OBITUARIES.(Brief Article)(Obituary)

GINA CIGNA, Paris, March 6, 1900--Milan, June 26, 2001

One of the most beloved sopranos of her generation in Europe, Cigna began her musical education as a pianist, studying under Alfred Cortot at the Paris Conservatoire. When she began voice lessons with Emma Calve, it was as a mezzo-soprano; after seven years of study, Cigna accomplished her goal of singing as a soprano and made her professional debut, as Freia in Das Rheingold at La Scala in 1927. She sang a wide range of roles, from Monteverdi's Poppea to verismo heroines, at the principal opera houses of Europe, South America and the U.S. Her Metropolitan Opera debut, as Aida, on February 6, 1937, was the first of twenty performances with the company in her two seasons there; other Met roles for Cigna included Santuzza, Norma, Donna Elvira, Gioconda and the Trovatore Leonora. Her artistic home remained Italy, where she appeared in important revivals of Nabucco (as Abigaille), La Straniera, Francesca da Rimini and Boito's Nerone (as Asteria), as well as the Italian premieres of Jenufa (as Kostelnicka) and Richard Strauss's Daphne. She created leading roles in Respighi's La Fiamma (Rome, 1934) and Panizza's Bizancio (Buenos Aires, 1939). Her most frequent assignments were Gioconda, Turandot and Norma, which she claimed to have sung more than five hundred times between her first performance of the role (at Vigevano, in 1931) and her retirement from singing. In 1947, while on her way to perform Tosca at Vicenza, Cigna was in a bus accident and subsequently suffered a heart attack that ended her onstage career. She ...