Katia Ricciarelli

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Katia Ricciarelli (born January 16, 1946, Rovigo, Veneto region, Italy) is an Italian soprano. She was born to a very poor family and struggled during her younger years when she studied music.

She trained at the Benedict Marcello conservatory in Venice, won several vocal competitions in 1968, and made her professional debut as “Mimi” in La boheme in Mantua in 1969, followed by a 1970 appearance in Il trovatore in Parma. In the following year, she won RAI’s “Voci Verdiane” award. Between 1972 and 1975, engagements followed in the major European and American opera houses including Lyric Opera of Chicago (1972); La Scala (1973); Royal Opera House Covent Garden (1974); and the Metropolitan Opera in 1975. In 1981, when she began a decade-long association with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, thus broadening her repertoire of Rossini’s operas.

Beside her many opera performances, she also appeared as Desdemona in Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of Verdi's Otello in 1986 alongside Plácido Domingo.

In 1991 she founded Accademia Lirica di Katia Ricciarelli, and, since 2003, she has been Artistic director of the annual summer Macerata Opera Festival. In 2006 she participated in the reality show La fattoria on Rete 4.

She was married to Pippo Baudo, a television personality, on her 40th birthday, but filed for divorce in the summer of 2004.