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In recital, the Freni voice was heard in its full splendor, as tonally pure as ever, colored with a golden sheen but possessing that greater richness that comes with age to singers who have taken care of their voices. In a program of opera arias and art songs, this new texture enhanced what was already a remarkable instrument. Her impassioned performance of Tu che la vanità from Don Carlos showed that she can sing more demanding music with out forcing her tone or altering the quality of her voice.
This has come as a surprise to those who have always thought of her as essentially a lyric soprano, including Freni. Says she: "When I started, I thought Mozart and La Bohème would be the maximum for me." For challenging her to expand her range she credits Karajan, the controversial, magisterial Austrian conductor who has played Svengali to her Trilby. It was with Karajan at La Scala that she came to international attention, singing Mimi in Franco Zeffirelli's 1963 production of La Bohème, and it has been with Karajan at his Salzburg Festival that she premiered some of her weightier roles, like Aida in 1979. "He said to me, 'Mirella, I want you to sing Aida. You can do the line I want. I don't like Aida screaming.' " After the first rehearsal, the orchestra broke into applause, and Karajan embraced her. He told her, "Mirella, if I could be a singer I would sing just like you."
People have been applauding Freni since she was five years old. First to recognize her talent was her uncle, who noticed that little Mirella could sing along with his recording of Lucia di Lammermoor. Later, Freni recalls: "When I was 10½, my uncle remembered that I could do this, and he put on the record for my father. He said, 'Please, Mirella,' and they discovered I had the voice." Two years later, she won a national competition with her singing of Puccini's Un bel di. One of the judges, Tenor Beniamino Gigli, advised her not to rush her career. Said Gigli: "You are young. Don't force your voice." Wisely, she waited until 1955 to make her formal debut.
Freni retains a low profile in the high-strung operatic world. She and Magiera quietly separated after Micaela was married, and Freni now shares a Milan apartment with Basso Nicolai Ghiaurov. Says Freni of their relationship: "He can help me, just as I can help him. We try to appease " each other with love and humanity."
Not for her is the traveling publicity circus of Modena's other great singer born in 1935, Pavarotti. "I am very happy for Luciano, he is like a brother to me. But it is not my character. I like my privacy. I enjoy singing, I enjoy creating something with my voice. But when it is finished, it is finished." The great American hype machine is wasted on Mirella Freni.
"Sometimes I think I am really strange," she says, her eyes gazing off into the distance. "I never think to have a big career. When the time comes, I hope to find the forza to retire in time. I say to my daughter, 'Micaela, you take me ou of the stage when you hear it is the end.
She say, 'Mamma, don't worry!' I love to sing, not to have a big career. I am free, choose the quality of my life. And I have done it."
—By Michael Walsh