Giannina Russ

An Italian soprano, one of the country's leading dramatic sopranos in the years before the First World War. She studied piano and singing at the Milan Conservatory and made her stage debut at Bologna in 1903 as Mimì. Covent Garden critics faulted her tremolo in 1904, but La Scala welcomed her the next year, and her roles ran from Semiramide, Abigaille and Norma to Donna Anna and Elisabeth. She sang in Buenos Aires, creating Tigrana in the definitive Edgar there in 1905, and with the Manhattan Opera company in New York. She retired in 1918 and taught.