Known as the "Queen of Zarzuela,"[1] she is especially remembered for her son, the internationally famous operatic tenor Plácido Domingo, whose early career she helped to nurture.

La Constancia, a traditionalist Catholic Integrist party newspaper, announced his death and mentioned the "irreparable loss" his family and "political brothers" experienced.

[5] With the encouragement of her father, Pepita started singing lessons as a child and eventually attended the conservatory in San Sebastián, the capital of Gipuzkoa, where she studied with bass Gabriel Olaizola [eu].

[3] Embil began her singing career as part of the Euzko-Abesbatza (also spelled "Eusko Abezbatza"),[6] a Basque choir directed by Olaizola.

[7] While the choir was in Barcelona for a celebration of the third anniversary of the Second Spanish Republic,[8] she made her debut at the Liceu in a small part in Basque composer Jesús Guridi's opera, Amaya, on April 12, 1934.

[13] Euzko-Abesbatza and another choir, the Juventud Vasca de Bilbao, both of which were involved in the growing Basque nationalist movement,[7][14][15] organized the performance.

[18][19] Embil joined the newly formed choir and toured extensively with the group outside of Spain, often singing as a choral soloist, until it disbanded two years later.

[23] She soon appeared in his zarzuela Sor Navarra in Pamplona with baritone Plácido Domingo Ferrer, whom she had recently met for the first time at Madrid's Café de Castilla, a gathering place for the city's artists and musicians.

[24] Embil soon became one of the favorite singers of several leading Spanish composers, including Moreno Torroba, Pablo Sorozábal, and Jacinto Guerrero.

[26] For her first season after the birth of her son, she worked with actor Salvador Videgain as part of the company of Maestro Quiroga at the Teatro Alcalá in Madrid.

The following year she performed again at the Teatro Calderón, appearing in the premiere of Federico Cotó's operetta, El desfile del amor, with Antonio Medio.

On the day before Easter 1943, she and Medio again sang together in the premiere of Pablo Sorozábal's zarzuela, Don Manolito, at Madrid's Teatro Reina Victoria.

[29] Her last world premiere in Spain occurred on November 22, 1944, in Guerrero's Tiene razón Don Sebastián at the Teatro Principal de Zaragoza.

[23] While on tour, Moreno Torroba composed a Mexican zarzuela, El orgullo de Jalisco, that incorporated aspects of that country's music and traditions.

In September 1947, Embil starred in the leading role of El orgullo de Jalisco to "warm and grateful" applause at its world premiere in Mexico City.

[3] In the years following their move, they produced and starred in zarzuelas like Luisa Fernanda, La tabernera del puerto, Los gavilanes, and Marina.

[38] One Mexican critic wrote in 1949 that Embil and her co-star, Florencio Calpe, "provoked delirious and very loving ovations" during a performance of the zarzuela, El dúo de la africana.

[3] In a 1990 tribute to her in San Sebastián, Embil and her son sang a duet together of the Basque song, "Aurtxoa Seaskan," with the Orfeón Donostiarra.

[44] Embil died on August 28, 1994, in Mexico City from a liver disease caused by a blood transfusion from twenty years earlier.

"[47] In 1993, her son created the Pepita Embil Domingo Prize of Zarzuela in her honor, as part of his worldwide Operalia singing competition.

For the next few decades, she continued periodically to record excerpts and numbers from zarzuelas, operettas, and musicals, as well as popular Latin songs like Ernesto Lecuona's "Siempre en mi corazón."

On her album, Fragmentos de operetas inmortales, she also recorded the operatic aria, "Un bel dì vedremo," from Puccini's Madama Butterfly.