Aurelia Cataneo

An Italian soprano who moved from light lyric to dramatic roles and was Isolde in the first Italian Tristan und Isolde. She trained at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, where her teachers included Emanuele de Roxas, and made her debut at Salerno in 1881 as Violetta. Her Gioconda at the Teatro Dal Verme in 1887 made her name, and the Bologna Tristan under Martucci followed in 1888. At La Scala she created Fidelia in Edgar, sang Nefta in the house's first Asrael and gave a Desdemona that Verdi judged harshly. She died in childbirth in 1891.