AboutTeresa Stratas began voice lessons at the age of 12 and made her radio debut singing Greek pop songs at 13. She later studied at the RCMT with Irene Jessner, the final three years on scholarship, and received the 1959 Eaton Graduating Scholarship. She was cast by Herman Geiger-Torl as Nora in a 1958 production of Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea at Hart House and made her debut in professional opera as Mimi in La Bohème with the Toronto Opera Festival, to great acclaim in October 1958. As co-winner of the 1959 Metropolitan Opera Auditions, she made her debut with that company in October 1959 as Poussette in Manon. She went on to create the title role in Peggy Glanville-Hicks' Nausicaa at the Herod Atticus Theatre in Athens in 1961, and made her Covent Garden debut as Mimi that same year. At teh Metropolitan, Stratas moved quickly into major roles, first as a replacement for Lucine Amara as Liù in Turandot, then as Micaela in Carmen. In 1962 she sang Cio-Cio-San with teh COC, toured the USSR in recital, and created Queen Isabella in Manuel de Falla's Atlantida, which also was her debut at La Scala, Milan. While continuing to perform with the Metropolitan she sang with the Bolshoi, Vienna State, Berlin, Bavarian State (Munich), and San Francisco operas. Her Metropolitan repertoire has included Mimi, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Liù, Micaela, Nedda in I Pagliacci, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Marguerite in Faust, La Perichole, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, and Sardulla in the US premiere of Menotti's The Last Savage. She also sang Violetta in La Traviata at Munich, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro and Despini in Cosi fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival and the Paris Opera, and Desdemona in Otello at Expo 67. She took the leading roles in Norman Campbell's 1972 CBC TV production of Puccini's La Rondine and in the 1974 film of Strauss' Salome with the Vienna Philharmonic under Karl Böhm. She was chosen by the conductor Pierre Boulez to sing the title role in the first performance - Paris Opera, 28 May 1979 - of the completed version of Alban Berg's Lulu. Stratas possesses a lyric soprano, smooth and rich throughout its range. Her singing is allied to a strong stage personality and an instinctive and communicative dramatic sense. She is endowed with a delicate sense of comedy, but she yields most completely to those roles demanding direct emotional expression. Reviewing the Metropolitan Opera telecast of Mahagonny, Andrew Porter wrote: "Close up, the intelligence, subtlety and precision that distinguish Teresa Stratas' Jenny were even more apparent. She is an arresting artist. One began to regret every moment the cameras left her....The opera took life from her". Stratas became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1972, and the CMCouncil named her artist of the year in 1980.
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Teresa Stratas
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Teresa Stratas Discography (1title)
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