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(b Mostar, 1953). Bosnian-Herzegovinian soprano. Bakšić graduated from the Secondary Music School in Mostar. In 1976 she graduated from the Department for Music Theory and in 1979 from the Department for Solo-Singing at the Academy of Music in Sarajevo. She studied solo-singing in the class of the famous opera singer and professor Milica Buljubašić-Zečević. As a student she began to sing at the Music Scene of Sarajevo, first at the student concerts and then on the opera stage. In 1979 she made her début as Rosette in Manon. In 1981, at the very beginning of her career, she performed her first leading role as Floramye in the operette Little Floramye by Ivo Tijardović.

After graduating from the Department for Solo-Singing Bakšić passed the audition at the National Theatre Opera in Sarajevo and has since become a permanent soloist in the opera and operetta repertoire. Some of her leading roles include Rosette in ...

Member of Bland family

(b ?1768/9; d London Jan 15, 1838). English soprano and actress. She was said to have had Italian Jewish parents who came to England when she was very young and, despite reports of a certificate stating that she was born and baptized at Caen in Normandy in September 1770, it seems almost certain that she was the ‘Italian Lady (four years old)’ who sang with the conjurer Breslaw and his Italian company at Hughes's Riding School near Blackfriars Bridge in May 1773. After further seasons with Breslaw she sang in 1780 with an Italian puppet show and the next year was in a pastoral medley at the Italian Opera and sang Cupid in King Arthur at Drury Lane. Miss Romanzini was a leading member of Charles Dibdin's child company at the Royal Circus, and then sang principal female roles in English operas in Dublin in ...

[née d’Ambreville]

Member of Borosini family

(b Modena, c1693; d after 1740). Italian soprano, wife of Francesco Borosini. She was the daughter of the second maestro di cappella at Modena, and probably married Borosini in 1722. She sang in opera at Modena (1713–14, 1717 and 1720), Venice (1715–16), Mantua (1718) and Turin (1719). On 1 March 1721 she was engaged for Vienna at a salary of 1800 florins, retiring on a pension in 1740. She sang in a number of oratorios by Caldara and in Fux’s Costanza e Fortezza at Prague in August 1723. Her sister Anna (wife of the cellist Giovanni Perroni) sang at Bologna (1711), Modena (1713), Venice (1714 and 1726) and Milan (1728). She was engaged for Vienna at the same time as Rosa, but at a lower salary. Both singers sang in Vivaldi’s operatic undertakings in Venice and Mantua. Eleonora Borosini, a singer active at Innsbruck, Düsseldorf and Mannheim (...

Member of Brambilla family

(b Cassano d’Adda, Oct 23, 1813; d Milan, July 15, 1895). Italian soprano, sister of Marietta Brambilla. She made her début in Milan in 1831 and sang throughout Italy with great success for 15 years. In 1846 she appeared in Paris as Abigaille in ...

[Teresina]

Member of Brambilla family

(b Cassano d’Adda, April 15, 1845; d Vercelli, July 1, 1921). Italian soprano, niece of Marietta Brambilla. She studied with her aunts Marietta and Teresa. She made her début in 1863 as Adalgisa at Odessa, afterwards singing in Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, St Petersburg and Italy. In ...

(b Baltimore, MD, Aug 9, 1912; d Oslo, Norway, March 13, 2009). American soprano. Born to a music-loving mother and prominent physician father whose grandparents were slaves, Brown premiered the role of Bess in the original production of Porgy and Bess (1935). She studied music, first at Morgan State College and then the Juilliard School, where she was the first African American to win the Margaret McGill scholarship. Brown learned of Gershwin’s new opera, then titled Porgy, while at Juilliard, and immediately requested an audition. She sang for Gershwin a few days later and left their meeting as Bess. Gershwin frequently invited Brown to his apartment to sing parts of the opera as he composed. As a result, Bess grew from a secondary character into one of the opera’s leading roles.

After the original Broadway run and tour of Porgy and Bess ended in 1936, Brown continued with her career in the DuBose Heyward musicals ...

