The Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles, who has died aged 81, enjoyed a long career in which, perhaps uniquely, she was equally distinguished as an opera singer and recitalist.
She always gave of herself without reserve in performance, winning the devotion and loyalty of a worldwide public, yet once outside the musical spotlight she was the most reserved of celebrities. It was not only her sense of artistic propriety, but also her shyness, that made her so determined to guard the privacy of her family life.
There was never any doubt as to the career she would adopt. She was an instant success when she made her concert and operatic debuts in her native Barcelona in 1944, following piano, guitar and singing studies at the city's conservatory. It was a proof of her remarkably early artistic maturity that she should have triumphed as the countess in The Marriage Of Figaro at the age of 21.
In the matter of personal sophistication, it was a different story: when, having carried off the first prize in an international singing competition in Geneva (1947), she received a telephone call from the director of La Scala asking her to travel at once to Milan for an audition, she refused on the grounds that she had to go straight home to her parents.
On returning to Spain, she appeared with Gigli in Manon and La Bohème in Madrid, and at the Liceo in Barcelona as Agathe (Der Freischütz), Elsa (Lohengrin) and Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), the latter two her favourite roles in Wagner. This early part of her career was represented in her earliest, 78 rpm discs for HMV in arias of those parts. At about the same time, she undertook for BBC Radio what was to become one of her best roles, Salud in Falla's La Vida Breve.
After that she brought off one of the most spectacular hat-tricks in operatic history: in the single season of 1950-1951 she made her debuts at Covent Garden as Mimi, at La Scala in the title-role of Ariadne auf Naxos, and at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust. Significantly, she gave recitals in all these cities prior to her operatic appearances, partly to let the public see her as herself before seeing her play a character, and partly because recitals were always first in her thoughts.
On the stage, the natural qualities of her voice, tenderness and radiance, always made her an obvious choice for the more fragile heroines of Italian and French opera - Puccini's Mimi and Butterfly, Debussy's Mélisande, Massenet's Manon and Charlotte. These were also characters with whom she could readily identify and therefore portray with full conviction.
Certain strong roles, on the other hand, appealed neither to her sympathies nor her imagination, so she turned down all offers to sing Tosca, a role most prima donnas would give their fingernails for. She found the character completely false, for she did not believe that a Catholic woman who had killed even so odious a man as Scarpia would bring herself to touch a crucifix moments later.
At the Metropolitan, she was admired as Marguerite, Mélisande and Desdemona. She sang Elisabeth at Bayreuth with outstanding success in 1961-1962. In 1968, in one of her last stage appearances, she sang Desdemona at the Dallas Opera.
Perhaps De los Angeles preferred being herself to playing operatic heroines, which might explain why she gave up the stage when her voice and fame were at their peak in order to devote all her time to concert and recital work. But whatever the reason, this decision surprised the fans who had come to expect her every season at Covent Garden, the Paris Opera and the Metropolitan, even dismaying those who believed it was in some way a comedown for a star singer. She herself found that it brought her closer to both the music and the public.
There was always a special quality about her recitals, a sense of personal communication which broke down the formality of even the largest concert hall. She created this atmosphere as she walked on to the platform: a woman epitomising the warmth and allure of Spain, she combined a springing step with a ready smile as though to emphasise that she had come to sing for her own pleasure as well as that of the audience. Her rapport with the public was altogether warmer than that of any rival singer of the time.
Another distinctive feature of her recitals was the sheer breadth of her programmes, ranging from Lieder (which she had studied with Elena Gerhardt) to the French art song, and from Italian classical arias to the songs of her native country, with excursions into traditional British songs on her visits to the UK. This involved many changes of style during an evening, but her careful preparation of each song allowed her to make these changes without apparent effort. The final impression she always gave in performance was one of absolute spontaneity.
Not only did De los Angeles have a wider repertoire than any other singer: she travelled more widely too, leaving western Europe almost every year to tour the Soviet Union, the far east, South America or Australia.
By giving up opera, she had in effect become an even more international singer, for there was nowhere she could not go with her ever-expanding repertoire of songs. Almost invariably, however, her final encore would be Adios Granada, accompanying herself on the guitar, an effective reminder that she was still, essentially, a lady of Spain. Among her most notable recordings are those of Mimi and Carmen under Sir Thomas Beecham, Manon with Pierre Monteux, and Madame Butterfly, twice. Her special study of the music of her native country extended to recordings of Spanish song stretching from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.
Her discs sold well, none more so than Clavelitos, a song about a girl selling carnations that catches all the singer's vitality. In 1948, she married Enrique Magrina, who predeceased her. They had two sons; following the death of one of them in 1998, she retired.
Victoria de los Angeles: born November 1st, 1923; died January 15th, 2005