[1] She made her professional debut in Paris, as a mezzo-soprano under the stage name of Djéma Vécla (Vecla being an anagram of Calvé)[n 2] singing Charlotte in Massenet's Werther.

She reportedly actively supported the partisans, helping to smuggle Allied airmen to safety in Switzerland.

[3] Returning to Britain following the Second World War, she sang at the Royal Opera House from 1947 to 1950, as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Leonora in Il trovatore and the title role in Puccini's Tosca, and there she created the role of Diana in Arthur Bliss's The Olympians.

[4] When news of this emerged shortly afterwards, Grandi announced that this note was not yet beyond her, and she would be singing it herself in a forthcoming concert at the Albert Hall, which she did.

She can be heard on disc and in the film as Giulietta in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann conducted by Beecham, and in excerpts from Verdi's Macbeth, La forza del destino and Don Carlos, and Puccini's Tosca.