Claudia Pinza Bozzolla
July 27, 1925 - August 3, 2017
The former Metropolitan
Opera singer, who shared her talents and love of music as a voice teacher for Pitt and Duquesne, has died at the age of 92. Obituary,
At 91, Claudia Pinza was still teaching voice at Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh.
She also was taking on private students and directing the Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera — an internationally acclaimed summer training program based in Pittsburgh and Oderzo, Italy, in honor of her father, star of opera and Broadway, Ezio Pinza.
A former singer with the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Pinza never stopped working. She was giving lessons in her Bellevue home to Met Opera countertenor Andrey Nemzer as recently as the start of July. She remained an active board member of Pittsburgh Opera, as well as a warm and welcoming hostess, whose authentic Italian dinners at her home were famous among her friends and colleagues.
“She had unlimited energy, passion and generosity,” according to her star student, mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux. “She was the epitome of elegance and grace, and she remained forever young through her love for her family and her music. She instilled in me the importance of being happy in order to sing.”
Ms. Pinza died Thursday at Allegheny General Hospital due to respiratory failure following a series of strokes. She was 92.
“She lived and breathed opera,” says Pittsburgh Opera general director Christopher Hahn. “Claudia had an operatic pedigree of great distinction, but she really distinguished herself as a thoughtful and delightful person, brimming with humor and empathy, deeply invested in those she worked with. She was a natural teacher, but what we most learned from her was her enormous generosity of spirit always expressed through her impish sense of humor.”
Opera was in her blood. The Metropolitan Opera Archives say she was “almost born in the dressing room” — while her father was performing on tour at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. Her godmother was the famed soprano Claudia Muzio, and her godfather, the legendary opera conductor Tullio Serafin.
Claudia Pinza was the only one of Ezio’s children to follow in her father’s musical footsteps. When he left her mother for another woman, Claudia and her mother left their New York residence for the family home in Bologna, Italy. She grew up there in the midst of World War II, began her vocal studies and made her operatic debut at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala at the age of 18.
Ms. Pinza then returned to the United States to sing at the Metropolitan and other major American opera houses, often beside her famous father.
When Ms. Pinza first sang “La Traviata” in Philadelphia, critic Max De Schauensee wrote that she “met the test without flinching and tossed off her scales and roulades with authority and a compelling energy of tone.” When she performed with her father in “Faust” at San Francisco Opera, the local critic praised her “beauty, temperament, voice of exquisite quality and flexibility,” adding that she “is, to boot, a consummate actress.”
After her Metropolitan Opera debut as Micaela in “Carmen,” New York Times critic Howard Taubman said she “behaved with poise of a veteran.” Her single extant recording from that time — an air check of the final act of Gounod’s “Faust” in a Bell Telephone Hour broadcast — shows a full-toned, bright soprano sound that soared up to the high notes of that opera’s rousing climactic trio.
After a brief marriage in the United States, she gave up her singing career in 1958, to return to Italy and marry Italian agronomist Rolando Bozzolla, whom she later referred to as “the great
only love of my life.” Because divorce was not recognized in Italy at the time, the Bozzollas were married in the small independent country of San Remo.
They returned to the United States and settled in Bellevue, when their youngest son, Simone, required medical treatment that was not available abroad. In Pittsburgh, she carved out a second (and even a third) career as a voice professor at Pitt and Duquesne, simultaneously running the Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera school.
EPCASO, founded in 1981 with the encouragement of Luciano Pavarotti, a close family friend, continued to thrive and grow. Ms. Pinza won accolades for the technical prowess and interpretive authenticity of the EPCASO participants, as well as for her numerous private and university students.
Besides Ms. Geneux and Mr. Nemzer, the list of her successful students includes Pittsburghers Kevin Glavin, Sebastian Catana, Anna Singer and Ann Panaguleas; sopranos Paula Delligatti and Young-Ok Shin.
Ms. Pinza suffered a mild stroke while teaching in Italy during the summer of 2016, forcing her to reduce — but not give up entirely — her heavy teaching and administrative responsibilities. She continued working privately with some of her students until her health deteriorated further early this year.
She is survived by her husband, Rolando Bozzolla; her son Samuele Bozzolla and his wife, Nathalie Campanile; another son, Simone Bozzolla; all of Bellevue; and her brother-in- law, Romano Bozzolla, of Urbino, Italy.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Robert Croan is a Post-Gazette senior editor who covers classical music and opera.