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Amelita Galli-Curci--soprano
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"Amelita Galli-Curci (18 November 1882 – 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.
She was born as Amelita Galli into an upper-middle-class Italian family of Spanish heritage in Milan, where she studied piano at the Milan Conservatory, winning a gold medal for piano performance, and at the age of 16 was offered a professorship. She was inspired to sing by her grandmother. Operatic composer Pietro Mascagni also encouraged Galli-Curci's singing ambitions. By her own choice, Galli-Curci's voice was largely self-trained.
Galli-Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy for the sweetness and agility of her voice and her captivating musical interpretations. She was seen by many critics as an antidote to the host of squally, verismo-oriented sopranos then populating Italian opera houses.

She toured widely in Europe, Russia and South America. In 1915, she sang two performances of Lucia di Lammermoor with Enrico Caruso in Buenos Aires. These were to be her only operatic appearances with the great tenor, though they later appeared in concert and made a few recordings together. Galli-Curci and Caruso also acted as godparents for the son of the Sicilian tenor Giulio Crimi.


Galli-Curci first arrived in the United States in the autumn of 1916 as a virtual unknown. Her stay in the US was intended to be brief, but the acclaim she received for her historic American debut as Gilda in Rigoletto in Chicago, Illinois, on 18 November 1916 (her 34th birthday) was so wildly enthusiastic that she accepted an offer to extend her association with the Chicago Opera Association, where she appeared until the end of the 1924 season. Also in 1916, Galli-Curci signed a recording contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company and made her first records a few weeks before her American debut. She recorded exclusively for Victor until 1930.

On 14 November 1921, While still under contract with the Chicago Opera, Galli-Curci made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Violetta in La Traviata, opposite tenor Beniamino Gigli as Alfredo. She was one of few singers of that era who were contracted to both opera companies simultaneously. Galli-Curci remained at the Met until her retirement from the operatic stage nine years later

Weary of opera house politics and convinced that opera was a dying art form, Galli-Curci retired from the operatic stage in 1930 to concentrate instead on concert performances. Throat problems and the uncertain pitching of top notes had plagued her for several years and she underwent surgery in 1935 for the removal of a thyroid goiter. Great care was taken during her surgery, which was performed under local anesthesia; however, it was thought her voice suffered following the surgery, specifically, a nerve to her larynx, the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve, was thought to have been damaged, resulting in the loss of her ability to sing high pitches. This nerve has since become known as the "nerve of Galli-Curci."

Other researchers (Marchese-Ragona et al.) have argued that tracheal compression caused by a goiter put an early end to Galli-Curci's career as a coloratura soprano, but it was nerve damage caused during surgery that prevented her from prolonging her career as lyric or dramatic soprano.
In 1908, Amelita Galli wed an Italian nobleman and painter, the Marchese Luigi Curci, attaching his surname to hers. They divorced in 1920. The Marchese Curci petitioned the papal council in Rome for an annulment of the marriage in 1922.[5] In 1921, Galli-Curci married Homer Samuels, her accompanist. Their marriage lasted until Samuels' death in 1956.8]

On 24 November 1936, Galli-Curci, aged 54, made an ill-advised return to opera, appearing in a single performance as Mimi in La bohème in Chicago. It was painfully clear that her best singing days were behind her and after another year of recitals she went into complete retirement, living in California.