Jan Werich (1905 - 1980)

Between 1916 and 1924, Jan Werich attended “reálné gymnasium” (equivalent to high school) in Křemencová Street in Prague (where his future partner, Jiří Voskovec, also studied). He studied law at the Charles University Law School from 1924 to 1927, from which he made an early departure to begin his artistic career and forge one of […]

George Voskovec (1905 - 1981)

George Voskovec was born as Jiří Wachsmann in Sázava, Bohemia, present-day Czech Republic. He attended school in Prague and Dijon, France. In 1927, together with Werich, he joined the Osvobozené divadlo (Liberated Theater), which had been created two years earlier by members of the avant-garde Devětsil group, Jiří Frejka and Jindřich Honzl. After disagreements led […]

Adam Roarke (1937 - 1996)

Adam Roarke (August 8, 1937 – April 27, 1996) was an American actor and film director. Roarke was born Richard Jordan Gerler in Brooklyn, New York, where he was a street gang member during his youth. His father was a vaudeville comedian and his mother was a chorine, showgirl. Richie, as he was affectionately called by friends, […]

Jack Starrett (1936 - 1989)

Jack Starrett (November 2, 1936 – March 27, 1989) was an American actor and film director. He is credited as Claude Ennis Starrett, Jr. in some of his films. Starrett is perhaps best known for his role as Gabby Johnson, a parody of George “Gabby” Hayes, in the 1974 classic parody film Blazing Saddles and […]

Carol Ohmart (1927 - 2002)

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, into a Mormon family her father was C. Thomas Ohmart, a dentist who was first a professional actor, and Armelia Ohmart. She attended East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah, and graduated from Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, Washington. Carol Ohmart won the Miss Utah 1946 title […]

Giuseppe Taddei (1916 - 2010)

In a nearly 60-year career Giuseppe Taddei left his mark in baritone roles both tragic and villainous, and as a basso-buffo, opera’s comic relief. Raised in Genoa, he started attending the opera with his mother as a toddler, and was soon entertaining his parents’ friends. (One legend has him at around age eight singing on […]

Ebe Stignani (1903 - 1974)

Ebe Stignani (10 July 1903 [or 1904] – 5 October 1974) was an Italian opera singer, who was pre-eminent in the dramatic mezzo-soprano roles of the Italian repertoire during a stage career of more than thirty years. Born in Naples in 1903 (some sources cite her year of birth as 1904), Ebe Stignani studied music for […]

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. […]