Nell Rankin

Opera News said, "Her full, generous tone and bold phrasing, especially in the Italian repertory, were unique among American mezzos of her generation.

[2] As a teenager she studied voice with Madame Jeanne Lorraine (a ten-year student of vocal pedagogue, Manuel Garcia), at the Birmingham Conservatory.

In order to pay for her lessons with Lorraine, Rankin rented the Huntingdon College pool and spent her summers teaching the children of Montgomery to swim.

Determined to succeed in an opera career, Rankin went backstage and persuaded Traubel's accompanist, Coenraad V. Bos, to hear her sing.

This was followed by her operatic debut as Amneris in a production of Aida at the Salmaggi Opera Company in Brooklyn, with her sister in the title role.

The New York Times said of her performance, "Not only is Miss Rankin's a voice of power and range, but it is as warm as the red color of the dress she wore.

Her husband was in the Air Force in North Africa, and she was engaged to give a solo concert on the Mediterranean coast, in an open-air theater forty miles outside Tripoli.

"Imagine", says Rankin, "Libya was still a kingdom then, and King Idris had a piano flown in from Egypt, while an American cruiser was stationed near the shore to illuminate the stage.

"[2] Although Rankin made appearances with several major companies throughout her career, she spent most of her time in New York City performing at the Metropolitan Opera between 1951 and 1976; there she sang the role of Carmen, the Princess di Bouillon in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, Madelon in Giordano's Andrea Chénier, Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, Marina in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov (in English), Giulietta in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Herodias in Richard Strauss's Salome, Maddalena in Verdi's Rigoletto, Azucena in Verdi's Il trovatore, Princess Eboli in Verdi's Don Carlo, Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, Brangäne in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Gutrune in Wagner's Götterdämmerung, Fricka in Wagner's Die Walküre and Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin among others.

[7] She appeared at the Teatro Colón, Bellas Artes Opera in Mexico City, the Liceu in Barcelona and a score of other companies in Europe and North America.

They were married for 53 years until her death of polycythemia vera, a rare blood cancer, in 2005, aged 81, at Cabrini Medical Center in New York City.