Magda Olivero

[3] Olivero performed widely and increasingly successfully until 1941, when she married the industrialist Aldo Busch and retired from the stage, only taking part in sporadic charity events for almost a decade.

She debuted successfully in the United States in 1967 as Medea in the Italian version of Cherubini's Médée, at the Dallas Opera,[8] where she subsequently appeared in 1969 as Fedora, in 1970 as Giorgetta in Il Tabarro and in a gala concert featuring Poulenc's La Voix Humaine, sung for the first time in French; and finally as Tosca in 1974.

The role of Medea, belonging to an eighteenth-century repertoire that was quite alien to her ordinary interests, was again taken at the Music Hall Theater in Kansas City in 1968, as well as, three years later, at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, in concert,[3] and eventually at Mantua's Teatro Sociale.

[13] Her farewell to the Met's public is narrated in these words in a recent history of the New York theatre: On April 18, her third and last Met performance (she sang Tosca on tour in 1979), Olivero acknowledged the insistent cheers of the throng pressing forward on the orchestra floor by edging along the narrow lip at the base of the proscenium to touch the outstretched hands of her admirers.

However, the new situation of music publishing in the Internet age led Robert not to proceed beyond the first CD and instead to transfer the entire collection to a YouTube channel under his direction, The Magda Olivero Archives,[24] which features over one hundred videos, accompanied by photos of the singer.

"[26] Stefan Zucker, the interviewer of the old divas starring in the aforementioned film Opera Fanatic, summarizes his opinion on Olivero in these words.

[27]Zucker also adds that "Olivero's reviews in Italy always were laudatory", whereas in America "critics such as Alan Rich and Barton Wimble[28] wrote of her with derision, regarding her vocalism as like Florence Foster Jenkins's, her style as exaggerated and campy.

In his praised book L'opera in CD, critic Elvio Giudici [it] manifests his general dislike for both Olivero's dated and affected style, and her mediocre voice quality throughout her career.

He also admits, however, that an exceptional theatrical personality is evidenced by each of her recordings and that how to evaluate her performances is bound to remain open to debate, fundamentally depending on one's own subjective sensitivity.

What always impressed me in her interpretations was the ability, beyond her stagecraft, to use her God given natural voice and unsurpassed technique, as well as superior and cultured musicianship, to put all these components at the service of a controlled and unified performance.Drama, magic and music just fed each other perfectly.