Frances Alda

Frances Alda (1879–1952) was one of the world's greatest sopranos. Born Fanny Jane Davis in Christchurch, New Zealand, which claims her as a prominent expatriate, she was raised in Melbourne, where she began singing operetta in 1897. In 1902 she left Australia to study with Mathilde Marchesi, Nellie Melba's teacher, in Paris. Marchesi identified her as 'la nouvelle Melba' and gave her the name Alda. She made her European debut in 1904, and by 1908, when she described herself as Australian, she had appeared at the Monnaie, Brussels, Covent Garden and La Scala. That year she became a member of New York's Metropolitan Opera. She stayed with the company for 21 years, making 367 appearances over 22 seasons. Noted especially for lyrical roles such as Manon Lescaut, Mimí and Desdemona, she enjoyed a successful recording career, making her debut with Enrico Caruso, who claimed that his voice and hers blended perfectly: 'I have never found that with any other woman singer,' he said. Alda toured Australia and New Zealand in 1927, by which time she had reportedly come to 'disdain' Australia. Her colourful memoirs, Men, Women and Tenors, which include a description of her marriage to Guilio Gatti Casazza, general manager of La Scala and then the Met ('the two most grievous errors I made were when I married him, and when I divorced him') were published in 1937. She married advertising executive Ray Vir Den in 1941 and lived on Long Island, New York, dying while on holiday in Venice, Italy, aged 73.