BIDU SAYAO PLAYED IT STRAIGHT

“I was not born in 1902, like some of the books say. My God! Isn’t 79 old enough? I show you my passport!”

It is the birthday of Bidu Sayao, one of the most enchanting lyric sopranos ever to grace the stage of the Metropolitan.

In her New York hotel suite, which is filled with flowers and cards from colleagues and fans, the soprano gives a long interview between parties.

She flirts with a young photographer, “Make me look 69, darling, and I give you a kiss.”

She has to be cajoled into the photos, “On the West Coast, they haven’t seen me since I was young!”

She needn’t worry. Trim in green slacks and a flowered print blouse, she looks a very good 60 and remains as feminine as she ever was on stage. “You like my eyes? The eyes were always good.

“I was born in Rio and was christened Balduina, after my grandmother. For some reason, she was called Bidu and so was I.

“I was three-quarters Portuguese and one-quarter French Swiss. My father died when I was 4, so Mama and my older brother brought me up and very strictly. I was a difficult, shy child.

“The men in the family were all doctors and lawyers. An ‘artist’ was no profession. When I was 8 or 9, I performed monologues to entertain family and friends. I wasn’t pretty or good in school. I started to sing little songs my uncle would teach me, but I wanted to act, not sing. The family was horrified.

“Finally Mama took me to a teacher, when I was 12. She was a Romanian, Elena Theodorini, a soprano who had settled in Rio. Though I didn’t have much of a voice, I was very musical. How I envy those people who are born with the voice already there. I went four times a week and for the first year I only did exercises, like the Marchesi ones. I fantasized what they might mean.

“My second year I was given little songs and I learned to read music. The third year I had arias, only leggiero and coloratura. At the time my credo was established. The voice has to be like a string of pearls, the same from top to bottom, seemingly effortless, natural, flexible, using all the colors with expressiveness and clarity of diction. Bel canto isn’t just for Rossini; all composers need bel canto.”

At this point, when she was 16, Theodorini took her protege to Bucharest, to sing for Queen Marie privately. The queen was so impressed she had the girl sing for the then-Crown Prince of Japan, Hirohito, on a state visit.

The next stop was Paris, chaperoned always by Mama. There she auditioned for the legendary tenor and matinee idol, Jean de Reszke. She thought she only would do recitals, but De Reszke knew she was destined for opera.

“You will sing Juliette,” he told her. Four years later she did just that in her debut at the Paris Opera with Georges Thill. During the two years she spent with De Reszke, she performed in his soirees musicales for the height of Parisian society.

The next stop was Rome. Though she had not one role in her repertory, she auditioned for soprano Emma Carelli, now impresaria of the Rome Opera. Carelli was impressed enough to put her in the hands of Luigi Ricci, probably the best coach in Italy at the time.

She was given one performance as Rosina in “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” and told a contract would depend on what happened. There was no rehearsal. Her colleagues were Schipa and Galeffi. She was 18.

It was a success and she added Gilda in “Rigoletto” and Carolina in “Il Matrimonio Segreto” to her repertory. Her climb was rapid; she was singing all over Italy. She returned to Paris in 1928 for her debut at the Comique as Lakme, followed by Manon and Rosina. Then on to the Opera for Juliette and Gilda.

In 1934, she made her debut at La Scala as Rosina, and, in the process, met Arturo Toscanini.

He wanted her to do a Giordano premiere, “Il Re,” but, she said, he soon showed his interests were more than musical. After a coaching session which included as many passes as operatic instructions, Sayao walked out. She was removed from the cast.

That same year while singing “I Puritani” and “La Traviata” she met the great Italian baritone Giuseppe Danise, 26 years her senior and nearing the end of his career. By this time Sayao had married Walter Mocchi, a powerful manager who was the widower of Emma Carelli (who had died the year after Sayao’s Rome debut). The marriage was dissolved.

Danise became the most influential man in Sayao’s life--husband, teacher, manager, coach, protector. He died in 1963.

Sayao, along with Danise and Mama, first visited the United States as a tourist in 1936. While in New York she decided to see if Toscanini carried any grudge. She telephoned him and he immediately asked her if she knew the Debussy “La Demoiselle Elue” which he wanted to do with the Philharmonic. She studied the part, auditioned--without one interruption--and was hired.

“Those three performances were dreams. Everyone was there. Since the orchestra was behind me and my voice was small, Maestro even raised a few notes a third so I wouldn’t be covered. He was not so strict with the printed notes as everyone thought.”

Lucrezia Bori had just retired. The Met needed a Manon. After a telephone call from Toscanini to Edward Johnson, the Met manager, Sayao was engaged. On Feb. 13, 1937, she made her debut.

The New York Times reported: “Miss Sayao triumphed as a Manon should, by manners, youth and charm, and secondly by the way in which the voice became the vehicle of dramatic expression.”

From that point on, the United States was her home. She canceled everything in Europe and remained here to the end of her career.

What the United States got was a lovely, diminutive lyric/coloratura with unique theatrical charm and style. The voice was small and crystalline, but capable of a gentle passion and subtle colors. Her projection was so pure there was not one place in the Met or the barns on tour where she could not be heard.

