Romilda Pantaleoni

An Italian dramatic soprano, admired as an actress as much as a singer, who was Verdi's first Desdemona. The daughter of the composer Luigi Pantaleoni, she studied in Milan and made her debut there in 1868 at the Teatro Carcano, then sang in Rome, Genoa, Naples, Turin and Vienna. She reached La Scala in 1883 as La Gioconda, and there created the title role of Ponchielli's Marion Delorme in 1885, Desdemona in Otello in 1887 and Tigrana in Edgar in 1889. She retired in 1891, after the death of the conductor Franco Faccio, with whom she had a long liaison.