Ms. Berganza turned for religious steerage to José Rifá, a Spanish priest who had lengthy admired her singing. He give up the priesthood to marry her, and he frequently launched himself as Mr. Berganza. They divorced after 10 years.
Full details about survivors was not instantly accessible.
Ms. Berganza made her operatic debut as Dorabella in Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte” in 1957 on the Aix-en-Provence Competition in France. In 1958, she made her first look at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala as Isolier in Rossini’s “Le Comte Ory.” The subsequent yr she debuted at Covent Backyard in London as Rosina in Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” which might change into one among her signature roles. Critics delighted in her wealthy, fluid contralto voice, which simply dealt with the complicated gildings demanded of Rossini heroines.
In 1967, Ms. Berganza made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cherubino in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.” It might change into yet one more well-liked function for her.
For years, Ms. Berganza declined presents to carry out the lead in “Carmen,” saying that she discovered the complexity of the character too intimidating. She lastly agreed to take it on in 1977, on the King’s Theater in Edinburgh. In preparation, she studied the 1845 novella“Carmen,” by Prosper Mérimée, on which the opera was based mostly, in addition to the libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.
She then spent weeks in southern Spain interviewing ladies residing within the caves exterior Granada to, as she put it, “higher perceive Gypsy life.” Rejecting the extra conventional portrayal of Carmen as a prostitute, she selected to play her as an alternative as a rebellious Gypsy. “She speaks along with her coronary heart, her physique, her guts,” Ms. Berganza wrote in her autobiography.
Reviewing a Carnegie Corridor recital in November 1982. the Occasions critic Donal Henahan wrote, “The Berganza voice, at all times a marvel of flexibility and darkish polish, has now change into, if something, extra excitingly strong and dramatic.”
