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FEDORA BARBIERI, Trieste, June 4, 1920 - Florence, March 4, 2003
News of the death of Fedora Barbieri - one of the great Italian mezzos of the postwar era - came as something of a shock, for she was an exuberant personality, quick-witted and full of energy even at eighty-two. Right to the end, she could command impressive power in the lower octave of her voice, as she was happy to demonstrate to visitors. For fifty years, she performed regularly in Florence, where she lived all her adult life. She returned to the Teatro Comunale there in November 2000 to sing Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria. Rusticana on the sixtieth anniversary of her debut. That debut took place in a period when there was no lack of competition, but Barbieri established herself rapidly as a striking vocal and theatrical personality, and her immortality is assured by an important legacy of recordings.
As a teenager, she became a keen...