Gina Cigna (1900 - 2001)

Gina Cigna (6 March 1900 – 26 June 2001) was a French-Italian dramatic soprano. Gina Cigna was born in Angers, department of Maine-et-Loire, to parents of Italian origin. She trained as a pianist at the Paris Conservatory studying with Alfred Cortot and graduated with a gold medal. She then started a career as a recitalist. […]

Vittorio Gui (1885 - 1975)

Vittorio Gui (14 September 1885 – 16 October 1975) was an Italian conductor, composer, musicologist and critic. Gui was born in Rome in 1885. He graduated in humanities at the University of Rome and also studied composition at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; his principal composition teachers were the noted composers Giacomo Setaccioli and Stanislao […]

Gianni Raimondi (1923 - 2008)

Gianni Raimondi (17 April 1923 – 19 October 2008) was an Italian lyric tenor, particularly associated with the Italian repertory. Born in Bologna, Raimondi studied at the Music Conservatory of his native city with Antonio Melandri, and Gennaro Barra-Caracciolo and in Mantua with Ettore Campogalliani. He made his stage debut in 1947 in Rigoletto at the […]

Sesto Bruscantini (1919 - 2003)

Sesto Bruscantini was born in Civitanova Marche, Marche, Italy. After obtaining a law degree, he turned to vocal studies in Rome, with Luigi Ricci at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He won a vocal contest organized by RAI in 1947 and made his debut at La Scala in Milan in 1949, as Geronimo in […]

Leyla Gencer (1928 - 2008)

Leyla Gencer was born in Polonezköy (near Istanbul) to a Turkish father and a Polish mother. Her father, Hasanzade İbrahim Bey (who took the surname Çeyrekgil under the Surname Law of 1934), was a wealthy businessman, whose family was from the city of Safranbolu. Her mother, Lexanda Angela Minakovska, was from a Roman Catholic family […]

Magda Olivero (1910 - 2014)

Magda Olivero (25 March 1910 – 8 September 2014) was an Italian operatic soprano. Her career started in 1932 when she was 22, and later took her to opera houses around the world. Born as Maria Maddalena Olivero in Saluzzo, Italy, she made her operatic debut in 1932 on radio in Turin radio singing Nino Cattozzo’s […]

Giuseppe Di Stefano (1921 - 2008)

Giuseppe Di Stefano was born in Motta Sant’Anastasia, a village near Catania, Sicily, in 1921. He was the only son of a carabiniere turned cobbler and his dressmaker wife. Di Stefano was educated at a Jesuit seminary and briefly contemplated entering the priesthood. After serving in the Italian military (and briefly taking lessons from the Swiss […]

Cesare Siepi (1923 - 2010)

Born in Milan (his year of birth is debated between 1919 and 1923, though 1923 is given as official), he began singing as a member of a madrigal group. Cesare Siepi often claimed to have been largely self-taught, having attended the music conservatory in his home city for just a short time. His operatic career […]

Mario Del Monaco (1915 - 1982)

Mario Del Monaco was born in Florence to a musical upper-class family. As a young boy he studied the violin but had a passion for singing. He graduated from the Rossini Conservatory at Pesaro, where he first met and sang with Renata Tebaldi, with whom he would form something of an operatic dream team of […]

Giulietta Simionato (1910 - 2010)

Born at Forlì, Romagna, Giulietta Simionato studied in Rovigo and Padua, and made her operatic debut at Montagnana in 1928. In 1928, she sang in Verdi’s “Rigoletto”. The first fifteen years of her career were frustrating, she was only given small parts, but she attracted growing attention in the late 1940s, and by the end […]

Anna Moffo (1932 - 2006)

Anna Moffo was born in Wayne, Pennsylvania, USA to Italian parents, Nicola Moffo (a shoemaker) and his wife Regina Cinti. After graduating from Radnor High School, she turned down an offer to go to Hollywood and went instead to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she studied with Eufemia Giannini-Gregory, sister of soprano […]

Nicola Rescigno (1916 - 2008)

Born into a musical family in New York City, Nicola Rescigno studied with Pizzetti, Giannini and Polacco. He made his debut in 1943, conducting La traviata, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Alfredo Salmaggi’s opera company. He then toured the United States with the San Carlo Opera Company, serving as the company’s music director […]

Graziella Sciutti (1927 - 2001)

Graziella Sciutti (17 April 1927 – 9 April 2001) was an Italian soprano opera singer and later vocal teacher and opera producer. Sciutti was born in Turin, Italy. Her parents were musical, her father being an organist; her mother was French. She studied privately with Ginevra Marinuzzi, then in Rome at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia […]

Lina Pagliughi (1907 - 1980)

Lina Pagliughi (May 27, 1907 – October 2, 1980) was an Italian-American opera singer. Based in Italy for the majority of her career, she made a number of recordings and established herself as one of the world’s finest lyric coloratura sopranos of the 1930s and 1940s. Pagliughi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian immigrants. […]

Cesare Valletti (1922 - 2000)

Cesare Valletti (December 18, 1922 – May 13, 2000) was an Italian operatic tenor, one of the leading tenore di grazia of the postwar era. He was much admired for his polished vocal technique, his musical refinement and elegance, and beauty of tone. Valletti was born in Rome, where he studied music. He also studied privately […]

