Maria Ewing

Maria Louise Ewing, Lady Hall (March 27, 1950 – January 9, 2022) was an American opera singer. In the early part of her career she performed solely as a lyric mezzo-soprano; she later assumed full soprano parts as well. Her signature roles were Blanche, Carmen, Dorabella, Rosina and Salome. Some critics regarded her as one of the most compelling singing actresses of her generation. She was the youngest of four daughters of Hermina Ewing, née Veraar, a Dutch-born homemaker, and Norman Isaac Ewing, an electrical engineer at a steel company.

(Rebecca Hall's interest in her mother's ethnicity inspired her to make a film, Passing, adapted from a 1920s novel by Nella Larsen. The two African-American women protagonists are each of mixed race, but one has chosen to pass as white and has a white husband who does not know of her African ancestry. Ewing was unembarrassed by her racial make-up, regarding her African roots not with shame but with pride. Ewing's own musical education began with piano lessons when she was thirteen. (She returned to the role many times, including at Houston Grand Opera in 1976 and 1983, at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1981 and 1982

The first leading opera company that engaged Ewing was San Francisco's. She was their Mercédès in Carmen in 1973, and their Sicle in Francesco Cavalli's Ormindo in 1974. In 1975, Santa Fe Opera presented her in Così fan tutte as Dorabella, one of the parts with which she became most closely associated: she was highly praised in the role both at Glyndebourne in 1978 and at the Metropolitan Opera, with Levine on the podium, in 1982. In his history of Glyndebourne, Spike Hughes remembered Ewing's Dorabella as "a particular joy, with a natural gift of timing and an enchantingly comical face", while for Levine, Ewing was "the funniest, most stylish Dorabella you could imagine, absolutely sensational".

It was as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro that Ewing first appeared in Europe, playing the farfallone amoroso at Salzburg in 1976; she repeated the role there in 1979 and 1980. It was as Cherubino too that she first sang at the Metropolitan Opera on October 14, 1976, in a production to which she returned in 1977. She offered another Mozart trousers role in 1977, when she sang Idamante in his opera seria Idomeneo at the San Francisco Opera. Geneva Opera, 1981 ); Blanche in Dialogues des Carmélites (Metropolitan Opera, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1987 San Francisco Opera, 1979 ), Salome (Los Angeles Opera, 1986; Royal Opera House, 1988; San Francisco Opera, 1993 ); Didon in Les Troyens (Metropolitan Opera, 1993 and 1994 ); Marie in Wozzeck (Metropolitan Opera, 1997 ). It was for her performance in Salome that she attracted the warmest plaudits, not least for the succès de scandale that she achieved in the opera's notorious Dance of the Seven Veils. At Los Angeles in 1986, she ended Salome's strip-tease with her modesty protected by a gold lamé G-string, but at Covent Garden two years later, she dispensed with even that minimal concession to prudery and became one of the few opera singers to dare full-frontal nudity. and Verdi's Quattro pezzi sacri.

Personal life

Ewing's relationship with the English director Sir Peter Hall began when they worked together in a production of Così fan tutte at Glyndebourne in 1978. For her, "it was a meeting of minds and sympathies". They married on Long Island on Valentine's Day, 1982. Hall described his time with Ewing as "years of passion, of highs and lows, excitements and despair". "Her blazing integrity and refusal to compromise do not make her an easy person to live with", he wrote. They separated in 1988 and Hall began a relationship with Nicki Frei, a press officer at London's National Theatre. Ewing never remarried, but in her later years she had a platonic relationship with Amir Hosseinpour, a Tehran-born director and choreographer.

Reputation Opinions of Ewing were extremely diverse. Lotfi Mansouri thought her "highly gifted", but described her conduct in San Francisco Opera's 1993 production of Salome as "a nightmare...She became difficult, stubborn, and wrongheaded. In the easier sections, she would drag the rhythms, then rush like crazy in the more difficult parts... Married to Sir Peter Hall at the time, she expected to be addressed as 'Lady Hall', then put a sign on her dressing room saying that she was not to be spoken to at all".

On the other hand, Simon Rattle praised her as "the most interesting singing actress of the stage".

Recordings Videography Bizet: Carmen, Covent Garden; d. Nuria Espert, c. Zubin Mehta; Arthaus DVD Bizet: Carmen, Earls Court; d. Steven Pimlott, c. Jacques Delacôte; Image Entertainment DVD Bizet: Carmen, Glyndebourne; d. Peter Hall, c. Bernard Haitink; Kultur DVD Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4; Concertgebouw Orchestra, c. Bernard Haitink; Arthaus DVD Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea, Glyndebourne; d. Peter Hall, c. Raymond Leppard; Kultur DVD Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; d. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, c. Karl Böhm; Deutsche Grammophon DVD Mozart: Requiem; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, c. Leonard Bernstein; Deutsche Grammophon DVD Purcell: Dido and Aeneas, Hampton Court; d. Peter Maniura, c. Richard Hickox; Kultur DVD Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia, Glyndebourne; d. John Cox, c. Sylvain Cambreling; Kultur DVD Richard Strauss: Salome, Covent Garden; d. Peter Hall, c. Edward Downes; Pioneer DVD Various: Maria Ewing with Kymaera, live at Ronny Scott's; String Jazz Productions DVD

Discography Berlioz: La damnation de Faust; Frankfurt Radio Symphony, c. Eliahu Inbal; Brilliant Classics CD Debussy: La damoiselle élue; London Symphony Orchestra, c. Claudio Abbado; Deutsche Grammophon CD Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, c. Claudio Abbado; Deutsche Grammophon CD Mozart: Don Giovanni; London Philharmonic Orchestra, c. Bernard Haitink; EMI Classics CD Mozart: Requiem; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, c. Leonard Bernstein; Deutsche Grammophon CD Purcell: Dido and Aeneas; Collegium Musicum 90, c. Richard Hickox; Chaconne CD Ravel: Shéhérazade; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, c. Simon Rattle; EMI Classics CD Richard Rodgers: Rodgers and Hammerstein at the Movies; John Wilson Orchestra, c. John Wilson; EMI Classics CD Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Orchestre de l'Opéra Bastille, c. Myung-Whun Chung; Deutsche Grammophon CD Various: From this moment on; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, c. Neil Richardson; IMP Masters CD Various: Simply Maria; BBC CD