Virginia Zeani

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Virginia Zeani (born Virginia Zehan, October 21, 1925, in Transylvania, Romania) was an operatic soprano whose career spanned the 1950s and 1960s. Her career was focused in Italy, where she sang in every major opera house and with tenors such as Beniamino Gigli, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Luciano Pavarotti, and Plácido Domingo. Like Leyla Gencer, she made few commercial recordings, but a number of her live performances exist as bootleg recordings.

Zeani was a particular favorite of Francis Poulenc, who chose her to sing the lead role in the world premiere of his Dialogues of the Carmelites.

Following her retirement from the opera stage, Zeani remained active as a voice instructor at Indiana University, where she and her late husband, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, were both Distinguished Professors. Zeani has since retired from Indiana University and currently resides in West Palm Beach, Florida, where she continues to teach, in particular for the Florida Grand Opera Young artist program and the Palm Beach Opera Young artist program. Zeani's pupils include Sylvia McNair, Nova Thomas, Marilyn Mims, Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, Stephen Mark Brown, Elizabeth Futral, Katheryn Krassovic, Vivica Genaux, Angela Brown, Patricia Risley, Christina Pier, Leah Partridge, Andrea Atkins, Mark Bowman, Kirsten Gunlogson, Kendrick Jacocks, Marina Levitt, Debra Mayer, Susan Patterson, Thomas Potter, Itzuko Shibata, and Peter Volpe.

[edit] References

• Ciampa, Leonardo (2005). The Twilight of Belcanto, 2nd edition, AuthorHouse. ISBN 1-4184-5956-9.