Licia Albanese, who has died aged 105, was one of the foremost sopranos at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in the years straddling the second world war, giving more than 1,000 performances in 48 roles. Her auspicious Met debut came in 1940, as Madam Butterfly. That role, which she sang more than 300 times in her career, with Mimi in La Bohème and Violetta in La Traviata, which she sang 93 times at the Met, were her most significant parts, giving her the greatest scope for her abilities as a singing actress. Her final appearance at the Met, in the title role of Adriana Lecouvreur, which she undertook in 1963, was another dramatic success.
At the time of her Met debut she was still only 26, small of stature, but with a sure command of the stage and mistress of the Italian method of textual nuance, thoroughly schooled as she was for the lyric stage. Though she sometimes sacrificed warmth to projection and brilliance, she always used her voice to musical effect. She was, above all, adept at projecting the pathos of the heroines she so unerringly delineated.
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