Rosa Raïsa

Rosa Raisa (30 May 1893 – 28 September 1963) was a Polish-born and Italian-trained Russian-Jewish dramatic operatic soprano who became a naturalized American. She possessed a voice of remarkable power and was the creator of Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, at La Scala, Milan.

She was born as Raitza Burchstein, daughter of Herschel and Frieda Leah (Krasnatawsky) Burchstein, in Białystok, in partitioned Poland (then Russian Empire) on 30 May 1893. Her mother died in 1899 and Herschel remarried, Chaya. Along with her cousins (Sasha Vigdorchik and his family) she fled Poland when she was 14 due to the Bialystok pogrom, emigrating to the Isle of Capri, Italy. There Raitza met Dario Ascarelli and his wife Ester, who recognized her talent and potential and sponsored her at the Naples Conservatory (San Pietro a Majella). Her teacher at the conservatory, the contralto Barbara Marchisio (1833–1919), had been one of the most prominent Italian singers of the mid-19th century.

Marchisio brought Raisa in 1912 to Cleofonte Campanini, a leading operatic conductor and impresario. After the audition, he engaged the 20-year-old singer for the 1913 Parma Verdi Centenary: Oberto, Conte di San Bonafico and Un ballo in maschera, and also signed her for his Philadelphia-Chicago Opera. As she was under 21 years of age, her engagement was confirmed in a handshake.

Debuts and successes followed rapidly for Raisa. Her North American debut was on 14 November 1913 with Campanini’s Chicago-Philadelphia Opera Company in Baltimore as Mimí in La Bohème with Giovanni Martinelli of the Metropolitan Opera in his first season in North America. (Martinelli was to be her partner in 1937 in her last stage appearance of her career in Halévy’s La Juive in Chicago). Her first role in Philadelphia was Isabella of Aragon in the United States premiere of Alberto Franchetti’s Cristoforo Colombo, followed by her Chicago Aida debut (29 November 1913) at the famous Auditorium Theater. Edward Moore, then critic of the Chicago Tribune, stated that hers was "a voice the like of whose power had never been heard on that stage."

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