That time has passed is evident in the deterioration suffered by that blue and cream dress, awaiting repair, fragile yet to be exhibited.

It was 1951 when Victoria de los Ángeles, at the age of 27, debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and began a long relationship with this city. The diva was dressed in that clothing like Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust.

This is a different era, but in the majestic lyric theater of the Big Apple, the memory of the Barcelona soprano remains intact, whose birth is commemorated on the centenary. “She had an extraordinary career in this house and achieved many triumphs,” says Maurice Wheeler, director of archives at the Met. “The roles she sang became much better known within this operatic community thanks to her work. “She was very loved here as a performer and it was clear that she enjoyed performing on this stage,” she adds.

That dress, once repaired in the workshop of this institution, will be incorporated into four others that the Met is exhibiting until June 8 at the tribute events for the centenary of the soprano’s birth. In this temple she sang 139 times and became one of the favorites of the public and critics.

The inauguration took place on February 27, coinciding with the premiere of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, a title she performed in 23 dates and which immortalized her among New Yorkers. Included in the lobby display are two original kimonos and the parasol from Japan that she used to be Cio-Cio-San. The other two dresses are the one she wore in Massenet’s Manon (1954) and the more brilliant one worn by the Countess of Almaviva in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, also in 1951.

Helena Mora, the soprano’s daughter-in-law and president of the Victoria de los Ángeles Foundation, says that it was the Met who, after so much time, approached them to organize asking us for costumes for this tribute. “They haven’t done it for other singers, only for Victoria, one of the most beloved still,” she remarks.

“It was essential for Victoria to return to the Met, which is the theater in which she performed the most,” emphasizes Marc Busquets, artistic director of the foundation and curator of the centenary. This includes the exhibition at the Cervantes Institute in New York of a reduced version of the exhibition in the Catalan capital dedicated to the friendship of the diva and the pianist Alicia Larrocha, two universal Barcelonans