Anna Moffo

After graduating from Radnor High School, Anna turned down an offer to go to Hollywood and went instead to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Eufemia Giannini-Gregory, sister of soprano Dusolina Giannini.

She later studied voice privately in New York City with Beverley Peck Johnson.

Her pupils included several prominent opera singers, actors, and entertainers, including sopranos Renée Fleming, Renata Tebaldi, Anna Moffo, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, and actors Madeline Kahn, Kevin Kline, and Constance Towers among others.

In New York, her Metropolitan Opera debut took place on November 14, 1959. Her Metropolitan Opera debut took place on November 14, 1959, as Violetta in La traviata, a part that would quickly become her signature role.

Other celebrated singers who debuted at the Met during Bing's tenure include: Roberta Peters, Victoria de los Ángeles, Renata Tebaldi, Maria Callas, who had a bitter falling out with Bing over repertoire, Birgit Nilsson, Joan Sutherland, Régine Crespin, Mirella Freni, Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballé, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Anna Moffo, James McCracken, Carlo Bergonzi, Franco Corelli, Alfredo Kraus, Plácido Domingo, Nicolai Gedda, Luciano Pavarotti, Jon Vickers, Tito Gobbi, Sherrill Milnes, and Cesare Siepi.

She returned to America for her debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on October 16, 1957.

Anna Moffo also chose the Lyric for her American debut.

She performed at The Metropolitan Opera for seventeen seasons in roles such as Lucia, Gilda, Adina, Mimì, Liù, Nedda, Pamina, Marguerite, Juliette, Manon, Mélisande, Périchole, and the four heroines of Les contes d'Hoffmann.

The first Manon was Marie Heilbron; other noted interpreters include Sibyl Sanderson (Massenet's personal favorite), Fanny Heldy, Lucrezia Bori, Amelita Galli-Curci, Bidu Sayão, Victoria de los Ángeles, Anna Moffo, Beverly Sills, Edita Gruberová, Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, and Natalie Dessay.

The following year (1957) saw her debut at the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, at La Scala in Milan and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

Anna Moffo was born in Wayne, Pennsylvania, USA to Italian parents, Nicola Moffo (a shoemaker) and his wife Regina Cinti.

She appeared in film versions of La traviata (1968) and Lucia di Lammermoor (1971), both produced (with the Italian TV director Sandro Bolchi) and directed by her first husband Mario Lanfranchi, as well as non-operatic films, including Menage all'italiana (1965), the then controversial Una storia d'amore (1969), The Adventurers (1970), A Girl Called Jules (1970), and The Weekend Murders (1970).

He was the first to bring opera to the small screen, in 1956, with Madama Butterfly, by Giacomo Puccini, which introduced to a wide public Anna Moffo, at that time an unknown American soprano, who became his wife for 17 years.

In 1954, on a Fulbright scholarship, she left for Italy to complete her studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome where she was a pupil of Mercedes Llopart and Luigi Ricci.

She retired from the stage in 1945 and became a noted singing teacher in Milan, her most famous students include: Renata Scotto, Fiorenza Cossotto, Anna Moffo, Elena Souliotis, Biancamaria Casoni, Venezuelan tenor Rubén Dominguez, Venezuelan coloratura soprano Cecilia Nuñez Albanese, Ana María Iriarte, Francisco Ortiz, tenors Bernabé Martí, Alfredo Kraus, his older brother baritone Francisco Kraus and bass Ivo Vinco.

In 1954, on a Fulbright scholarship, she left for Italy to complete her studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome where she was a pupil of Mercedes Llopart and Luigi Ricci.

In 1954, on a Fulbright scholarship, she left for Italy to complete her studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome where she was a pupil of Mercedes Llopart and Luigi Ricci.

Ricci was also active as a vocal coach at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where he taught (amongst many others) Sesto Bruscantini, Richard Miller, Anna Moffo, Rosalind Elias, Ezio Flagello, Peter Lindroos, and Martti Wallén.

After graduating from Radnor High School, Anna turned down an offer to go to Hollywood and went instead to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Eufemia Giannini-Gregory, sister of soprano Dusolina Giannini.

Giannini's sister, Eufemia Giannini-Gregory, was a respected voice teacher at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and taught Frank Guarrera, Judith Blegen and Anna Moffo.

Offers quickly followed and she appeared in two other television productions that same year, as Nannetta in Falstaff and as Amina in La sonnambula.

She appeared in film versions of La traviata (1968) and Lucia di Lammermoor (1971), both produced (with the Italian TV director Sandro Bolchi) and directed by her first husband Mario Lanfranchi, as well as non-operatic films, including Menage all'italiana (1965), the then controversial Una storia d'amore (1969), The Adventurers (1970), A Girl Called Jules (1970), and The Weekend Murders (1970).

She appeared in film versions of La traviata (1968) and Lucia di Lammermoor (1971), both produced (with the Italian TV director Sandro Bolchi) and directed by her first husband Mario Lanfranchi, as well as non-operatic films, including Menage all'italiana (1965), the then controversial Una storia d'amore (1969), The Adventurers (1970), A Girl Called Jules (1970), and The Weekend Murders (1970).

Her Metropolitan Opera debut took place on November 14, 1959, as Violetta in La traviata, a part that would quickly become her signature role.

She appeared as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and made her recording debut for EMI as Nannetta (Falstaff) under Herbert von Karajan, and as Musetta in La bohème with Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano and Rolando Panerai.

Additionally, in 1962 the tenor recorded excerpts from Massenet's Manon, with Anna Moffo, conducted by René Leibowitz.

She made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London, as Gilda, in a Franco Zeffirelli production of Rigoletto. Shortly after the Italian tenor Sergio Franchi joined RCA Victor, they recorded a popular album of operetta duets, The Dream Duet, which peaked at number ninety seven on the Billboard 200 in 1963.

While he was there he met Metropolitan Opera soprano Anna Moffo, with whom he was to collaborate on two albums that year.

She appeared in film versions of La traviata (1968) and Lucia di Lammermoor (1971), both produced (with the Italian TV director Sandro Bolchi) and directed by her first husband Mario Lanfranchi, as well as non-operatic films, including Menage all'italiana (1965), the then controversial Una storia d'amore (1969), The Adventurers (1970), A Girl Called Jules (1970), and The Weekend Murders (1970).

In the early 1970s, she began appearing on German television and in operetta films such as Die Csárdásfürstin and Die schöne Galathée.

She appeared in film versions of La traviata (1968) and Lucia di Lammermoor (1971), both produced (with the Italian TV director Sandro Bolchi) and directed by her first husband Mario Lanfranchi, as well as non-operatic films, including Menage all'italiana (1965), the then controversial Una storia d'amore (1969), The Adventurers (1970), A Girl Called Jules (1970), and The Weekend Murders (1970).

She also recorded with Eurodisc the title roles in Carmen and Iphigenie in Aulis, as well as the role of Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel.

At the Metropolitan Opera in March 1961 with Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli she performed in Turandot as Liù, conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

In 1960, Stokowski made one of his infrequent appearances in the opera house, when he conducted Giacomo Puccini's Turandot at the New York Metropolitan, in memorable performances with a cast that included Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli and Anna Moffo.

Valletti can also be heard in a "lighter" cast version of Madama Butterfly which paired him with Anna Moffo.

She is interred with Sarnoff at Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.