Rosanna Carteri

Rosanna Carteri (born 14 December 1930) is an Italian soprano, who was primarily active from the 1950s through the mid-1960s. Rosanna Carteri was born in Verona and raised in Padua. She studied with Cusinati and started singing in concert at the age of twelve. She won a RAI singing contest in 1948 which led to her operatic debut at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome as Elsa in Lohengrin in 1949, aged only 19. She made her La Scala debut in 1951. Other debuts were at the Salzburg Festival as Desdemona in Otello in 1952 under the direction of Wilhelm Furtwängler, San Francisco as Mimi in La bohème in 1954, the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Marguerite in Faust in 1955, the Verona Arena as Mimi in 1958, Covent Garden as Tosca in 1960, Paris Opera in 1961 as Violetta in La traviata. Carteri made a few recordings for Cetra Soria early in her career, in such operas as William Tell, La bohème and Suor Angelica. She recorded La traviata for RCA Victor with Cesare Valletti and Leonard Warren under the direction of Pierre Monteux. She participated in several television productions for RAI such as The Marriage of Figaro, La traviata, Otello, and Falstaff. Carteri also participated in the creation of some contemporary works such as Ifegenia by Ildebrando Pizzetti in 1950, Proserpina e lo straniero by Juan José Castro in 1952, Calzare d'argento again by Pizzetti in 1961 and Il mercante di Venezia by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco also in 1961.