Bidu Sayão

Bidu Sayão made her U.S. debut in a recital at Town Hall in New York City on December 30, 1935. Her U.S. operatic debut followed on January 21, 1936, when she and Danise sang in the penultimate production of the Washington National Opera, a semi-professional company not associated with its modern namesake; the performance, of Léo Delibes's Lakmé, was marred by a fractious dispute in which the orchestra musicians declined to play without payment in cash, and ultimately the performance was accompanied by a portable organ, with some singers appearing in costume and some in street clothes owing to a similar demand by the stage hands and costume man.[2] Altogether more dignified was her performance a few months later with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall singing La Damoiselle élue by Debussy. Her performance was under the baton of Arturo Toscanini, who would become her greatest supporter and lifelong friend.

She sang her first performance at the Metropolitan Opera as Manon on February 13, 1937, replacing the Spanish soprano Lucrezia Bori. The critics, including Olin Downes of the New York Times,[3] raved about her performance and within a few weeks she was given the lead in La traviata, followed soon thereafter by Mimì in La bohème. She also contributed to the Mozart revival at the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the pre-eminent Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro) of her generation.

She performed to much acclaim for the University of Michigan May Festival in 1948 with Conductor Thor Johnson. She sang "Un Bel Di" from Madame Butterfly as an encore.

Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos had an artistic partnership with the diva that lasted many years. He made a number of recordings of his compositions, including a famous recording of the Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.[4]

Bidu Sayão and her husband Giuseppe Danise purchased an oceanfront property in Lincolnville, Maine. After fifteen years with the Metropolitan Opera, she gave her last performance in 1952, choosing to retire from opera while still at the top of her form. For the next two years she was a guest performer throughout the U.S., but in 1957 she decided to retire completely from public performance; two years later she made her final recording as the soprano soloist on Villa-Lobos' world premiere stereo recording of his cantata Forest of the Amazon with the composer conducting the Symphony of the Air.[5]

Following her husband's death in 1963, Bidu Sayão lived quietly at her home in Maine. She returned to visit Brazil a last time in 1995 for a tribute to her during the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, and died a few years later, aged 96, at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine. Her ashes were scattered across the bay in front of her home.