Nina Morgana

Nina Morgana (November 15, 1891 – July 8, 1986) was an Italian-American soprano, a protegée of Enrico Caruso, who sang with the Metropolitan Opera for fifteen seasons, from 1920 to 1935.

Nina Morgana born and raised in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Sicilian immigrants Calogero (Charles) and Concetta Morgana. She was a child performer in the "Venice in America" exhibit at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. In 1906, she sang at a concert in Buffalo to benefit the survivors of the San Francisco earthquake that year. With encouragement from Enrico Caruso, she studied voice in Milan with Teresa Arkel from 1909 to 1913.

Her brother Dante J. Morgana was a prominent eye surgeon based in Buffalo.

During her time training in Italy, she appeared in the premiere of Der Rosenkavalier at La Scala in 1911. Nina Morgana toured with Enrico Caruso in the 1910s. She was with the Chicago Opera in the 1919-1920 season. She sang with the Metropolitan Opera from 1920 to 1935, starting with playing "Gilda" in Rigoletto. Her other best-known roles were "Nedda" in Pagliacci, "Musetta" in La bohème, and "Micaela" in Carmen. She also gave concerts, including live radio concerts.

In 1926 Morgana sued Chadwick Pictures for a silent film called The Midnight Girl (1925), in which a singer character named "Nina Morgana" is portrayed by actress Dolores Cassinelli as "debauched" and "passé".