20th-century Italian women opera singers

Marcella Pobbe (13 July 1921 - 17 June 2003) was an Italian operatic soprano who sang a wide range of roles in both the lyric and spinto repertory.Pobbe was born in Montegalda near Vicenza, where she studied with Elena Fava, and later entered the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro, where she studied with Rinalda Pavoni. She also studied at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena with Giorgio Favaretto. She made her stage debut in Spoleto, as Gounod's Marguerite, in 1949, and the same year, first appeared at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, where she was to appear regularly until 1973.
She made her debut at the Rome Opera in 1954, in the title role of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, and at La Scala in 1955, as Bathseba in the premiere of Darius Milhaud's David. She appeared at the Baths of Caracalla in 1957, as Mathilde in Guglielmo Tell, and in 1959 as Elsa in Lohengrin. She also sang at most major opera houses in Italy, Venice, Parma, Bologna, Florence, Mantua, Palermo, etc., as well as on Italian radio and television.
On the international scene, she made guest appearances at the Monte Carlo Opera, the Zurich Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Liceo in Barcelona. In North America, she sang at the Philadelphia Opera and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, for a few performances of Marguerite and Mimi during the 1958-59 season.
Her repertory also included; Agathe, Eva, Countess Almaviva, Micaela, Leonora, Maria, Amelia, Desdemona, Maddalena, Tosca, Adriana, Francesca, etc. She can be heard on record as Margherita in Boito's Mefistofele, opposite Ferruccio Tagliavini and Giulio Neri, and in two recitals of arias, which reveal a singer with a voice of considerable beauty and refinement. For Italian television in the 1950s, she appeared in several productions, notably Le nozze di Figaro, Un ballo in maschera and Adriana Lecouvreur, one of her most celebrated roles.
Pobbe went on performing until the late 1970s, and then became a music critic for Vicenza Gazzettino. In 2000, she published a series of interviews she had made with conductors. She died in Milan.

Denia Mazzola - Gavazzeni (born 4 February 1953) is an Italian operatic soprano. In 1991 she married Gianandrea Gavazzeni (1909–1996) a famous conductor, 44 years older. She had the peak of her career between the years 1982 and 2015 when she decide to dedicate herself to teaching.She recorded in 2017 the Antonio Smareglia opera La Falena.
She is still singing (2021) in events and recitals organized by her foundation.

Antonietta Meneghel (27 June 1893 – 26 January 1975), better known by her stage name Toti Dal Monte, was a celebrated Italian operatic lyric soprano. She may be best remembered today for her performance as Cio-cio-san in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, having recorded this role complete in 1939 with Beniamino Gigli as Pinkerton.

Natalina "Lina" Cavalieri (25 December 1874 – 7 February 1944) was an Italian operatic dramatic soprano, actress, and monologist.

Maria Caniglia (5 May 1905 – 16 April 1979) was one of the leading Italian spinto sopranos of the 1930s and 1940s.

Lucia Valentini Terrani (29 August 1946 in Padua – 11 June 1998 in Seattle) was an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano, particularly associated with Rossini roles.

Giulietta Simionato (born Giulia Simionato; Forlì, Romagna, 12 May 1910 – Rome, 5 May 2010) was an Italian mezzo-soprano. Her career spanned the period from the 1930s until her retirement in 1966.

Giannina Arangi-Lombardi (20 June 1891, Marigliano – 9 July 1951, Milan) was a spinto soprano, particularly associated with the Italian operatic repertory.

Cecilia Gasdia (Italian: [tʃeˈtʃiːlja ɡaˈzdiːa]; born 14 August 1960, Verona) is an Italian operatic soprano.

Mirella Freni, OMRI (Italian: [miˈrɛlːa ˈfreːni], born Mirella Fregni, 27 February 1935 – 9 February 2020) was an Italian operatic soprano who had a career of 50 years and appeared at major international opera houses. She received international attention at the Glyndebourne Festival, where she appeared as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni and as Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore.
Freni is associated with the role of Mimì in Puccini's La bohème, which featured in her repertoire from 1957 to 1999 and which she sang at La Scala in Milan and the Vienna State Opera in 1963, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. She also performed the role in a film of the production and as her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1965. In the earliest opera DVDs, she portrayed her characters convincingly in both acting and singing. Freni was married for many years to the Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, with whom she performed and recorded. Her obituary from The New York Times describes her as a "matchless Italian prima donna".