Flora Perini

Flora Perini (20 November 1887 – September 1975) was an Italian operatic mezzo-soprano who had a prominent opera career in Europe, South America, and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. She sang a wide repertoire that encompassed works by verisimo composers like Mascagni, bel canto composers like Rossini and Bellini, the Italian grand operas of Verdi, the German operas of Strauss and Wagner, and the Russian operas of Rimsky-Korsakov. She sang in numerous premieres throughout her career, including creating the role of the Princess in the original 1918 production of Puccini's Suor Angelica.

Perini was born in Rome on 20 November 1887. She studied at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia before making her professional opera début at La Scala in 1908 as Anacoana in Franchetti's Cristoforo Colombo. Over the next several years she appeared in operas in Nice, Venice, Triest, Turin, Bologna, Madrid, Barcelona, Saint Petersburg, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. In 1910 she sang the role of Xenia in Boris Godunov opposite Adamo Didur in the title role at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. She returned to that house numerous times over the next several years singing in such roles as Herodias in Richard Strauss' Salome (1913) and Annina in Der Rosenkavalier (1915). She also sang in the world premiere of Carlos López Buchardo's El sueño de Alma in 1914.