Iribarne is primarily recalled as the teacher of Isidoro Fagoaga and also of Aurora Buades and
Jesús de Gaviria. His own career is very ill-documented, and partly shrouded in mystery. He
was the son of a wealthy businessman and an Irish singer (Alicia O'Connor). Most sources say his mother was his first voice teacher, although one
particularly well-informed source has her die when he was merely four years old... In any case, both his parents were dead by his 17th birthday,
he inherited their fortune, and could pay for his vocal studies with various teachers. One of them was supposedly the Italian baritone Napoleone
Verger, although Iribarne announces himself on two of his cylinders as "a pupil of the famous tenor Vergès".
However... he started as a baritone (presumably in Italy, at age 20) and switched to tenor at an unknown date. He is said to have sung a lot at
the Liceu in Barcelona and the Real in Madrid, but specifics are scarce; it's known that he sang at the Liceu in 1901/02, in Mefistofele,
Traviata, and in the world premiere of Felipe Pedrell's tragic opera I Pirinei on 4 January 1902. He appeared in Falstaff at
the Teatro Regio in Torino in 1893 (still as a baritone, I suppose), and toured Spain with the troupe of Arturo Baratta in 1905, as well as with
the Tolosa company between 1904 and 1907. That's approximately when his voice was gone and his career over (at less than 40 years old). He had
opened his Madrid singing academy already in 1903; it may be that he sang the odd performance until 1910, but definitely, his performances must
have become few and far between after 1905.
Iribarne recorded 15 cylinders (16 selections) for the fascinating industrialist Ruperto Regordosa, whose concept of collecting records was to
record them himself – more than 350 unique cylinders, all preserved in good shape and now in the collection of the Library of Catalonia.
Iribarne's recordings were made around 1900, and his voice was a wreck even by then; but his musicality is remarkable. Interestingly, he recorded
14 tenor selections (some of them so much transposed that they actually become baritone pieces) and two baritone selections, where he sounds much
more at ease than in tenor range.
Discography
Fons Regordosa, Tiana
- Favorite (Donizetti): A tanto amor
- Dinorah (Meyerbeer): Sei vendicata assai
- Pêcheurs de perles (Bizet): Mi par d'udir ancora
- Lohengrin (Wagner): Deh non t'incantan
- Lohengrin (Wagner): S'ei torna alfin
- Trovatore (Verdi): Deserto sulla terra
- Trovatore (Verdi): Di quella pira
- Otello (Verdi): Esultate / Ora e per sempre addio
- Contes d'Hoffmann (Offenbach): C'est une chanson d'amour, in Spanish (w. Adriana Palermi)
- Manon (Massenet): Chiudo gli occhi
- Bohème (Puccini): In povertà mia lieta
- Tosca (Puccini): Recondita armonia
- Tosca (Puccini): E lucevan le stelle
- Cavalleria rusticana (Mascagni): O Lola
- Iris (Mascagni): Apri la tua finestra
Reference 1; reference 2: La Voz de
Almería, 6 October 2018; reference 3; reference 4 and picture source; reference
5
Source for the recording: Biblioteca de Catalunya (where you can listen to
Iribarne's entire recorded output!)
