Rosa Ponselle

Rosa Ponselle was born to Neapolitan immigrants in Conneticut. She was a natural-born singer and launched a career first in Vaudville, where she was working in 1918, when Enrico Caruso discovered her and persuaded her to join the Metropolitan Opera. Her debut occurred in Verdi's "La Forza del Destino" as Leonora. She had had no formal training as an opera singer and for nearly twenty years thereafter managed great successes as a soprano at the Met and in other opera houses in America and Europe. Primarily remembered for her performances in Verdi operas, she abruptly withdrew from the stage in 1937 and retired at the age of 40 -- newly wed to Carle A. Jackson -- to a home near Baltimore, Maryland. She continued to stay active in the operatic world, occasionally recording, but mostly devoting her energies and talents for the next 44 years to a school she formed at her home, where the likes of Placido Domingo and Beverly Sills (among others) were coached and encouraged onto their own successful operatic careers.