Lina Bruna Rasa

By the end of that year, at the age of 18 she made her operatic debut singing the role of Elena in Boito's Mefistofele at the Teatro Politeama in Genoa.

In August, Da Rosa's singers went on to Uruguay where she sang Andrea Chénier (again with Thill) and Tosca at the Teatro Solis in Montevideo.

Bruna Rasa's earliest assumptions of Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, the role for which she is best remembered today, were in 1927 in Lausanne and Bari.

The opera's composer, Pietro Mascagni, and Bruna Rasa met for the first time in Venice in July 1928 when he conducted a performance of Cavalleria Rusticana in the Piazza San Marco before a crowd of 35,000 people.

He subsequently conducted many of her performances in the role both in Italy and abroad and chose her for the 1940 recording of Cavalleria rusticana which marked the 50th anniversary of its premiere.

In addition to the stage roles listed below, Bruna Rasa also sang in radio performances of Rito Selvaggi's Maggiolata veneziana [3] and Giordano's Fedora.