by Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, a South Philadelphia-raised soprano who sang in the opera houses of Europe and gained even more fame for playing the title role in the style-soaked 1981 French thriller “Diva,” died Feb. 2. at his home in Lexington. , Ky. She was 75 years old.
His daughter and only immediate survivor, Sheena M. Fernandez, said the cause was cancer.
Trained at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and later at the Juilliard School in New York City, Ms. Fernandez made her mark in the 1970s as Bess in the Houston Grand Opera’s international touring production of “ Porgy and Bess” by George Gershwin. The tour took her to Europe, where she caught the attention of Rolf Liebermann, the impresario known for reviving the Paris Opera. He offered him a two-year contract.
It was in a 1980 performance as Musetta in “La Bohème” alongside Plácido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa that she caught the attention of French director Jean-Jacques Beineix, who was looking for a figure radiant enough to be the diva of the heart. of his next movie.
“Diva” was considered a milestone in the movement known as cinéma du look, a school of high-gloss French film often focused on fashionable, disaffected young people in France in the 1980s and 1990s. the brilliance of an ’80s music video, it was an artistic success that became a cult favorite for insiders.
The story revolves around a young opera fan named Jules (played by Frédéric Andréi) who falls so in love with an American opera star named Cynthia Hawkins that he surreptitiously records one of her performances, despite her well-known decree that Do not record any of your work. , since he would grasp only a part of the power and immediacy of his greatness.
That greatness is on full display in Ms. Fernández’s o.opening scene, as she takes the stage of an eerily worn-out old theater in a sparkly white dress and metallic eyeshadow. She proceeds to hypnotize the house (and Jules) with a dizzying performance of the aria “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” (“And then? I will go far away”) from the opera “La Wally” by Alfredo Catalani.
Jules’ performance tape becomes a device that leads him into a whirlwind of underworld hitmen, Taiwanese musical pirates, and whirring engines in a moped-centric chase scene that reaches the Paris Metro.
Not all critics were delighted. Vincent Canby of the New York Times called the film “an anthology of affectations.” But Pauline Kael of The New Yorker praised it as a “brilliant toy movie” that “runs with messy grace.” While she praised Ms. Fernandez as “incredibly beautiful,” Ms. Kael even noted that her “French with an American accent and her amateurishness as an actress are ingratiating.”
“Diva”, in fact, would be Fernández’s only film role. In interviews, she said that she never had any desire to be an actress, believing that the static atmosphere of a film set was no substitute for the electricity of the stage.
Still, in a 1987 interview with radio host Bruce Duffie, he expressed satisfaction that his role had taken exposure to opera “to a greater level.” completely different audience who are probably not used to going to the opera or listening to classical music.”
“More and more, when doing recitals and concerts, I find that the audience is younger and younger, and it is because they have seen the film,” he added. “Not only do they come to see me, but they say they’re going to see other people, and that’s great.”
Wilhelmenia Wiggins was born on January 5, 1949 in Philadelphia, the eldest of two children of Ernest and Vinelee (Clayton) Wiggins.
Her vocal talent was evident at the age of 5, when she sang with the choir of her family’s Baptist church. In her teens, her heavenly soprano was taking flight in the choir at William Penn Girls’ High School. She honed her voice with formal training with soprano Tillie Barmach at Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School.
After graduating from the Academy of Vocal Arts, also in Philadelphia, in 1969, he earned a scholarship to study at Juilliard in New York. She married Ormond Fernandez, a mail carrier, in 1971 and eventually left Juilliard in 1973 without a degree to raise her young daughter.
Fernández later recalled the challenges she faced as a black performer trying to carve out a career in the Eurocentric world of opera.
“For a long time I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to sing because I worried about what the color looked like. affecting my possibilities,The Washington Post quoted her as saying in a 1982 profile, “I wish I could sing behind a screen and be judged simply by my voice.”
At auditions, he said, he often noticed “the little droop of the face” when he arrived, which he interpreted as “We’d like you to play the part, but you’re black.” Then, she added, “they talked to each other while you sang.”
While “Diva” was Fernández’s last appearance on celluloid, it was simply a prelude to a long career that included her debut at the New York City Opera in 1982, once again as Musetta in “La Bohème,” as well as as presentations throughout Europe.
In addition to making Musetta her own, she also made her own the lead role in Verdi’s “Aida,” an Ethiopian princess held captive in ancient Egypt. At one point, she even played the role in the middle of the temples of luxor in Egypt itself.
In 1992, Fernández won a Laurence Olivier Award, the British equivalent of a Tony, for best actress in a musical for her performance as Carmen in “Carmen Jones.”
She married Andrew W. Smithbaritone with the New York Metropolitan Opera, in 2001 and moved to Lexington, where he directed the voice program at Kentucky State University. He died in 2018. His first marriage ended in divorce in the early 1980s.
Motivated to complete her education, Ms. Fernandez earned a bachelor’s degree in voice from the University of Kentucky in 2007 and then a master’s degree in education from Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky. The master’s program prepared her for her eventual job as an education teaching specialist at a Lexington elementary school.
Although she carved out a lasting place in film history with her role as a big-screen diva, Fernández never attempted to inhabit that persona offstage, even when her film fame was recent.
She told The Washington Post in 1982 that the movie “Diva” “opened up a different world for me.”
“They recognize me on the street,” he said, “and I just finished a recording session. It seems like I’m getting a little more attention.”
Still, on that hot summer day when I was being Interviewed in her South Philadelphia home, with children outside splashing in water gushing from open fire hydrants, she said: “This is my identity. “I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not.”