Member of Caccini family

(b Florence, Oct 6, 1591; d Florence, c1660). Italian soprano and composer, younger daughter of Giulio Caccini. According to Severo Bonini, she established ‘an immortal reputation’, having ‘mastered to perfection the art of singing’. She was taught to sing and compose by her father, and by 1600 was performing at the Florentine court. Although not mentioned by name, she and her elder sister Francesca are undoubtedly the ‘figliuole’ of Giulio Caccini who sang in Il rapimento di Cefalo in October 1600 for the marriage of Maria de’ Medici and Henri IV of France. Four years later, at the invitation of Maria de’ Medici, the Caccini family spent six months in Paris, performing at the courts of Modena and Turin en route. It was once thought that Settimia went to Mantua in 1608 to sing in Monteverdi’s L’Arianna but it is now known that the singer was another Florentine woman. In ...

[Mrs Geeson]

Member of Corri family

(b Edinburgh, 1803; d c1860). Italian soprano, daughter of Natale Corri. Her singing tutor was Tommaso Rovedino, and she made her début (aged 15) at Drury Lane on 30 January 1818, in an oratorio conducted by Sir George Smart: the New Monthly Magazine wrote, ‘her voice is melodious, full and flexible; her execution is very considerable, but she is perhaps too fond of exhibiting her uncommon powers in this particular’. With her sister Frances she sang at the King’s Theatre in London in 1819–21, travelling from there to Dublin to perform in the first Irish productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro in 1819 (directed by Haydn Corri). She played Polly to Madame Vestris’s Macheath in The Beggar’s Opera at the Haymarket theatre on 22 July 1820, and sang at the Teatro Re in Milan in 1823. Back in London Rosalie married William Geeson on ...

[Checca]

Member of Costa family (ii)

(fl 1640–54). Italian soprano, sister of Margherita Costa. She was in the service of Gian Carlo de’ Medici in Florence but in October 1644 left for Paris, where she was warmly welcomed by Cardinal Mazarin and the queen. During Carnival 1645 she sang in an opera performed privately in the Palais Royal and in Carnival 1646 she appeared in Cavalli’s Egisto. In Paris she also sang in Sacrati’s La finta pazza (1645) and in Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo as Euridice (1647). Returning to Italy, she was in Rome until 1650, and then in Florence in the service of Leopoldo and Cardinal Gian Carlo de’ Medici. In Bologna in 1652 she signed the dedication of the opera Ergirodo (composer unknown) and in 1654 she sang in Florence in Cesti’s Alessandro vincitor di se stesso. Letters of recommendation dated 1654 indicate that she went again to Paris. She was the mistress of the Prince of Wales (later Charles II) during his Parisian exile....

Member of Danzi family

(b Munich, 1768; d Munich, June 11, 1800). German soprano and composer. She was the daughter of the singer, actor, and theatre director Theobald Marchand, who came from Strasbourg and whose troupe was active in Mainz, Frankfurt, Mannheim, and Munich. From an early age she played children’s roles in the theatre and performed as a pianist and singer. In Munich she received tuition from the soprano Franziska Lebrun (née Danzi), who later became her sister-in-law. She and her younger brother Heinrich lived in Salzburg from 1781 to 1784 with Leopold Mozart, who taught her singing and the keyboard (she is often mentioned in his letters as ‘Gretl’). He supported her first attempts at composition (sonatas for piano or for violin and piano) and tried to have them published by the Viennese publisher Christoph Torricella, but without success. Wolfgang Mozart heard her sing on his visits to Salzburg in ...

