3. Female Grandeur and Operatic Performance
Background: In the Muslim Ottoman society, it was religiously forbidden for women to appear as actresses on stage. The first female stage performers in the Ottoman society were from among the non-Muslim sections of the society. This convention was also in social practice in the very early years of the Turkish Republic; until the first Turkish female stage performers broke these taboos for rather high costs. This convention also went against the female presence in operatic performance; and thus is the essence of this research theme: the necessity to look at the female side of opera in Turkey; a country that raised highly impressive voices for her opera stage.
Fact: The first Muslim female actress to appear on stage was Afife Jale (1902-1941), who made her debut as late as 1920. The first Turkish female opera singer was Semiha Berksoy (1910-2004), who was also a painter, and an internationally acclaimed artist. After her first public recital in Istanbul (1929) where she sang Chanson Endu from Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko (1895-1896) and Mussetta's Aria from Puccini's La Bohème (1896) with the accompaniment of "Turkish Five" composer Cemal Reşit Rey (1904-1985), she made her debut as Ayşim in Özsoy in 1934. She was also the first Turkish female opera singer to sing in Europe (Berlin, 1939, as Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos- R. Strauss), and in this way perhaps the role model for Leyla Gencer (1928-2008) a.k.a. La Diva Turca, who would build up her "queendom" through a glorious international career in Milan's Teatro alla Scala as of the Fifties . La Gencer's Austrian debut was 1957 in Vienna, at the Wiener Staatsoper on 17th and 20th June with Verdi's La Traviata as Violetta under Herbert von Karajan. Second time in Vienna was in 1961 on 7th April with Puccini's Tosca as Tosca under Berislav Klobucar. Then in 1961 in the Salzburger Festspiele she performed on the dates of 9th, 15th, 24th, 29th August with Verdi's Simon Boccanegra as Maria Boccanegra under Gianandrea Gavazzeni. Her last stage appearance in Austria was in 1962, again in Wiener Staatsoper. On 15th November she sang Verdi's Don Carlo as Elisabetta di Valois, and on 20th November Un Ballo in Maschera as Amelia.
A Pearl on Turkish Opera Stage after La Gencer
Zehra Yıldız (1956-1997): the late Turkish soprano Zehra Yıldız certainly deserves to be mentioned in this section, for her outstanding career, and also for her unfortunate and untimely loss at the age of 41. Her first debut was in 1982 with J. Strauss II's Eine Nacht in Venedig (Berlin 1883) as Barbara in the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet, and her final stage appearance was with Beethoven's Fidelio as Leonore in Heidelberg Opera on 9th December 1997, only three days prior to her death on 12th December.
Research Theme: The First Female Opera Singers in Turkey: A History of Female Presence in Opera in Turkey/Turkish Opera and Its Reception.
Omer Yilmaz - The Case Continues
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