Beniamino Gigli stated that Cebotari was one of the greatest female voices he had ever heard.[8]Maria Callas was compared to her,[5] and Angela Gheorghiu named Maria Cebotari among the artists she admires the most.[9]
With thousands of people in attendance, her funeral was "one of the most imposing demonstrations of love and honor any deceased artist has ever received" in the history of Vienna.[8][10][11]
Cebotari was born in Chişinău, Bessarabia, and studied singing at the Chişinău Conservatory in 1910[12]. In 1929, she joined the Moscow Art Theater Company as an actress. Shortly after, she married the company's leader, Alexander Virubov.[13]
In 1938, she divorced Virubov and married the Austrian actor Gustav Diessl, with whom she had two sons. In 1946, she left Berlin and joined the Vienna State Opera House. The next year, she revisited Covent Garden with the Vienna State Opera Company and sang Salome, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro. On September 27 of that year, she was Donna Anna to the Ottavio of Richard Tauber, in his final stage appearance less than a week before his cancerous left lung was removed.
In early 1949, she suffered severe pain during the performance of Le Nozze di Figaro at La Scala Opera House. At first, doctors did not consider it serious. However, on 31 March 1949, she collapsed during the performance of Karl Millöcker's operetta Der Bettelstudent in Vienna. During surgery on 4 April, doctors found cancer in her liver and pancreas. She died from cancer on 9 June 1949 in Vienna. British pianist Clifford Curzon and his wife Lucille Wallace adopted her two sons.
Cebotari had a versatile voice; her repertoire covered coloratura, soubrette, lyric, and dramatic roles, as is illustrated in her performance history. She concentrated on four composers: Mozart, Richard Strauss, Verdi, and Puccini. Richard Strauss described her as "the best all-rounder on the European stage, and she is never late, and she never cancels". During a BBC interview decades after her death, Herbert von Karajan said she was the greatest "Madame Butterfly" he had ever conducted.
Films
Along with her successful career at the opera houses, Cebotari appeared in several operatic films, such as Verdi's Three Women, Maria Malibran, and The Dream of Madame Butterfly. [citation needed]
Cebotari also was cast in the film Odessa in fiamme (Odessa in Flames) in 1942, directed by Italian director Carmine Gallone with the script by Nicolae Kiriţescu. The movie is a fascist propaganda film about the Battle of Odessa, which was won by Romanian and Nazi troops. The Romanian-Italian co-production won at the Festival of Venice in 1942. [citation needed]
In the film, Cebotari plays the role of Maria Teodorescu, an opera singer from Bessarabia, in Chisinau with her eight-year-old son at the time of the invasion. Her husband fights as a captain in the Romanian army in Bucharest, and her son is taken. Teodorescu is informed that her son will be kept in a camp and trained to be a Soviet man. Teodorescu consents to perform Russian music in theatres and taverns in exchange for her son's return. By chance, her spouse discovers her photo, and the family gets back together.
Odessa in Flames was banned after Soviet troops reached Bucharest. [citation needed] Someone [who?] later rediscovered the film in the Cinecittà archives in Rome, where it was screened for the first time in years in Romania in December 2006. [citation needed]
Director Vlad Druc's documentary "Aria" (2005) about the life of Maria Cebotari faced difficulties when screening in Moldova during the Communist administration (which ended in 2009). This was due to a part in the movie where the soprano self-identifies as Romanian, contrary to the official policy of the Communist government that called the ethnic majority Moldovan.[14]
Many of her surviving recordings are from live performances, either in opera houses or radio broadcasts. Almost all have now been digitally remastered.
The Austrian CD label Preiser Records has issued several of her CDs, among which is The Art of Maria Cebotari and Maria Cebotari singt Richard Strauss.[15][16]
Mozart – Le nozze di Figaro (Böhm 1938, in German/Ahlersmeyer, Teschemacher, Schöffler, Wessely, Böhme) Preiser
Recital – Maria Cebotari singt Richard Strauss (Salome, Feuersnot, Der Rosenkavalier, Daphne, Taillefer), Preiser (Berliner Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester, Artur Rother, 1–4 recorded 1943, 5 in 1944).
Maria Cebotari: Arias, Songs and in Film, Weltbild
Recital – Maria Cebotari singt Giuseppe Verdi (La traviata, Rigoletto), Preiser