A type of soprano voice. The term admits a wide variety of repertory and voice type. Any claimant to it must possess a powerful voice and a style capable of energetic emphasis; yet at one end of the spectrum is the singer whose best roles may be, for example, the respective Leonoras of Il trovatore and La forza del destino, and at the other is the singer who encompasses the heaviest of the Wagnerian soprano parts, Brünnhilde and Isolde. The first type may be described as lyric-dramatic and the second as heroic. The more narrowly defined dramatic soprano would then look for parts such as Aida, Lady Macbeth and Abigaille in Verdi, Senta, Elisabeth and Kundry in Wagner, Leonore in Fidelio, and the title roles in Medea and possibly Turandot (the last of these raises a problem for many dramatic sopranos on account of the high tessitura; it is beyond the reasonable ambitions of those who have an admixture of mezzo-soprano in the voice). Contrasted voices which might still come within the general category of dramatic soprano are, for instance, those of Jessye Norman (an exceptionally full-bodied sound, shaded towards the mezzo and nearer to the lyric-dramatic) and, in an earlier generation, Eva Turner, whose voice was pure soprano but of such penetrative power that the heaviest Wagnerian roles came within its scope and with such brilliance in the upper register that it was ideal for Turandot....

[‘Francesina’]

(b c 1715; bur. Hammersmith, Middlesex, July 20, 1778). French soprano. Although her birth name was Duparc, she was known professionally as Francesina. Trained in Italy, she sang in several operas at Florence, Pistoia, and Lucca in 1731–5. In 1736 she was engaged by the Opera of the Nobility for London; her first appearance there was on November 15, when she sang and danced before members of the royal family at Kensington Palace. The following week she made her King’s Theatre début in Hasse’s Siroe, and went on to sing in operas by Broschi, Pescetti, Veracini, and Duni. The following season (1737–8) she appeared in operas by Pescetti and Veracini, Handel’s new operas Faramondo (Clotilde) and Serse (Romilda), and his pasticcio Alessandro Severo (Sallustia). From then she was known almost exclusively as a Handel singer. She was his leading soprano at the King’s Theatre in early ...

(b Fort de France, Martinique, March 24, 1932; d New York, Sept 16, 2020). Martinique soprano. She studied in Paris, making her début in 1958 at Nice as Leïla (Les pêcheurs de perles). She sang Pamina at Aix-en-Provence (1959), Lakmé at the Opéra-Comique (1961), and made her début at the Paris Opéra (1962) as Fatima (Rameau’s Les Indes galantes). In 1964 she took part in the first public performance of Rameau’s Les boréades at La Maison de la Radio, Paris. In Chicago (1966–76) she sang Leïla, Stravinsky’s Nightingale, and Antonia (Les contes d’Hoffmann), and at Wexford Lakmé (1970) and Imogene in Il pirata (1976). Having sung Countess Almaviva with the Paris Opéra at the Metropolitan (1976), she made her début with the Metropolitan company as Konstanze (1980), and in Brussels (...

(Louise)

(b Detroit, MI, March 27, 1950; d Detroit, Jan 9, 2022). American mezzo-soprano and later soprano. Of Dutch, Sioux, Scottish, and African American ancestry, she studied at the Cleveland Institute (1968–70) with Eleanor Steber, and later with Jennie Tourel and O.G. Marzolla. While still a student, Ewing came to the attention of James Levine, which led to a dramatic debut under his direction at the Ravinia Festival in 1973. After appearances at Miami, Boston, Cologne, Chicago, and Santa Fe, Ewing performed Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at Salzburg in 1976, followed by her Metropolitan debut in the same role. Ewing developed strong determined characters in her repertoire, including Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Mélisande in Debussy’s Pellias et Milisande, Blanche in Poulenc’s Dialogues des carmélites, Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and, perhaps most famously, the title role in Bizet’s Carmen. She also interpreted several complex 20th-century operatic roles, including Marie in Berg’s ...

Term for a type of voice, presumed to have been exemplified by Cornélie Falcon , the dramatic soprano who sang Rachel in the première of La Juive (1835) and Valentine in that of Les Huguenots (1836). Her voice was exceptionally powerful, dramatic in quality and ample in the middle register. Mainly in France, or in association with the French repertory, ‘falcon’ has survived as a word which denotes a soprano of this type. Félia Litvinne and her pupil Germaine Lubin, both of whom sang Wagnerian roles such as Isolde and Kundry, would come under this heading. As Falcon herself sang last in ...