Fausto Cleva (1902 - 1971)

Fausto Cleva (17 May 1902 – 6 August 1971) was an Italian-born American operatic conductor. Fausto Cleva was born in Trieste in 1902. After studies at the Conservatorio in his native city and Milan, Cleva made his debut conducting La traviata in Carcano, near Milan, before emigrating to the United States in 1920, becoming an American […]

Ramón Vinay (1911 - 1996)

Ramón Vinay started his operatic career as a baritone in Mexico in 1938. He later switched to tenor, making a second debut in 1943 and forging a successful international career after World War II . Vinay eventually returned to the baritone fold in 1962 and retired from the stage in 1969. Even as a tenor, however, […]

Gottlob Frick (1906 - 1994)

Gottlob Frick (28 July 1906 in Ölbronn-Dürrn – 18 August 1994 in Muhlacker) was a German bass who sang in opera. He was known for his wide repertory including Wagner and Mozart roles, as well as those of Nicolai and Lortzing. Frick’s teachers included Fritz Windgassen (father and teacher of Frick’s contemporary, the tenor Wolfgang Windgassen). He […]

Hilde Gueden (1917 - 1988)

Hilde Gueden was born Hulda Geiringer in Vienna, and studied singing with Otto Iro, piano with Maria Wetzelsberger, and dancing at the Vienna Music Academy. She debuted, as Hulda Gerin, in 1937 in Benatzky’s operetta Herzen im Schnee at the Vienna Volksoper. Her operatic debut came in 1939, when she sang Cherubino in Le nozze […]

Joseph Keilberth (1908 - 1968)

Joseph Keilberth (April 19, 1908 – July 20, 1968) was a German conductor who specialized in opera. He started his career in the State Theatre of his native city, Karlsruhe. In 1940 he became director of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague. Near the end of World War II, he was appointed principal conductor of the […]

George London (1920 - 1985)

George London was born to a Russian Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and grew up in Los Angeles, California, United States. In the summer of 1945 Antal Doráti invited his longtime friend, the Hungarian bass Mihály Székely, to sing at the first concert of the newly reorganized Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Because of travel difficulties Székely […]

Clemens Krauss (1893 - 1954)

Clemens Krauss made the rounds of regional centers, conducting in Riga (1913-1914), Nuremberg (1915) and Stettin (1916-1921) (formerly part of Pomerania in Germany; now part of Poland). The latter appointment gave him ample opportunity to travel to Berlin to hear Arthur Nikisch conduct the Berlin Philharmonic, a major influence. He then returned to Austria as […]

Astrid Varnay (1918 - 2006)

Both her parents were Hungarian and born in small towns in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but she was born in Stockholm, Sweden, where her parents were living during part of World War I. During a Da Capo interview in 2012 Varany claimed that although she was born in Stockholm, her ancestry was Hungarian, French and German. […]

Hans Hotter (1909 - 2003)

Born in Offenbach am Main, Hesse, Hans Hotter studied with Matthäus Roemer in Munich. He worked as an organist and choirmaster before making his operatic debut in Opava in 1930. He performed in Germany and Austria under the Nazi regime, avoiding pressure on performers to join the Nazi Party, and made some appearances outside the country, […]

Leonard Hokanson (1931 - 2003)

Leonard Hokanson (August 13, 1931 – March 21, 2003) was an American pianist who achieved prominence in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician. Born in Vinalhaven, Maine, he attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and Bennington College in Vermont, where he received a master of arts degree with a major in music. He made […]

Lucia Popp (1939 - 1993)

Lucia Popp was born Lucia Poppová in Záhorská Ves in the Slovak State (later Czechoslovakia and today Slovakia). Popp initially entered the Bratislava Academy to study drama. While she began her vocal lessons during this period as a mezzo-soprano, her voice developed a high upper register to the degree that her professional debut was as the […]

Hermann Prey (1929 - 1998)

Hermann Prey was born in Berlin and grew up in Germany. He was scheduled to be drafted when World War II ended. He studied voice at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and won the prize of the Frankfurt contest of the Hessischer Rundfunk in 1952. He began to sing in song recitals and made his […]

Waldemar Kmentt (1929 - 2015)

Waldemar Kmentt (Wien, 2 February 1929 – Ibidem, 21 January 2015) was an Austrian operatic tenor, who was particularly associated with the German repertory, both opera and operetta. Born in Vienna, Kmentt studied at the Vienna Music Academy, first the piano, and later voice with Adolf Vogel, Elisabeth Radó and Hans Duhan. In 1950, he sang […]

Walter Berry (1929 - 2000)

Walter Berry (8 April 1929 – 27 October 2000) was an Austrian lyric bass-baritone who enjoyed a prominent career in opera. Walter Berry was born in Vienna. He studied voice at the Vienna Music Academy and made his stage debut with the Vienna State Opera in 1947. He became a permanent member of the company in […]

Rita Streich (1920 - 1987)

Rita Streich (December 18, 1920 – March 20, 1987) was one of the most admired and recorded lyric coloratura sopranos of the post-war period. Rita Streich was born in Barnaul, southern Siberia, in the Russian part of what was then the Soviet Union, to a German father who had been a prisoner of war there, and […]