Victoria Cavalli

Her smiling face, her generosity and her simplicity have won the hearts of all those who have seen this great singer from afar or close up; a singer who could never be mistaken for a diva. No caprices, no bouts of rage, no outrageous demands: she simply sang. It was the Geneva International Music Competition, which she won with such great success in 1947, that propelled the young Spanish singer to the front of the world stage. Right away, she was enlisted to sing La Vida Breve by Manuel de Falla in London, and then Paris invited her to play Marguerite in Gounod's Faust at the Opéra, before becoming Mimi (La Bohème by Puccini), under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham at Covent Garden. Salzburg, New York, Milan, Vienna and Buenos Aires followed. A coloratura soprano first and foremost, she sang roles from Rossini with agility. As the years went by, she expanded her voice and her repertoire, becoming a much sought-after lyric soprano. Thanks to her particular gift for languages, she has been Agathe in Weber's Freischütz, Desdemona in Verdi's Othello, Eva in Die Meistersinger by Wagner, or a touching Mélisande. She is a wily and spiteful Rosina (Barber of Seville), a simple and moving Mimi.

Dido and Aeneas (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate.

The Renaissance era of the 16th and 17th centuries encompasses some of the most magnificent choral music ever written, at a time when composers were attached to royal chapels and cathedrals, and dedicated their art to the service of God, to creating musical masterworks that would complement and reflect the glory of the architecture which contained them.