Magda Olivero

Magda Olivero, née Maria Maddalena Olivero (25 March 1910 – 8 September 2014), was an Italian operatic soprano. Her career started in 1932 when she was 22, and spanned five decades establishing "her as an important link between the era of the verismo composers and the modern opera stage". She has been regarded as one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century.

Born as Maria Maddalena Olivero in Saluzzo, Italy, she made her singing debut in 1932 on radio in Turin performing Nino Cattozzo's (1886–1961) oratorio, I misteri dolorosi.

She performed widely and increasingly successfully until 1941, when she married and retired from the stage, only taking part thereafter in sporadic charity events. Not having had children as she would have liked to, however, she resumed her career ten years later, at the request of Francesco Cilea, who warmly asked her to sing again the title role in his opera Adriana Lecouvreur. She performed this role al the Teatro Grande in Brescia on 3 February 1951, but Cilea could not see his wish come true as he had died less than three months earlier.

From 1951 until her final retirement, Olivero appeared in opera houses throughout Italy and, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, all around the world (Europe, Egypt, U.S., Latin America), but never in such primary venues as the Royal Opera House or the Paris Opera, just once at the Vienna State Opera, and exceedingly seldom at La Scala. Among her most renowned interpretations were the leading parts in Adriana Lecouvreur, Iris, Fedora, Tosca, La bohème, La fanciulla del West, La traviata, La Wally, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, Mefistofele, Turandot (as Liù) and La voix humaine, whose Italian version she premiered in Trieste in 1968.