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The career of the Romanian soprano, Emilia Petrescu, had a prestigious unfolding. At tho saune time with her brilliant studies at tho Bucharest Conservatoire, she was appointed oloist in the Romnanian Radio and Television Choir (Corului Radiodifuziunii Române). In 1950, she becasme a vocal soloist at tho Bucharest "Geoigo Enoscu" Philharmony and some years later began to teach at the Bucharest Conservatoire, where she had studied. Later she became Professor there. Her name could be met on posters, announcing important artistic events, in Romania and abroad, as an interpreter of the most representastive pages of the pre-classic, classic and contemporary vocal music.
Emilia Petrescu was in her time a fortnost personality ol the contempoorary musical life in Romania and abroad. The charm of her performances consists principally in her vocal qualitios, but also in the perfect vocal techniquo, the intolligence and tho musical culture to which she possosses a remarkable stylistic adaptability. Being often invited to sing in the principal European centres, she crossed in 1972 for the first time the ocean for a tour in the USA, including the towns of Denver, Houston and Cleveland. In May 1972 she sang several J.S. Bach's Cantatas and in May 1974 his Matthäus-Passion (BWV 244) at the Baldwin-Wallace College Bach Festival in Ohio under the baton of George Poinar.
Emilia Petrescu's repertoire of cantatas, oratorios, and concert arias includedthe major works of J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart, L.v. Beethoven, J.P. Rameau, H. Berlioz, etc. and by Romanian composers, performed with some of the most important symphonic orchhestras, under the batons of famouis conductors such as Gerorge Georgescu, Constantin Silvestri, Igor Markevitch, Paul Kletzki, Lawrence Foster, Pierre Boulez, Roberto Benzi, Anatole Fistoula, Paul Paray, etc. At the same time, she owned a large Lieder repertoire. She was renowned to the best represantations of Romanian lyrical art. She highly specialised in the domain of vocal chamber and vocal symphonic music, passed an ample concert repertoire, and was universally acknowledged as an artist endowed with a supple and equipoised voice of a penetrating timbre and above all with an admirable knowledge of musical styles. Here is an extract from the periodical Hi-Fi Stereophonie (Western Germany): "Emilia Petrescu is a discovery of good style. Her voice resounds with the precision of an oboe, her phrasing is impeccable, her breathing technique apparently unlimited. Joan Sutherland alone could sing in that manner during her best years".
Numorous distinctions certify the high esteem Emilia Petrescu enjoyed everywhere: the honourable membership of the International Heinrich Schütz Society in Kassel, and of the Bach Institute near the Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, the Golden Duket of the town of Göttingen, the title of Honorary Citizen of the Bolgarian town of Russe, etc.
Recordings: C. Monteverdi: L'Orfeo ((Archiv, 1974); W.A. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte; Paul Constantinescu- Byzantine Oratorium ((1972); W.A. Mozart: Recviem În Re Minor KV 628 (1967); Recital De Voce Și Orgă (Electrecord, 1965/1966); D. Buxtehude: Laudate Dominum - Cantatas for Soprano and Instruments (MHS, 1968); Ricordanza (Amintire); G.F. Handel: Italienische Kantaten (Musicaphon). D. Buxtehude: Cantate (Roumanie), L.v. Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 conducted by George Georgescu (1960/1961); L.v. Beethoven: Missa Solemnis conducted by Constantin Silvestri (1972); Lieder Recital = Recital De Lieduri: Brahms & Wolf (Electrecord). |