The conductors, moreover, knew what she was capable of and adjusted orchestral volume accordingly.

In her soubrette parts, there was none of the arch gee-I’m-cute-and-cuddly syndrome. She played it straight. Few Susannas, if any, since her have been able to convey the genuine sense of love that she brought to “Deh vieni non tardar.”

Slender and petite, she was a feast for the eye. The dark hair (red these days) was piled high at the back and parted in the middle. She made every man in the audience want to protect her. She made every woman empathize with her seductiveness.

“We project on stage what we are in private life,” said the diva. What Sayao projected was an innate sense of goodness, decency and vulnerability.

“I sang all the light coloratura parts at the beginning. That’s why the career lasted 30 years. I died to do the heavy things like Butterfly and Manon Lescaut. I even studied Fiora with Montemezzi for his ‘L’Amore dei Tre Re’ in Italy.

“Danise said no. It made me sad, but he was right.

“Too often singers today want to start out with the parts they should finish up with. Callas is the best example. She was such a fantastic talent. But it’s little wonder her career lasted barely more than 10 years.

“This Aprile Millo girl is a talent, too, but she wants to do all the heavy parts. I told her to be careful. She says she’s ready now.

“I heard Ghena Dimitrova the other night at Carnegie Hall (in a concert performance of “La Gioconda”). It is a huge, big voice and nothing else--no piano, no mezza voce , no artistic phrasing, no feeling for words.”

At the Met, Sayao concentrated on the bel canto heroines--Gilda, Rosina, Norina, Adina, Violetta, Juliette and Manon. Mimi in “La Boheme” was her heaviest part and the one she sang more than any other, 47 times. However, two Mozart soubrettes--Susanna and Zerlina--were her particular specialty.

“Bruno Walter taught me the Mozart roles note by note. I hadn’t been particularly interested until he came along. In those days the conductors were teachers, too, not like now.

“Johnson asked me to do Sophie in ‘Der Rosenkavalier,’ perfect for me in every way. I had sung Zerbinetta in Italy in Italian, even in the original version with a high F. But I don’t think a singer should sing in a language he or she doesn’t know.

“I had spoken French at home, learned Spanish in school and lived in Italy for 10 years. German was foreign to me, so I said no.

“We were all such a happy family in those days, a real company. I was friends with all my rivals.

“The only unpleasantness came from Lucrezia Bori. For some reason she didn’t like me, resented me. I don’t know why; she was gone when I came. When I did Melisande, she and Johnson--as the former Pelleas and Melisande--posed for photos with Martial Singher and me--the new ones. She wouldn’t even speak to me.

“When I did Norina, I called and asked her to coach me. She refused, saying I didn’t need her help.

“I had gone to Bellinccioni to coach Violetta, Storchio for ‘Sonnambula,’ Tetrazzini for ‘Barbiere.’ I thought I could learn from great ones of the past. Bori helped Albanese and Favero, not me.”

When Rudolf Bing took over the Met in 1950, he showed little interest in Sayao. He offered her six performances his first season. When she asked for Melisande, he told her he hated that opera and would never put it on. He did put it on in 1953, however, with Nadine Conner.

Sayao said she hadn’t liked Bing from the beginning. When he rejected the Debussy request, she resolved to quit. Her last performance at the Met was a Manon on tour in 1952.

Her ultimate valedictory to opera took place later the same year. “My farewell was in San Francisco. I wanted to do Margherita in ‘Mefistofele.’ Merola (the artistic director) told me it was too heavy for me. I agreed. But that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to indulge myself with one heavy part.

“It went beautifully.”

With recitals and orchestral appearances over the next five years, Sayao said her final goodbys. When she was offered “La Demoiselle Elue” with the New York Philharmonic, Andre Cluytens conducting, the cycle was completed.

“It’s hard to quit,” she said with a sigh. “One feels so empty. But how much better to do it when the public remembers you well. Rosa Ponselle did it. Bori did it. Not many do. Now I could smoke, stay up late at parties and catch a cold.”

Sayao’s home for most of the year is Casa Bidu, a charming house she bought in 1947 above a cove on the Maine coast. She spends three months of the winter in New York, going to the opera and parties.

She refused to go to the new production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle of “Figaro” this year.

“I knew it would be painful. I know his work. You wait and see. Next year in the new ‘Manon’ he’ll have Manon and Des Grieux rolling around half-naked in bed. Everything is sex these days.”

Among all her many decorations, she is proudest of the citations from the State Department and Civil Defense for her singing for the troops during World War II. She had retained her Brazilian citizenship, since she regarded herself as an unofficial ambassador from her country. When she retired, she took out her American papers, to say thank you to the country which had given her so much.

“I love Maine, I love New York, but my really permanent residence will be Woodlawn Cemetery. I bought the plots long ago. Mama’s there. Danise’s there. I have a simple marble cross which says, ‘Sayao-Danise- Pace .’ ”

The woman whom none less than Ponselle called “the most beautiful lyric soprano of them all” threw back her head and laughed.