Claudia Muzio

Claudia Muzio (7 February 1889 – 24 May 1936) was an Italian operatic soprano, whose international career was among the most successful of the early 20th century.

Born in Pavia, Muzio was the daughter of an operatic stage manager, whose engagements during her childhood took the family to opera houses around Italy as well as to Covent Garden in London and to the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her mother was a choir singer, Giovanna Gavirati. Claudia Muzio arrived in London at the age of 2 and went to school there, becoming fluent in English, before returning to Italy at the age of 16 to study in Turin with Annetta Casaloni, a piano teacher and former operatic mezzo-soprano who had created the role of Maddalena in the world première of Verdi's Rigoletto. Muzio then continued her vocal studies in Milan with Elettra Callery-Viviani.

Muzio made her operatic début in Arezzo (15 January 1910) in the title role of Massenet's Manon, and despite her youth she made rapid progress in the opera houses of Italy, leading to débuts at La Scala in Milan in 1913 (as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello), in Paris (as Desdemona) and in London at Covent Garden (as Puccini's Manon Lescaut) in 1914; she stayed on in London to sing other roles including Mimì and Tosca (both with Caruso). She was invited to the Met in New York in December 1916 (for Tosca) and was so successful that she continued to appear there during six successive years. It was at the Metropolitan that Muzio created the role of Giorgetta in Il tabarro, in the world première of Puccini's triple bill, Il trittico, on 14 December 1918.

She established a special relationship with audiences at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, where she first appeared in June 1919 (in Catalani's Loreley). From then until 1934 she sang there in 23 different operas, becoming known as "la divina Claudia". Between 1922 and 1932, she appeared regularly in Chicago (after falling out with the management at the New York Met).

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