Montserrat Caballé

Montserrat Caballé
Caballé in Milan, 1971
Born	Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepción Caballé (1933-04-12) 12 April 1933 (age 83) Barcelona, Spain
Alma mater	Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu
Occupation	Soprano
Years active	1956–present
Spouse(s)	Bernabé Martí (m. 1964)
Children	2

Montserrat Caballé (Catalan: [munsəˈrat kəβəˈʎe]; born 12 April 1933) is a Spanish operatic soprano. She has sung a wide variety of roles, but Caballé is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi. She came to the attention of a much wider audience when she recorded at the request of the IOC in 1987 "Barcelona", a duet with Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British rock band Queen; the song was inspired by Caballé´s home city, later it was used as one of the two official theme songs for the 1992 Olympic Games.

Caballé was born as Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepción Caballé i Folch in Barcelona on April 12, 1933. Her family was of humble financial circumstances.

She studied music at the Liceu Conservatory, and singing technique with Napoleone Annovazzi, Eugenia Kemény and Conchita Badía. She graduated with a gold medal in 1954. She subsequently moved to Basel, Switzerland, where she made her professional debut in 1956 as Mimì in Puccini's La bohème. She became part of the company between 1957 and 1959, singing a repertoire that included Mozart (Erste Dame in The Magic Flute) and Richard Strauss (Salome) in German, unusual for Spanish singers, but which proved useful for her next engagement at the Bremen Opera (1959–1962). In 1961, she starred as Iphigénie, from Iphigénie en Tauride, at the National Theatre of S. Carlos, in Lisbon, alongside Raymond Wolansky, Jean Cox, Paul Schöffler and others.