Mirella Freni: Showstopping opera star for more than five decades

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Mirella Freni’s lyrical voice and bravura performances in Carmen, La Boheme and The Marriage of Figaro throughout a 50-year career made her one of the world’s most beloved operatic sopranos. After making her operatic debut in her hometown of Modena in 1955, Freni gained international stardom in 1963, when she first appeared at Milan’s La Scala opera house in La Boheme. Under the guidance of conductor Herbert von Karajan, Freni broadened her repertoire through the 1970s to include such dramatic parts as Desdemona in Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello, Elisabeth of Valois in Verdi’s Don Carlo and the title roles in Verdi’s Aida and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. Freni, posing with Rudolf Bing, general manager of the New York Metropolitan Opera, and actor Franco Corelli One of Freni’s few missteps came in 1964, when, at Von Karajan’s urging, she attempted Verdi’s La Traviata at La Scala.