Opera Divas Trivia Quiz

Answer: True

Fritzi Scheff spent 3 years at the Metropoitan Opera before entering the realm of musical comedy in direct competition with the great Anna Held. She was known for her show-stopping rendition of "Kiss Me Again" from Mlle. Modeste, which was written for her by Victor Herbert.

Answer: Teresa Stratas

They were seen together in Montreal in the 1960s.

Answer: Adelina Patti

This concert was on behalf of the war effort; friend of royalty as well as domestic staff, this good-natured soprano was known for her charity and was the equivalent of Madonna in her day. She sang for President and Mrs. Lincoln when they were grieving the loss of their son.

Answer: Renee Fleming

Daughter of high school music teachers, she subsequently studied at Eastman School of Music and Juilliard.

Answer: Mary Garden

Born on February 20, 1874, she came to this country at age 7 and began studying violin, piano, and voice at an early age. She later studied in Paris and performed all of her roles in French. Of her dramatic ability she once stated: "The others 'acted' a role; I was the role.

It drained so much of me that by comparison my private life was empty." Glamorous and capricious, she never married.

Answer: Jessye Norman

Born on September 15, 1945 in Augusta, Georgia, she also became the youngest recipient of the Kennedy Center Honor in 1997. In her hometown of Augusta, Georgia, the amphitheater and plaza overlooking the Savanah River are named for her. One of five children, her mother Janie was an amateur pianist and her father Silas Norman, Jr. an insurance broker who sang frequently at the family's Baptist church.

Answer: Amelita Galli-Curci

This Italian coluratura soprano studied piano and composition at the Royal Conservatory in Milan but trained her own voice.

Answer: Ulrica in "Un Ballo in Maschera"

This courageous and dignified woman was a civil rights advocate long before Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. She was refused by the Daughters of the American Revolution to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D. C. Subsequently First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her D.A.R. membership and arranged a concert for her on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939. Of this singer Arturo Toscanini stated: "Yours is a voice one hears once in a hundred years."

Answer: Maria Callas

She was born December 2, 1923 Maria Anna Sophie Cecilia Kalogeropoulos. Her father, a pharmacist, changed the family name to Callas. In 1937 her parents separated and her mother Evangelia returned to Greece with her two daughters.

Answer: Kiri Te Kanawa

She was born in Gisborne, on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, on March 6, 1944. In 1981 she was chosen to sing "Let The Bright Seraphim" at St. Paul's Cathedral at the marriage of HRH the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer. She now purports to be descended from Maori royalty and her concert demeanor is considerably more elegant and subdued than at the 1988 wedding. Which is perhaps a refection on the benefits of being created a Dame of the British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth II.