| To celebrate the one year anniversary of her death (26/06/2002) |
| "Among the sopranos it is the spintos that catch the ear, notably Spani and Rethberg (a tender, inward 'Ave Maria') and the underrated Cigna and Arangi-Lombardi, their opulence much missed among their successors today." Alan Blyth, Gramophone, April 2001. |
| "With her grandiloquent, supercharged performances, Cigna is not likely to have soothed any savage beasts; indded, she may have incited them to yet greater ferocity. Her stamina, her almost unbearably driven intensity of expression and the sheer decibel output at the top of the range were uncommon attributes, even in the heroic operatic age that she inhabited...Larger than life Gina Cigna remains a compelling addiction, one neither aquired or kicked casually. A galvanic presence in her own time in her adopted country, a soprano upon whom great Italian conductors consistently relied for the most difficult and demanding assignments, she bequeathed a legacy not of role-model artistic revelation but of the sacramental need to seek the most febrile expression that could possibly be wrung from every phrase she sang, and of devotion to the highest standard of execution of her endowment and technique brought within her scope." Bruce Burroughs, editor emeritus of the Opera Quarterly. |
| "Gina Cigna self-evidently divided audiences. The prissy and the precise were and are alarmed by such an all in singer who delivers the goods and no nonsense about too many strict stylistic niceties. Then there's the quick vibrato, out of fashion today when it has been described, pejoratively, but not by me, as a quaver. What is indisputable is the elemental power of her singing. Her Leonora (Forza), Gioconda, Adriana and Maddalena come across as flesh-and-blood heroines, desperate, often at the last gasp, seeking our sympathy." Gramophone, Feb 1994. |
| "She was like a gale-force wind!...and not just her voice." Frederick Jagel. |
| "Mme. Cigna was beautiful on the stage, staturesque, a wonderful actress. She looked absolutely how Turandot should look. She was very popular with the public and she was a good colleague, no jelalousy--she helped the youg singer, she didn't put up barriers as many others did." Licia Albanese. |
| "[Cigna] seemed like an empress on the stage, not a priestess [in Norma.] She was truely dramatic, but I knew I wouldn't like to sing any of it her way." Zinka Milanov. |
| "At one stage I considered having a go at La Gioconda, but finally decided against it. For one thing there is Gina Cigna's incredible performance to live up to, and for another there are plenty of less dangerous things to sing." Dame Joan Sutherland. |
| "There is the same amplitude to her vibrato [Ghena Dimitrova's], (and I'm not talking about a wobble, I'm talking about vibrato with true strength of vibrato within the voice, not like the one Callas unfortunately developed) that one comes across in some of the recordings of Esther Mazzoleni and in Gina Cigna's live performances from the Met...Yet her [Cigna's]commercial recordings do not display quite the same phenomenal breadth of phrasing and breath-span, becaude like Ghena's, her voice did not record as thrillingly as it sounded in the opera house. This is true of all large Italianate voices with a wide vibrato." Dr Eddie Khambatta, laryngoloist and connoisseur. [Cigna complained that her recorded voice was not her own; when recorded she was made to stand with her back to the microphone so it could better recieve her voice, thank God for her live recordings!] |
| "The disk also has a deeply felt account of "La Mamma Morta" that rivals Muzio's in feeling and accent" Gramophone, November 1990 |
| "In the Processo alla Callas programme Rodolfo Celletti said that in twenty years he had not heard the part of Norma sung with the voice of a Gioconda or Stantuzza. The evidence for his thesis is the complete 1937 recording of Norma with Gina Cigna. On the contary Callas newly learned the role not by note...in order to produce a voice consonant with the opera in question." Jurgen Kesting 'Maria Callas' [What nonsense! Cigna's Norma is as different to her Gioconda as her Adriana is to her Turandot. Why on earth Callas fanatics want to deny the tradition of vocal actresses I will never know. Muzio, Burzio, Pacetti, Spani, Scacciati, Cigna, Adami-Coradetti, Caniglia, Gavazzi, Gianinni, Olivero, Bruna-Rasa, Mancini, Elmo, Stignani, Minghini-Cattaneo, Simionato... all approach building a character in a different way, yet each at their best constructs a complete interpretation, the differences between their concept of a role is what makes works continually interesting. There is no supreme interpretation, no one "correct" approach, multiplicity is at the very heart of the genre itself. Here ends the sermon, go in peace. |
| GINA CIGNA |
| we remember |
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| To begin with the critics: |
| And her collegues: |
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