greatreporter.com, December 31st, 2006
American lyric soprano (b. June 27, 1932, Wayne,
Pa.
—d. March 10, 2006,
New York, N.Y.
), whose glamour, radiant beauty onstage, and warm voice made her a favourite operatic heroine in the 1960s, especially at
New York City
's Metropolitan Opera. She won a place at
Philadelphia
's Curtis Institute of Music and later studied voice and the Italian language in
Rome
.
She made her stage debut in 1955 at the Festival of Two Worlds in
Spoleto, Italy
, singing Norina in
Gaetano
Donizetti
's
Milan
's La Scala two years later as Nannetta in
Giuseppe
Verdi
's
Giacomo
Puccini
's
Jussi
Björling
, then at the end of his distinguished career, as Rodolfo. For her Met debut in 1959, she sang Violetta in
Verdi
's
Moffo
also had a brief career in Italian television and made several movies in
Italy
and the
U.S.
She was married twice, first to
Mario
Lanfranchi, a producer and director
for Italian television, and later to
Robert W.
Sarnoff, the chairman
of RCA Corp.
Moffo
was often cited as an example of a talent that was pushed too hard too early in her career. As a result, her voice deteriorated sharply in the mid-1970s, and, although she continued to appear on the stage, her career as a diva was essentially finished.
Don Pasquale
, and she first sang at
Falstaff
. Her American debut took place in 1957 at the Chicago Lyric Opera as Mimi in
La Bohème
, with
La traviata
, perhaps the role for which she became best known. She sang in some 200 productions at the Met over the next decade. In addition,
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