Pepita Embil

Josefa Embil Echániz (Basque: Josefa Enbil Etxaniz; February 28, 1918—August 28, 1994) better known as Pepita Embil was a Spanish Basque soprano who starred in zarzuela and operetta productions throughout Spain and Latin America.

Known as the "Queen of Zarzuela," she is especially remembered for her son, the internationally famous operatic tenor Plácido Domingo, whose early career she helped to nurture.

Embil began her professional career singing as a soloist in choirs, including the Basque national choir, Eresoinka, which based itself in France during the Spanish Civil War.

While still in her twenties, she appeared in the world premieres of several new zarzuelas.

Josefa "Pepita" Embil was born on February 28, 1918, in Getaria in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country of Spain.

Her father, Arturo Embil y Lazcano, was a church organist and a lover of zarzuelas.

He also liked to play piano reductions of operatic music for enjoyment.

He and his wife, Germana Echániz Ostolaza, had five children: Francisco, Sebastián, Josefa (Pepita), Agustina, and Angel María.

Only sixteen years old, she appeared with Olaizola, who had created the bass role of Miguel de Goñi in the opera's 1920 premiere.

Afterwards, they again performed the opera in other theaters, including the Teatro Gayarre in Irun and the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao.

The latter performance with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra was a success for the singers, including Embil, in front of a full house.

Euzko-Abesbatza and another choir, the Juventud Vasca de Bilbao, both of which were involved in the growing Basque nationalist movement, organized the performance.

In addition to her choral and operatic work, she also gave concerts.

He died at age 45 in January 1930, when his daughter Pepita was 11 years old.

La Constancia, a traditionalist Catholic Integrist party newspaper, announced his death and mentioned the "irreparable loss" his family and "political brothers" experienced.

With the encouragement of her father, Pepita started singing lessons as a child and eventually attended the conservatory in San Sebastián, the capital of Gipuzkoa, where she studied with bass.

Embil began her singing career as part of the Euzko-Abesbatza (also spelled "Eusko Abezbatza"), a Basque choir directed by Olaizola.

While the choir was in Barcelona for a celebration of the third anniversary of the Second Spanish Republic, she made her debut at the Liceu in a small part in Basque composer Jesús Guridi's opera, Amaya, on April 12, 1934.

At one 1936 concert in Azpeitia with Olaizola, she sang a variety of music: a Basque number, an Italian song by Toselli, a Basque translation of Schubert's "Ständchen" ("Serenade"), and Siébel's aria, "Faites-lui mes aveux," in Italian from Gounod's opera, Faust.

For the next few years she sang in various choirs, including the prestigious Orfeón Donostiarra, because as she later said, she needed to "work to live."

Just days before the fall of his government to Franco's forces in 1937, the president of the Basque autonomous government, José Antonio Aguirre, worked with Embil's teacher Olaizola to form the Basque national choir and ballet,, with the goal of keeping Basque musical culture alive.

Embil joined the newly formed choir and toured extensively with the group outside of Spain, often singing as a choral soloist, until it disbanded two years later.

Supported by members of the Basque government in exile in France and elsewhere, members of Eresoinka chose Château Belloy in the French city Saint-Germain-en-Laye as their home base.

The choir made its debut at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on December 18, 1937.

The group also performed in Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam, the Hague, Amsterdam, and London.

Although primarily a soprano throughout her career, she sang alto with Eresoinka.

After her final choral concert in Paris in 1939, she remained in the city to study with an Armenian singing teacher.

With the Spanish Civil War at an end, she moved to Madrid and sought work in the numerous zarzuela companies there.

She joined a touring company led by composer Federico Moreno Torroba.

She soon appeared in his zarzuela Sor Navarra in Pamplona with baritone Plácido Domingo Ferrer, whom she had recently met for the first time at Madrid's Café de Castilla, a gathering place for the city's artists and musicians.

She collaborated with some of the most prominent Spanish composers of the 1940s, including Federico Moreno Torroba, Jacinto Guerrero, and Pablo Sorozábal.

They married on April 1, 1940, and early the following year they had their first child, Plácido.

Embil was asked to join the company of the Teatro Calderón in Madrid periodically from 1940 to 1945.

The soprano and some friends from the Teatro Calderón founded the Ases líricos, a zarzuela company that had many successes over the course of the next several decades.

Many of the members of the company were among the best zarzuela singers in the country.

She and her husband performed all across Spain as part of the troupe, which was headed by singer and impresario Antonio Medio.

A year and half later, the couple had a daughter, Maria José (1942-2015), known as "Mari Pepa."

In late 1948, she moved to Mexico with her baritone husband, Plácido Domingo Ferrer.

In Mexico they ran a successful zarzuela company of their own, which toured throughout the Americas.

Over the course of her career, Embil made several recordings, primarily of zarzuela music.