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Virginia Zeani

Virginia Zeani, Commendatore OMRI (born 21 October 1925) is a Romanian dramatic coloratura soprano, regarded as one of the great sopranos of the 20th century and one of the great musical personalities in the history of Romania. The Venetian Arts Society named her "one of the most vocally and artistically gifted of the Grand Divas of the Golden Age" and a "Super Star in the history of opera".Known both for her golden voice and her impeccable technique, Virginia Zeani is also famous for being one of the most beautiful opera singers of all time. Federico Fellini said that Virginia Zeani personified for him "the beauty of the opera singer" and confessed in a letter that he used to secretly admire her in the mornings when she was making vocalizations.Maria Callas's former husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, once told Zeani: "Virginia, I have to tell you, you are one of the very few sopranos my wife is frightened of!"She is one of the greatest interpreters of the role of Violetta Valéry (from Verdi's La traviata) in recorded history, being often called by the press and opera lovers "Violetta supreme". She is also the artist with the greatest number of performances in the role of Violetta ever, with an estimated 648 interpretations.In addition to her success as Violetta, Zeani was one of the first sopranos in the world to sing all three principal soprano roles of The Tales of Hoffmann in a single performance and the first one to do so in the history of La Scala.For a quarter of a century, from 1981 to 2004, Zeani was a professor at Indiana University in Bloomington.Besides her native language, Romanian, Zeani also speaks Italian, French, Spanish and English.