Hina Spani

Hina Spani, Argentine soprano, born Puán, Province of Buenos Aires, 15 February 1896; died Buenos Aires, 11 July 1969. Her real name was Higinia Tuñón and she enjoyed a major opera career centred on Italy during the 1920s and '30s.

Overview

Spani was born in an old town located in the pampas of Argentina. When it was discovered that she had a clear, pleasing voice, a landowner from the vicinity of her home town agreed to help her study, first in Buenos Aires with Amalia Campodonico and later in Milan with Vittorio Moratti.

She made her operatic début at La Scala in 1915, in the secondary rôle of Anna in Alfredo Catalani's "La Wally". She sang regularly at La Scala and in all the leading Italian theaters until 1934, and toured Australia with a company composed of some of La Scala's leading singers.

At the Teatro Colón she was heard between 1915 and 1940, creating the title part in the world première of Respighi's Maria Egiziaca in 1934, as well as several operas by Argentine composers. She sang over 70 rôles ranging from Ottavia in Monteverdi's L' incoronazione di Poppea to works by living composers.

After retiring from the operatic stage, she taught at the Escuela de Arte Escénico del Teatro Colón, which she directed.

Recordings

Spani made some 40 sides for the Italian Columbia and HMV recording companies. Reissues of her best records can be heard on CDs produced by Preiser and Pearl.

Appreciation

Spani's style and technique were typical of a Latin soprano of the 1920-1945 period, but her tone was smoother and her musicianship more subtle than that of most of her contemporaries. She was an outstanding spinto with a constant appreciation of the expressive limits of the music that she sang; as a result, she invested her operatic interpretations with a unique combination of intensity and restraint.

Inter-war opera-goers spoke of the "grand", expansive quality that her voice possessed when it was experienced in the acoustics of a theatre. She also had a vast concert repertory which she had been encouraged to acquire by her first teacher in Buenos Aires. Very little of this is documented on record (although she did leave a handful of lovely song recordings), but those who saw her in recital remembered the joy that she communicated. In this respect, she was a real cosmopolitan artist.

References

* Harold Rosenthal and John Warrack; "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera", second edition, London, 1980.
* J.B. Steane; "The Grand Tradition", London, 1974.