Maria Galvany

It is generally accepted that she was born in 1878 in Granada, Spain, though the exact year and date of her birth are disputed (some sources give 1874 or 1876).

She appears to have studied, however, at the Madrid Royal Conservatory under Lázaro María Puig and Napoleone Verger, and made her operatic debut in the title role of Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at Cartagena around 1896.

She allegedly performed only once in the United States, appearing in vaudeville in San Francisco during 1918, but she never managed to sing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.

Until the 1990s it was commonly believed that she had died on August 2, 1927, in the San Luis Asylum, an old people's retirement home in Rio de Janeiro.

This is due to her staggering use of intricate coloratura passages mined with machine-gun-like staccato and other equally shocking vocal tricks that often give an infamously comic impression of her musical taste.

In addition, the natural timbre of Galvany's upper register did not record well, which often results in an irritating, wiry sound that is unappealing to most modern ears.

Also, her interpretations are burdened with rapid tempi, a hard vibrato, unexpected register shifts and throat-clearing sounds, together with section cuts caused by the limited duration of 78-rpm discs.