June Anderson - 1980s

1980s

Anderson left New York City Opera in 1982 and embarked on a European career. Anderson's career in this decade was marked by numerous debuts in quintessential bel canto roles in major European opera houses. She also participated in the recording of operatic works rarely heard in this era, including: Rossini's Mosè in Egitto, Wagner's Die Feen, Tomaso Albinoni's Il nascimento dell'Aurora, Bizet's La jolie fille de Perth, Adolphe Adam's Le postillon de Lonjumeau, Fromental Halévy's La Juive, and Daniel Auber's La muette de Portici.

After being recommended to an Italian agent by Sherill Milnes, she made her European performance debut in 1982 in the title role of Rossini's Semiramide in Rome. In 1983, Anderson debuted in Florence and Geneva in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti, a part which became one of her most frequent portrayals. She also sang Die Feen by Wagner in Munich, and appeared in North America: Bellini's I puritani in Edmonton and Il barbiere di Siviglia in Seattle. In 1984, she performed her first Amina in Vincenzo Bellini's La sonnambula in Venice, opening 135 years to the day after Maria Malibran's final Amina in that same theatre. She also appeared as Marie in La fille du régiment by Donizetti in Parma. In 1985, Anderson debuted as Isabelle in the historic revival of Robert le Diable by Meyerbeer in Paris. That year she also appeared in a rarely seen Verdi work, La battaglia di Legnano, in Pittsburgh.

In 1986, she performed her first Desdemona in Rossini's Otello in Venice. The same year, she made her debut at La Scala in Milan in La sonnambula, and her debut at Covent Garden in productions of Semiramide and Lucia di Lammermoor. She also appeared in La fille du régiment at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.

Anderson returned to the Opéra-Comique in 1987, appearing as Elvira in Bellini's I Puritani, and gave a recital at the Paris Opera with Alfredo Kraus. In Italy, she returned to La Scala for her debut as Giuletta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi and returned to Venice for her first performance of Beatrice di Tenda, also by Bellini.

Anderson also appeared in a 1988 concert version of Beatrice di Tenda at Carnegie Hall, with the Opera Orchestra of New York. The New York Times review of that performance noted:

The former New York City Opera artist has built a European career in recent years by taking on bel canto roles that other sopranos don't want to sing, mainly because they can't. Miss Anderson is made of braver stuff. The title role of Bellini's opera, written for Giuditta Pasta in 1833, lies extraordinarily high and probably was tailored for that legendary diva's voice. Miss Anderson...attacked Beatrice's brilliantly curlicued music with authority and a voice of piercing power.... In Beatrice's grand finale...Miss Anderson took off into the stratospheric area above high C, which justifiably set off a stomping, cheering ovation from the Carnegie audience.

Elsewhere in 1988, Anderson focused on Rossini roles: playing her first Armida in Aix-en-Provence, appearing in Otello at the Pesaro Festival, and debuting as Anna in Maometto II (an early version of Rossini's Le siège de Corinthe) at the San Francisco Opera (she had previously recorded this work with Samuel Ramey in 1983). She also appeared that year in Luisa Miller by Verdi at the Opéra National de Lyon.

In 1989, she made her long-awaited debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera as Gilda in Rigoletto, with Luciano Pavarotti. The New York Times review wrote of her Met debut:

Miss Anderson's debut as Gilda, although belated, could not have been more welcome. The Metropolitan is not rich in artists of this caliber. The tall soprano left America a decade ago to build a phenomenal European career, chiefly in the florid works of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini. She demonstrated in a Caro nome of exquisite taste, effortless fluidity and pinpoint precision that she is a master of the bel canto style. She is comfortable above high C, but the lower ranges do not suffer in quality or power. The wide leaps of the Caro nome coda were taken effortlessly and squarely on the note. The Met audience does not often hear a trill as thrushlike and as precise as Miss Anderson's, nor a soprano who can soar as grandly over the ensemble in the quartet.

In July 1989, she sang at the inaugural gala of the new Opéra Bastille in Paris, performing "Ombre legere" from Le pardon de Ploërmel, by Meyerbeer. (Not a fan of the modernist space, Anderson was later quoted as saying, "The place looks like a gymnasium." )

Leonard Bernstein selected her to perform as Cunegonde in a December 13, 1989 London concert version of Candide conducted by the composer (for which she later shared an award for Best Classical Album at the 34th annual Grammy Awards (1992), given for the December 1989 Abbey Road Studios recording by the same cast and conductor).

Twelve days later, again with Bernstein, she appeared in Berlin for a Christmas Day performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor "Choral" at the Schauspielhaus, celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. The December 25, 1989 concert was broadcast live in more than twenty countries to an estimated audience of 100 million people, and was performed by an orchestra and chorus made up of many nationalities: from Germany, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Chorus of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden; from the Soviet Union, members of the Orchestra of the Kirov Theatre, from the United Kingdom, members of the London Symphony Orchestra; from the USA, members of the New York Philharmonic, and from France, members of the Orchestre de Paris. In addition to Anderson, the soloists were Sarah Walker, Klaus König, and Jan-Hendrik Rootering.