Benita Valente obit

Death of a radiant US soprano

 

She was not on the list.

The glorious, unassuming American soprano Benita Valente died yesterday in Philadelphia at the age of 91.

A Californian who started out in Handel and Mozart roles, she served a German apprenticeship in Freiburg and made her Met debut as Pamina in 1973. She went on to embrace three centuries of music, making a subert recording of Arnold Schoenberg’s second string quartet and performing commissions by William Bolcom, Alberto Ginastera, John Harbison, Libby Larsen and Richard Wernick.

She married bassoonist Anthony Checchia, founder of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and administrator of the Marlboro Music School and Festival.

I met her when she recorded Mahler’s second symphony with Gilbert Kaplan, opposite the vastly experienced and not always phlegmatic Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester. Benita handled the situation with such tact that Maureen was the one who turned to her for guidance.

Valente was born in Delano, California on 19 October 1934. She studied voice at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito with Lotte Lehmann and Martial Singher. She later studied with Margaret Harshaw at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she graduated in 1960. She won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions the same year and made her debut at the Marlboro Music Festival with pianist Rudolf Serkin, among others.