Ada Sari

Ada Sari
dramatic coloratura soprano ), actress, pedagogue

Ada Sari (29 June 1886 – 12 July 1968) was a Polish opera singer, actress, and educator. One of the leading dramatic

. She also gave lauded concert tours in North and South America.

Sari enjoyed a great deal of popularity among audiences and critics and she was dubbed "The Queen of Coloratura" and the "New

Life and career

Born with the name Jadwiga Szayer in Wadowice, Sari was the daughter of Edward Szayer, a well-known lawyer, and his wife Franciszka née Chybińska. When she was three years old she moved with her family to Stary Sącz where her father opened a law firm and eventually served as mayor for seventeen years. After completion of her primary education, she studied music theory and singing privately in Cieszyn and Kraków. In 1905 she was admitted to a private music school in Vienna operated by Countess Pizzamano. From 1907 to 1909 she studied in Milan with Antonio Rupnick.

Sari made her professional opera debut in 1909 as Marguerite in

.

In early 1914 Sari gave a highly lauded portrayal of the title heroine in

Kiev

, and Kraków.

While Sari was on tour, World War I broke out and the soprano decided to accept a contract at the Vienna State Opera in the Fall of 1914 as that city was not facing any immediate military threat. She left there in the Fall of 1916 to join the roster of singers at the opera house in Lviv. After a year there she returned to the Great Theatre, Warsaw where her portrayals included Lucia, Marguerite de Valois in Les Huguenots, and Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

After World War I ended, Sari performed a lot in South America, especially since 1918 at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In 1921 she undertook a concert tour throughout North America, which included appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University in Chicago. Toscanini invited her to portray the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute for the opening of La Scala's 1923–1924 season.

During the next decade she gave a series of triumphant concert tours in Europe and North America and regularly visited Poland. In 1934 she moved back to Warsaw, where she sang frequently at the

. During the Second World War she directed an underground opera studio in Warsaw, and after the war she sang with the opera companies in Wrocław and Kraków, as well as giving concerts and broadcasts. While still performing, she began to teach in 1936 and was very talented in this field, too. Many well-known singers such as Halina Mickiewiczówna de Larzac, Bogna Sokorska, Urszula Trawińska-Moroz, Maria Foltyn graduated from her class.

Death

She retired from the stage in 1947 then was entirely devoted to teaching for many years. She died of

in 1968.

Remembrance

Since 1985, the Ada Sari International Vocal Artistry Festival and Competition has been held annually in the town of Nowy Sącz, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in honour of the musical legacy of Ada Sari. It is organized by the SOKÓŁ Lesser Poland Cultural Centre (Polish: Małopolskie Centrum Kultury SOKÓŁ). The current director of the festival is Małgorzata Walewska, who assumed this position in 2014.^[2]

Discography

See also

• List of Poles
• Polish opera
• Aleksandra Kurzak
• Małgorzata Walewska

References

Sources

• Sari, Biography at operissimo.com (in German)

External links

• Małgorzata Komorowska: Sari Ada Archived 2019-03-28 at the
  Polski słownik biograficzny
  . Vol. 35. (in Polish)

Media related to Ada Sari at Wikimedia Commons