THE
FACTS
Anna Moffo
was born in Wayne, Penn, on June 27, 1932 to Italian-American parents.
She studied singing under Euphemia Giannini-Gregory and later won a Fulbright
scholarship and studied in Europe, where she studied with Luigi Ricci and
Mercedes Llopart, who also taught Renata Scotto. Her operatic debut
was in 1955 as Norina in Don Pasquale She became famous almost
overnight as Cio-Cio-San in a 1956 film version of Madama Butterfly,
directed by Mario Lanfranchi, who later became her husband. Her Metropolitan
Opera debut was in 1959 as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata.
She had a 17-season career there and sung 220 performances in 18 operas,
with roles including Violetta, Gilda, Manon, Liù, Pamina, Juliette,
Nedda, Mélisande, Mimì, Cio-Cio-San, the four heroines of
Les Contes d'Hoffman (Stella, Olympia, Giulietta, and Antonia),
Lucia, Marguerite, and others. Her non-Met roles included Amina,
Adriana Lecouvreur, Kate (in The Taming of the Shrew), Fiora, Rachel,
Marie (in La Fille du Régiment), and more.
MY
OPINIONS
Anna Moffo
is the most beautiful soprano that I have ever heard. Her best roles,
in my opinion, were Violetta, Butterfly, Mimì, and Lucia, in that
order, although I haven't heard her Luisa Miller, Gilda, Manon, or anything
that she didn't record. She also sang a lot of non-operatic classical
music, the best of which are recorded on a collection conducted by Leopold
Stokowski and including songs by Canteloube, Rachmaninov, and Villa-Lobos.
I've included some sound clips below in which she sounds particularly good.
MY
REVIEWS
Here are
some of my reviews of the albums on which Anna Moffo sings. Not all
of them, though--just the ones that I own. Click here.
SOUND
CLIPS
Sound clips
of Anna Moffo that I've collected or created:
VOCALISE
LUCIA'S
MAD SCENE
LULLABYE
FROM BUTTERFLY
"ADDIO
DEL PASSATO"
THE
WILLOW SONG
"TU
CHE DI GEL SEI CINTA"
LA
RONDINE (WITH DANIELE BARIONI)
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