Maria Bieșu

Tokyo, nineteen sixty-seven

Tokyo, nineteen sixty-seven. At an international singing competition, a soprano from Moldova is named the best Cio-Cio-San in the world. Cio-Cio-San is the Japanese heroine of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The singer's name is Maria Bieșu. She comes from a village in the south-east of Moldova. She sings in Milan and in Moscow, but throughout her career she will stay loyal to one opera house, in Chișinău.

A village in the south

Maria Bieșu was born on the third of August nineteen thirty-five in Volintiri, in what is now the Ștefan Vodă district. After the village school, she went to an agricultural school in Leova. Today the district is best known for its vineyards. Nothing pointed to a career on the great stages. Her voice was noticed when she sang as a soloist with Fluieraș, a folk music orchestra. That was in nineteen fifty-eight, and she performed alongside well-known folk singers such as Tamara Ciobanu.

An unexpected debut

She studied singing at the Chișinău conservatoire and graduated in nineteen sixty-one. On the twenty-eighth of April nineteen sixty-two, she first stepped onto the stage of the Chișinău opera, standing in as Tosca. It was the start of a lifelong bond with the same house. Two years later, she received her first honorary title in the Moldavian republic.

Milan, Moscow, Tokyo

From nineteen sixty-five to nineteen sixty-seven, she trained further in Milan, at La Scala. In nineteen sixty-six she won a prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and a year later came the title in Tokyo. She sang Aida, Desdemona, Tosca, Leonora in Il trovatore, Turandot and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. In nineteen eighty-six, she recorded the role of Norma for the Melodiya label. In nineteen seventy, she became People's Artist of the Soviet Union, the highest title for a performer in the country.

Loyal to Chișinău

She received invitations from abroad but stayed with the Chișinău opera. In nineteen ninety, she founded an international opera and ballet festival, which brings singers and dancers to the capital every year. In nineteen eighty-seven, she became an honorary citizen of Chișinău, and in nineteen ninety-two, independent Moldova awarded her the Order of the Republic. A plaque hangs on the house where she lived, on Alexei Mateevici Street.

A house with her name

Maria Bieșu died in Chișinău on the sixteenth of May twenty twelve. The president declared a day of mourning. Two days after her death, the government decided to name the national opera and ballet theatre after her. Since then, the building on Bulevardul Ștefan cel Mare has been called Teatrul Național de Operă și Balet Maria Bieșu, and the festival she founded also bears her name. She is buried in the city's Central Cemetery. The stage where she began as a stand-in in nineteen sixty-two now carries her name.