The Force Is With Her

A remarkably strong voice resonates from the tiny body of 86-year-old Maria Ferrar but it soon becomes clear that the strength of her voice pales in comparison to the force of her personality.
Ferrar, whose coral-lipped charisma overtook her chinoiserie-filled living room during a recent interview, is one strong-willed soprano.
The professional opera singer, who recorded her most recent album “Music of the Past” in four languages at the age of 80, recalled seeing a performance of “La Traviata” at the age of 12 with her father.
“I was so stunned. I saw [The Lady of the Camellias] on stage. I said some day I’ve got to do that and I never changed my mind,” she said.
But Ferrar’s parents did not encourage her to follow her passion. In fact, her father even offered to open a dress shop for the former Maria Altieri, who was also a talented seamstress.
Nevertheless, she would not be dissuaded from her dreams.
Born in Naples, Italy, and raised in Brooklyn from the age of two, the 45-year Richmond Hill resident left home in 1936 to study voice in northern Italy’s Parma Conservatory when she was 16.
After finishing her studies four years later, Ferrar moved back to New York. Not long after she returned to Italy having won an audition to join the Rome Opera.
Ferrar said she debuted as the High Priestess in “Aida” at the Terme di Caracalla, the ancient Roman baths on the outskirts of that city where the company staged its summer productions, around 1951.
In the height of her career Ferrar was known for her lyrical interpretations of the leading roles of Madame Butterfly in the opera of the same name and Li in “Turandot.”
Later, after returning to New York City, she performed with the Amato Opera and formed the CAMA Musical Society, a free performance ensemble, with her husband, Karl.
Her repertoire included the leads in “La Traviata,” “La Bohme,” and “Tosca” among other operas and she sang in 20 languages including Afrikaans, Polish and Greek.
“Greek I’ve had a lot of trouble with, Greek is hard,” she admitted.
Ferrar insisted that when she first began singing she had a “tiny little voice.” Nevertheless, she knew that she wouldn’t have a career in opera if she didn’t correct it.
She focused her attention on strengthening her diaphragm, the large, bowl-shaped muscle at the base of the lungs. By engaging it one breathes more deeply and powerfully than with typical chest breathing, she explained.
It is by using diaphragmatic breathing that opera singers can project their voices over orchestra pits to the backs of theaters without microphones, Ferrar said.
Fast forward 50 years and Howard Beach resident Nancy DiCroce swears she owes her life to the same determined will and breathing method that catapulted Ferrar to success.
Last February an ambulance rushed DiCroce to the hospital. DiCroce has endured most of her 75 years plagued by major health problems and her one working lung was failing her, she said.
The doctors suggested she put her affairs in order because she might not have long to live.
One month later she found herself bedridden at home, inhaling oxygen six times a day and deeply depressed. She couldn’t register more than a puff of air on an instrument used to measure lung capacity called a spirometer.
“I threw away the spirometer and said I’m going to die,” she remembered.
DiCroce suggested as much in a conversation with Ferrar, her friend for over a decade, and received one word in response.
“Baloney!” said Ferrar, who decided then and there that DiCroce was going to learn how to sing (whether she wanted to or not).
“You get over here,” commanded Ferrar. “You just don’t know how to breathe.”
And so began the voice lessons that DiCroce credits not only with saving her life, but with enabling her to breathe better than she has in years.
From her years of singing Ferrar believed that diaphragmatic breathing could help open DiCroce’s lungs to receive more air.
Placing a reporter’s hands on her muscular waist, Ferrar demonstrated that the chest does not rise and fall in diaphragmatic breathing. Instead the rib cage expands sideways.
It took some time for DiCroce to get the hang of it, but since she began studying with Ferrar last August, she has seen great improvement.
Now DiCroce blows into her spirometer to see it reach an impressive level. Not to mention that she has extended her vocal range by well over an octave, she said.
“I thought she was a fussy old lady,” said DiCroce, who admitted she took her first lesson with Ferrar just to appease her friend.
“I can’t believe what a difference she made in my life.”