ABSTRACT
This article considers mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian's (1925–1983) contributions to the historical performance movement. Berberian, an Armenian-American active in Italy, was renowned for virtuosic contemporary music performances: advocating a “new vocality” encompassing a variety of timbres and styles, and a theatrical stage presence, she premiered dozens of works, many by her former husband Luciano Berio. Yet by the 1960s, she engaged increasingly with seventeenth-century music, making groundbreaking recordings of Monteverdi with period-instrument specialists Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus Wien.
Berberian was at the height of her career c. 1965–1980, a critical period for both the post-War avant garde and the early music revival. Many musicians in her circle (e.g., Berio, Bruno Maderna, Louis Andriessen, Frans Brüggen, Antoinette Vischer) likewise explored musics past and present, embracing Umberto Eco's “open work” concept. Berberian's early and contemporary music activities were thus intimately connected, leading her to innovations in performing pre-1800 music: her technical skills legitimized historical performance with critics, while her dramatic sense and textual expression imbued Monteverdian characters with renewed vitality. These performances were subtle in their radicalism: through singing early repertoires Berberian asserted her creative autonomy and developed alternatives to bel canto which influenced the historical performance and experimental worlds alike.