(b Residence, LA, Nov 2, 1946; d New York, Oct 9, 2020). American soprano. She studied at Tulane University and in New York, and made her début in 1974 as Micaëla with the New York City Opera. She sang in Mayr’s Medea in Corinto at Berne in 1975, then joined the Bayerische Staatsoper; she also sang in Berlin, Brussels, Houston, Boston, Toronto, Venice, Florence, Strasbourg, Lyons, Toulouse, Aix-en-Provence, and at the Paris Opéra. Her repertory includes Countess Almaviva, Electra (Idomeneo), Donna Anna, Agathe, Desdemona, Leonora (Il trovatore and La forza del destino), Amelia (Il duca d’Alba), Norma, Julia (La vestale), Salome (Hérodiade), Anne Boleyn, Elsa, and Ariadne. She first sang at Covent Garden in 1987 as the Empress (Die Frau ohne Schatten), the role of her Metropolitan début in 1989, and returned to Covent Garden as Chrysothemis in ...

(b Bucharest, Romania, March 10, 1921; d Bucharest, July 6, 1998). Romanian soprano and teacher. She studied at the Bucharest Conservatory (1939–42) with Elena Saghin; in Geneva (1946) with Anna Maria Guglielmetti; and in Vienna (1947) with Kurt Nasor and Josef Krips. Her début performance took place in 1939 with a radio broadcast of lieder by Henri Duparc, Robert Schumann, and Alfred Alessandrescu; her concert stage début took place at the Romanian Atheneum (1941) alongside pianist Nicolae Rădulescu. Her operatic début took place in 1942 at the Romanian Opera in Bucharest, where she sang the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor under the baton of Jean Bobescu. She was a soloist for the Romania Choral Society in Bucharest from 1937 to 1942, after which she became a soloist for the Romanian Opera, becoming the company’s prima donna in 1945, a post she held until ...

[Mainvielle-Fodor]

Member of Fodor family

(b Paris, Oct 13, 1789; d Saint Genis-Laval, Aug 14, 1870). French soprano, daughter of Josephus Andreas Fodor. She studied in St Petersburg with Eliodoro Bianchi. After some public appearances as a pianist and harpist, she made her stage début about 1810 in Fioravanti’s Le cantatrici villane. In 1812 she married the French actor Mainvielle, and after singing in Stockholm and Copenhagen, returned to Paris, where she made her début at the Opéra-Comique on 9 August 1814 in Grétry’s La fausse magie and Berton’s Le concert interrompu; she also sang in numerous roles at the Théâtre Italien. Her London début was in 1816 as Paer’s Griselda at the King’s Theatre, where her many other roles included Mozart’s Vitellia, Fiordiligi, Countess Almaviva, Zerlina and Susanna. The Morning Post described her voice as ‘rich, harmonious, and, without possessing extraordinary power, of a considerable compass. Her taste is chaste, her execution correct, easy and elegant, and her science evidently profound. To the brilliance of ornamental flights, she joins the still greater charm of feeling’....

(b Sarajevo, Bosnia, June 30, 1947). Bosnian soprano, opera soloist, and music pedagogue. She graduated in 1973 from the Music Academy Sarajevo (class of Bruna Špiler), where she also took the master’s degree in the field of solo singing in 1977. During her artistic career she achieved notable success singing the main soprano roles in the operas Il trovatore (G. Verdi), Ero s onog svijeta (J. Gotovac), The Bartered Bride (B. Smetana), The Marriage of Figaro (W.A. Mozart), and Madam Butterfly and La Boheme (G. Puccini). Her artistic activity was interrupted due to the wartime events in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. Her actions were diverted to performances within small artistic ensembles, which corresponded to the conditions of the social and cultural life of that time. She distinguished herself in appearances at the concerts of the Sarajevo Winter Festival, Summer Chamber Music (1993), and Days of Culture of the Czech Republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina (...