Her international career really began in New York when she was asked to stand as a replacement in a performance of Lucrezia Borgia at Carnegie Hall. Up until that point she was unknown, following her first aria the New York audience gave her a standing ovation for 20 minutes. The next morning the press published the following: “No previous publicity could have forewarned the tremendous impact that this short Goya-esque lady would cause in an audience who had already been spoiled by the delights of Callas and Sutherland. When Caballé began her first aria there was a noticeable change in the atmosphere. It seemed for a moment that everyone stopped breathing”. Representatives from the most important opera theatres and record companies were among the audience and overnight her incredible international career was launched. Since then her performances have taken her to the biggest opera theatres in the world such as La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Paris Opera, Liceu Opera in Barcelona, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the San Francisco Opera, Hamburg State Opera House, and the National Theatre in Munich, as well as the following festivals: Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Orange, Glydebourne, Pesaro, Verona, and many many more. Montserrat Caballé has combined her opera performances with recitals and concerts appearing frequently in great auditoria such as the Royal Festival Hall in London, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York, Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, Teatro Real in Madrid, NHK Hall in Tokyo, Salle Pleyel, Salle Gaveau, and Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Konzerthaus in Vienna. She has sung as a soloist with the most prestigious orchestras and conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, James Levine, Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Colin Davis, and Carlo Maria Giulini.

Montserrat Caballé’s repertoire is enormous -she has played almost 90 stage roles- and is probably unrivalled by anyone else from this century. Similarly, she has recorded over 80 titles, half of which are complete operas.

She has sung all the great roles from the repertoire, from Luisa Miller to Salome, and from Pamina to Isolde. But perhaps she is best known -and admired even more- for her bel canto performances: the great queens of Donizetti’s tragedies make her the ideal performer, and what is often seen as common and generic music, in her it possesses a deep interpretation of great emotional and dramatic power that strives far beyond the boundaries of mere coloratura. Thus, it is no surprise that she would later become the only successor to María Callas’ Norma.

We must also remember her great enthusiasm for reviving works which have been forgotten. On this course she has continued the examples of María Callas and Joan Sutherland, but in fact she has gone much further than either of them. In the last ten years, and when the majority of sopranos progressively reduce their artistic activity, only keeping certain roles from their repertoire, Caballé has, quite to the contrary, begun astonishing research into works which are not well-known including Armide, and Les Danaïdes by Salieri, Saffo by Pacini, La Vestale, and Agnese de Hohenstaufen by Spontini, Hérodiade by Massenet, Médée, and Démophoon by Cherubini, Ermione and Il Viaggio a Reims by Rossini, Sancia di Castiglia by Donizetti, and La Fiamma by Respighi. She has also attracted a different and even wider audience through her collaboration with Freddie Mercury on the album Barcelona and continuing in this new field she is currently working with Vangelis on a new project.

Montserrat Cabellé has won numerous international prizes and honours, some of which include: the Order of Saint Isabel, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres from France, and Honorary Academic and Gold Medal from the Accademia Galileiana in Italy. Since 1974 she has been an Honorary Ambassador for the United Nations and a Goodwill Ambassador for UNESCO. Her grandeur as an artist is based on her vocal qualities: one of the most beautiful and versatile voices in history combined with a virtuoso technique, but it is also her charismatic power and warm personality which reaches and captivates audiences around the world. In an era in which the term has been corrupted for its indiscriminate use, Montserrat Caballé is a DIVA in the truest sense of the word.

1994 Robert Pullen & Stephen Taylor