Zenatello would live together the rest of their lives, and were often described as husband and wife, although they may never actually have gotten married, and legally Maria Gay may still have been married to Joan Gay Planella until his death in 1926. In 1908, she made her debut in ''Carmen'' for the Met in New York City opposite Geraldine Farrar as Micaela. In 1910 she performed the same role with the Boston Opera Company as Carmen. She made a series of gramophone records for the Columbia Phonograph Company. Gay and Zenatello worked to find, help train, and promote promising young singers. Their most famous find was Lily Pons, who the couple managed until Pons and the couple had a falling-out. Gay and Zenatello set up a home in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, New York City in 1936, where she lived the rest of her life. She died on 20 July 1943. Maria Gay was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in

Hartsdale, New York Hartsdale is a hamlet located in the town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 5,293 at the 2010 census. It is a suburb of New York City. History Hartsdale, a CDP/hamlet/post-office in the town of Gre ...

References

External links

Maria Gay's discography can be searched at the National Library of Catalonia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gay, Maria 1876 births 1943 deaths Opera singers from Catalonia 20th-century Spanish women opera singers 19th-century Spanish women opera singers Operatic mezzo-sopranos Burials at Ferncliff Cemetery