Una voce poco fa

The fabulous Russian lyric-coloratura soprano Lydia Lipkowska (1882-1955) in Rosina's solo scene "Una voce poco fa" from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia (sung here in Russian). The recording was made in December 1912 for Gramophone. The pictures in the main part of the video show Lipkowska in the role of Rosina. The final two pictures feature her with Russian baritone Karakash Mikhail as Figaro.

Lydia Jakovlevna Lipkowska was born in Bessarabia on 6 June 1882. She was also known in Russia as Lipkovskaya, although she was born Marshner. She was a student of Professor Ireckaya, who taught a large number of singers at the St Petersberg Conservatory. She also spent a stint studying under the great mezzo soprano and vocal pedagogue Pauline Viardot Garcia, the younger sister of Maria Malibran and the daughter of Manuel Garcia, one of Rossini's favourite tenors. She joined the Mariinsky Theatre, where she sang from 1906 to 1908 and again from 1911 to 1913. In the summer of 1909, she appeared in Paris, first at the Opéra Comique as Lakme, Manon, Violetta, Mimi and Rosia and at the Opéra as Juliette.

In November 1909, she made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera, with Caruso and Amato in La Traviata and on Christmas day she sang Gilda to Amato's Rigoletto and Bonci's Duke. In the next season, Smirnov joined her and Amato for Rigoletto on 30 December 1910. Earlier in December 1910, she made her debut at the Chicago Opera as Lucia di Lammermoor, with Florencio Constantino, Sammarco and De Angelis, followed by a Gilda with John McCormack and Sammarco. The summer of 1910 found her singing Mimi, Susanna in Il Segreto di Susanna, Gilda and Violetta at Covent Garden.

After returning to the Paris Opéra in 1913 to sing Gilda and Ophelia, she took part, a year later, in the first performance of Ponchielli's little known I Mori di Valenza at the Monte Carlo Opera with Martinelli and Baklanov. On her return to St Petersberg, she sang at the Theatre of Musical Drama, a very active private opera company which included singers fresh from the conservatory and a few established professionals such as Sobinov. Among the other roles she sang in St Petersberg were those of Marfa in The Tsar's bride, the Snow Maiden, Olga in Ivan the Terrible, Tatiana in Eugen Onegin and Iolanta. A long concert tour in the Far East took her to Shanghai, the Philippines and Australia before returning to Paris.

After her retirement, she assumed a teaching career, with a brief period at the Rachmaninov Conservatory in Paris. She continued teaching in Bucharest before settling in Beirut, where she was living and giving lessons at the time of her death in 1955. Among her pupils in Bucharest was the great Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani.