Rina Corsi, soprano and mezzo-soprano is an authentic star. She is a proud Florentine and a woman whose life spans much of the twentieth century.
It is enough to say that she began her stage career in 1927 and stopped performing in 1965. During this time, she sang in the world’s largest theatres under the direction of prestigious Maestros and in the company of celebrated colleagues, such as Maria Callas.
She had her debut in Montevarchi in “Boheme” in April of 1927. She interpreted the part of Mimì and the next year at the Politeama di Pia, she played Nedda in “Pagliacci”. In 1931, she sang in “Francesca da Rimini” by Zandonai in Trieste and in Palermo. During the same season she also performed in “Boris Godunov”. She played the part of Marina many times to great critical acclaim. In August of 1932, she successfully acted at the Littorale di Noto in “La Lupa” by Pierantonio Tasca. In 1933, at Teatro Verdi in Florence, she triumphed when she interpreted the part of Mariella in “Il Piccolo Marat” alongside Hipolito Labaro.
She was then the protagonist in “Graziella” by Rossato at Teatro Bellini in Catania the 17th of March, 1934. Between 1933 and 1940 she added a lot of plays to her repertoire: “Mefistofele” (Margherita), “Madama Butterfly”, “Andrea Chenier”, “Mignon”, “Cavalleria Rusticana”, “La Favorita”, “Werther” (with Tito Schipa), “Il Franco Cacciatore”, “Fiorella” (by Italo Brancucci), “Adriana Lecouvreur”, “l’Heure Espagnole”, “L’Arlesiana”, “Fedora”, “Edopo Re”, “Il teatro dei Pupi”, “Mastro Pietro” by M. De Falla, “Il ballo delle Ingrate” by Monteverdi and in October of 1942, she debuted at the Fenice in Venice by singing the part of “Madonna Imperia” by Alfano.
Gifted with a prodigious musical memory that enabled her to learn many scores in only a number of days and to recite naturally, she was able to immediately immerse herself in characters. She was even admired outside of Italy where she performed in operas and recorded records.
Places that she traveled to include: Nice, Bastia, Madrid, Lisbon, Oporto, Amsterdam, Aja, Cairo…and even Japan for the first competition organized by the RAI. After her luminous career as a soprano, she became a mezzo-soprano renewing her success. Thanks to the bright and polished tone of her voice, it is possible to say that she holds a place of prestige. After almost 100 years, we like to remember some curious anecdotes that are related to her career.
She called her leap to fame a “stroke of destiny”. She was less than 25 years old when, after having learned “Il Piccolo Marat” with M. Mugone perfectly, she took part in an audition that was too close to the debut of the opera that would soon be performed in Teatro Verdi. It is obvious that people were saying: ‘yes, you are good but you need to return because there are not vacancies in the company”.
At the debut of the opera, the soprano woke up without a voice! The manager remembered Corsi and exclaimed: ‘Only that girl can save me”. The evening of the performance, Corsi was presented to the public as “Your fellow-citizen substituting the Soprano … who was all of a sudden unable to appear…”. From the first aria, it was a true triumph and at the end of the show, M. Mascagni was sent a telegram to inform him of the success of the performance. She often remembered with satisfaction that she had performed in her own city of Florence at the only, or certainly the first, showing of the Oberon put on at the Boboli Garden in June of 1951 during the XIVth Maggio Musicale Fiorentino event. She was often the guest of Count Chigi in Siena for concerts in the salon of his famous building.
Over the course of her career, she sang with important colleagues. In September of 1948 she sang with Maria Callas in Perugia. Let’s conclude with another vivid memory… It was a provincial piazza in Empoli or Fucecchio and she was performing in “Carro di Tespi” when a young and elegant Indro Montanelli passed by “haughtily indifferent, without even giving her a passing glance!” Who knows how many vivid stories Rina Corsi still has left to tell us.
We wish her a happy birthday.