He was one of the great Spanish tenors of the 20th century. If he had been born in Texas or Nebraska, a couple of movies about the life and miracles of Pedro Lavirgen would have been shot a long time ago. Born in Bujalance (Córdoba), he was born into an illiterate family. His father earned a living as an esparto grass, olive harvester and butcher. He worked from sunup to sundown to support his eight children and over time he did not hesitate to support the boy who had come out singing and above all tenacious, very tenacious. Between 1959 and 1993 he came to sing in the best opera houses, but not only endeared himself to the public. Colleagues and specialized critics also had a special appreciation for the Cordovan tenor. On Sunday he passed away in Madrid at the age of 92 and the memories of him crowd. Fans know a lot about Lavirgen. He was a transparent and genuine man.
Sickly and lame in childhood due to a serious fall and lack of medical care, he learned to read and write at the age of 13. He graduated in Teaching and worked as a teacher for a very brief period. His thing was to sing. Fortunately we have records, not many, that certify for posterity the worth of an artist who earned the respect of conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Gianandrea Gavazzeni and Francesco Molinari Pradelli. All of them, teachers who knew how to breathe with the singers and put themselves at the service of the score. Lavirgen did not have the talent of a divo and collided with the virtuosos of the baton who assumed the role of star. He was a dedicated but humble interpreter and also had a slight limp. Maybe that’s why some bell coliseums denied him the respect he deserved. At the Met in New York and at La Scala in Milan they rarely hired him; his personality just overwhelmed on stage. He asserted his charisma in front of the public but not in offices.
Despite everything, he never felt the need to change. It was enough for him to feel adored at the Vienna Opera – where he sang in 16 consecutive seasons – and at the Liceu in Barcelona, which had him as a permanent presence for almost a decade. He was loyal to the death with those who loved him. Lavirgen’s character had been forged in the three years he spent in a hospital belonging to the Brothers of San Juan de Dios, where he not only recovered from an atrocious injury to his knee, the result of a plummeting fall onto a stone, but also it gave him time to educate the voice in the choir of the center.
Already an adult, free of crutches and orthopedic devices, he finished high school and obtained a teacher’s degree, turning to swimming to recover his physical shape. He wanted to be an opera singer at all costs. The parish priest of Bujalance, the Discalced Carmelite Ladislao Senosiain, assumed the role of guardian angel and managed to get him to go to Madrid. There he won a teaching position at a college and began singing at funerals to make ends meet. He also studied music at the Conservatory and honed his acting instincts at the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático. The singing teacher, Miguel Barrosa, and later Alessandro Zilliani in Italy saw his potential and soon put him on the trigger. He soon sang everywhere. From Japan to Chile, passing through Italy and the United Kingdom.
Successes in Bilbao
He did not lavish himself in the recording studios but he did do enough to leave overwhelming records. Among them, there is a selection of arias from the EMEC label that includes the main workhorses of ‘Tosca’, ‘Turandot’, ‘Andrea Chénier’, ‘Aida’, ‘Otello’, ‘La forza del destino’ and… ‘Grenade’. There is also no shortage of zarzuela recordings such as ‘Doña Francisquita’ and Verdian jewels, recorded live and direct, such as ‘Aida’, with Jessye Norman and Fiorenza Cossoto.
His was a voice of many decibels, with trebles that stabbed like daggers and a lung capacity that allowed him to play with spin. He had a weakness for the dramatic and verista repertoire, as he demonstrated at the ABAO, back in 1971, with an unforgettable interpretation of Don José from ‘Carmen’. The following year, he convinced again in Bilbao, this time with ‘Andrea Chénier’, and in 1976 he dared with a less lucid title, ‘I Masnadieri’, by Verdi. In 1981 he sang for the last time in the ABAO, no less than in ‘Zigor’, by Escudero. Nothing daunted him. His greatest sorrow was the death of his wife. The rest, he said, “is not worth losing.”