Luciana Serra is an Italian coloratura soprano and teacher, best known for her brilliant, agile singing as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.
Beginning her international career in 1966, Serra performed at major houses including La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, and the Metropolitan Opera. She also recorded bel canto and Mozart repertory and later taught younger singers, helping preserve the Italian coloratura tradition.
I have included at the end of this post an interview with Serra about vocal ability and technique. It would be very interesting to listen to.
Rossini, Aureliano in Palmira, “Non piangete, o sventurari”
ZENOBIA
Non piangete, o sventurati,
In catene, è ver, gemete;
Ma fratelli e figli avrete
Per donarvi libertà .
Rossini, Aurelian in Parma, “Do not weep, o wretched ones”
Do not weep, O wretched ones,
In chains, it is true, you groan;
But you will have brothers and children
To grant you freedom.
There have been cuts to the recitivo. I’m only giving the lyrics to the principal aria.
Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, “Der Holle Rache”
KÖNIGIN DER NACHT
Kein Wort!
KÖNIGIN DER NACHT
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,
Tod und Verzweiflung flammet um mich her!
Fühlt nicht durch dich Sarastro Todesschmerzen,
So bist du meine Tochter nimmermehr.
Verstossen sey auf ewig und verlassen,
Zertrümmert alle Bande der Natur,
Wenn nicht durch dich Sarastro wird erblassen!
Hört Rache, – Götter! – Hört der Mutter Schwur.
Mozart, The Magic Flute, “Hellish Vengeance”
QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
Silence!
QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
My heart is seething with hellish vengeance,
death and despair are blazing around me!
Unless Sarastro feels the pangs of death at your hands
you are no longer my daughter.
Forever disowned, forever abandoned,
forever destroyed may all ties of nature be,
unless Sarastro dies at your hands!
Hear! Gods of vengeance! Hear a mother’s vow!
Rossini, Il viaggio a Reims, “Grazie vi rendo”
Grazie vi rendo, o Dei!
Che udiste i voti miei;
A tal favor quest’anima
Ben grata ognor sarà .
GLI ALTRI
La barbara sua pena
Calmando omai si va.
(È comica la scena,
E ridere ci fa.)
Rossini, The Journey to Reims, “Thank you, o gods”
Thank you, O Gods!
You have heard my prayers;
For such a favor, this soul
Will always be grateful.
THE OTHERS
His cruel suffering
Is now subsiding.
(The scene is comical,
And it makes us laugh.)
This is an interview that took place in Barcelona. The interviewer is speaking Catalan, and Serra speaks Italian. The interview is subtitled in English.
Luciana Serra
November 4, 1946
Luciana Serra is an Italian coloratura soprano and teacher whose career has been closely identified with the bel canto revival of the late twentieth century. Admired for a bright upper register, rapid passagework, precise ornamentation, and exceptional command of very high notes, she became one of the best-known exponents of Mozart’s Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte. Her stage work also embraced a wide span of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century opera, including major works by Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Mozart, Verdi, Offenbach, and Delibes. Alongside familiar repertory, she participated in revivals of rarely performed operas and later devoted substantial attention to vocal instruction and the transmission of Italian bel canto technique.
Serra began her international career in 1966, appearing as Eleonora in Domenico Cimarosa’s Il convito at the Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest. Her early repertory placed her in the world of eighteenth-century opera, an area that demanded stylistic refinement as well as technical agility. Broader recognition came in the late 1970s, when she attracted attention in leading bel canto roles such as Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Amina in Bellini’s La sonnambula. These parts allowed her to combine florid vocal writing with sustained lyrical expression and marked the transition from promising specialist to internationally sought-after soprano.
From 1980 onward, Serra appeared at many of Italy’s principal opera houses and festivals, including Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Teatro Comunale in Florence, La Fenice in Venice, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the Rome Opera, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the Teatro Regio in Parma, the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, and the Arena di Verona. Her international engagements took her to the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Hamburg State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Paris Opéra Bastille, and opera and concert venues in cities including Montreal, Lisbon, Tokyo, Moscow, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Seoul.
Serra’s reputation rests on a form of coloratura singing in which accuracy and brilliance serve dramatic characterization. Her vocal profile suited heroines requiring fast scales, trills, leaps, elaborate ornamentation, and sustained singing in the highest soprano register. The Queen of the Night became her emblematic role. She sang it in major productions at the Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera, bringing incisive diction and formidable technical security to the character’s two famous arias. Her 1988 Vienna State Opera debut in the role took place in a new production conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and staged by Otto Schenk.
Her repertory extended well beyond Mozart. In Bellini she sang Amina in La sonnambula, Elvira in I puritani, and Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Her Donizetti roles included Lucia, Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Marie in La fille du régiment, Norina in Don Pasquale, Anna in Anna Bolena, and parts in less frequently staged works such as Torquato Tasso, Gianni di Parigi, L’ajo nell’imbarazzo, and Il furioso all’isola di San Domingo. She also sang Rossini’s Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and appeared in revivals including La scala di seta, L’occasione fa il ladro, Aureliano in Palmira, and Le siège de Corinthe. Other notable assignments included Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Lakmé in Delibes’s Lakmé, Olympia and other heroines in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, Zerlina in Auber’s Fra Diavolo, and Dinorah in Meyerbeer’s opera of the same name.