Enriqueta Legorreta

Enriqueta Legorreta (25 July 1914 – 15 December 2010) was a Mexican soprano and activist.

She grew up in Mexico City and studied opera at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música.

Enriqueta Legorreta López was born on 25 July 1914 in Mexico City to Enriqueta López-Valdés Ocampo and Juan de Dios Legorreta.

Her father was a social reformer, motivational speaker, and author.

She studied music under Franz Steiner, an Austrian refugee who served as professor of opera at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música and would later become a co-founder of the Compañía Ópera de México (Opera of Mexico Company).

She performed her first aria with the company in 1940, the year it was created.

Debuting in 1941, she earned praise for her portrayal of Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre and was noted as the first Mexican woman to sing a Wagnerian opera.

Legorreta made her public debut in 1941 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, performing the role of Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre.

A review by Jesús Bal y Gay written for Musical America noted that she "overshadowed all the other artists on the stage" and showed promise for the future.

Ricardo Miranda, a musicologist, professor at the Universidad Veracruzana and collaborator for The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, noted that the highlight of the inaugural season was the discovery of three Mexican women singers, María Luisa Enríquez, Irma González, and Legorreta.

She was one of the pioneering singers who joined and performed in the inaugural season of the Ópera Nacional (National Opera), performing Leonora in Beethoven's Fidelio in 1943.

In 1943, the opera season was organized by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature) and led to the creation of the new company the Asociación Nacional de Ópera (National Opera Association).

The season was launched with the performance of Beethoven's Fidelio at the Palacio, with Legorreta singing the title role.

Verna Millan in a review for Musical America said of Legorreta's performance, that it was a warm and relatable interpretation, although the singer was inexperienced and her voice had a more lyric than dramatic quality.

On 8 July 1944, in Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico City, Legorreta married Mario Medellín Ocádiz.

He was an accountant and would later found an ice cream factory in Mexico City.

They had five children — Mario Pintor, a musician; Enriqueta, an environmental activist; Alejandro Claudio; Juan; and Rodrigo, an ecologist.

In 1945, Legorreta and pianist Carmen Castillo Betancourt presented Mozart's Requiem with the choir of the Conservatorio Nacional and the Orchestra of the Musician's Union.

The orchestra was under the direction of José Yves Limantour (musician) and the performance was part of the Mozart Festival hosted by the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Legorreta was one of the featured soloists, along with pianist Claudio Arrau, contralto Oralia Domínguez, soprano González, and violinist Isaac Stern for a special concert given for Mexico's fifth opera season in 1948.

Igor Stravinsky conducted the soloists in the event which featured his own works, Jeu de cartes (Card Party), Concerto for Strings, the Divertimento from Le Baiser de la fée (The Fairy's Kiss), and Le chant du rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale).

Legorreta performed a solo concert accompanied by Maria Kokowska in the Ponce Salon of the Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano (Mexican-North American Institute) which featured two pieces each by Salvador Moreno and Manuel Ponce, Spirituals and pieces by George Gershwin, and Jerome Kern in 1956.

Legorreta continued singing with several different groups in the 1960s and 1970s, performing with Pablo Casals as a soloist at the festival bearing his name in Acapulco in 1960, with the Symphonic Orchestra of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1961, and sang on KQED TV's program Spanish-American Hour in a 1964 broadcast.

Beginning in the late 1960s, social unrest led to political actions both globally and in Mexico.

She appeared as Madame Lidoine in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites for the 1965 opera season, and the following year sang under the direction of Luis Ximénez in the second season of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Noroeste (Northwest Symphony Orchestra).

In 1967, Legorreta performed music accompanied by Ramón Mier and the Mexican Children's Choir for a lecture made by Carmen Sordo of the Musical Research Department of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, which focused on music from the period of Benito Juárez's presidency.

The concert-lecture was held at the Mexican-Israeli Cultural Institute.

Student protests in 1968 erupted because of frustration with the economy, repressive government policies and widespread corruption, as well as unequal opportunity and treatment for broad sectors of Mexican society.

She performed with Leonard Bernstein in 1969 in the opera-concerto Trouble in Tahiti.

During her career, which lasted into the mid-1970s, she sang with many well-known conductors and musicians, including Claudio Arrau, Leonard Bernstein, Pablo Casals, Igor Stravinsky, and Isaac Stern.

She was also involved in protests against the opera association to ensure that singers were paid for their professional work, rather than their affiliations with officials.

Legorreta and Guillermo Salvador were the featured soloists for the 1972 summer season of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional, conducted by Luis Herrera de la Fuente at the Alcazar del Castillo de Chapultepec (Imperial Chamber of Chapultepec Castle) and repeated later that year at the Conservatorio Nacional.

In 1976, she was part of the production Música en la Pinacoteca (Music in the Art Gallery), which was performed with the Orquesta de Cámara de la Ciudad de México (Chamber Orchestra of Mexico City), under the direction of Miguel Bernal.

From the 1980s, Legorreta became concerned about links between pollutants and health.

She volunteered for clean-up efforts at the Parque Real de San Lucas (Royal Park of San Lucas) sponsored by the Asociación Ecológica de Coyoacán (Ecological Association of Coyoacán).

After the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, she and her family participated in humanitarian efforts to help victims of the disaster.

Seeking healthier surroundings, the extended family moved to Aguascalientes in 1987.

Concerned at the lack of interest in addressing environmental issues, she organized recycling measures and related projects.

These led in 1992 to the establishment of the Asociación Conciencia Ecológica (Ecological Consciousness Association), for which she served as director until 1998 and as life president until her death in 2010.

She was twice recognized with the Aguascalientes state prize for Environmental Merit, in 2007 and posthumously in 2019.