Rita Fornia

Early on in her career her voice darkened and dropped slightly causing her to focus more within the mezzo-soprano repertoire while still singing some soprano roles.

[2] Over the next two years she sang mostly coloratura soprano roles in Germany and France, largely with the Hamburg State Opera who offered her a contract.

Her other roles with Savage's company included Musetta in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème, Nedda in Pagliacci, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, both Brünnhilde and Sieglinde in The Valkyrie,[5] both Elisabeth and Venus in Wagner's Tannhäuser, and both Leonora and Azucena in Verdi's Il trovatore.

She notably sang with Geraldine Farrar and Enrico Caruso in a performance of Faust for the opening of the new Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1908.

Also of interest during this season was her last minute replacement of an ailing Emma Eames as Leonora in Il trovatore in March 1908 which caused a sensation among New York audiences.

She was, during her time, an invaluable asset; the sort of hard-working, uninspired, but competent artist every company needs……She was a pleasant, fairly placid woman, of no great personal distinction either on or off the scene.

She was, in short, not the material of which the so-called stars of the musical world are made, but she was beyond all doubt a first-rate example of what the Europeans call a routinière.

[3] Her other roles with the company included Amarante in La fille de Madame Angot, Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Eleanora in Le Donne Curiose, Eurydice in Monteverdi's Orfeo, Flowermaiden in Parsifal, Frasquita in Carmen, Geltrude in Il maestro di cappella, Gertrud in Hänsel und Gretel, Giulietta in Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Gutrune in Götterdämmerung, Helmwige in Die Walküre, the Innkeeper's Daughter in Königskinder, Leonora in Il Trovatore, Marianne in Der Rosenkavalier, Marzelline in Fidelio, Nedda in Pagliacci, Pepa in Tiefland, Poussette in Manon, the Priestess in Aida, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, the Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte, the Shepherd in Tannhäuser, Siebel in Faust, Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette, and Wellgunde in Das Rheingold among others.

[1][6] The funeral service was held at the Anglican, or Episcopalian, Church of St George in la Rue Auguste-Vacquerie, Paris, on November 2.

Among the recordings she left are trio from Madama Butterfly ("Lo so che alle sue pene") with Antonio Scotti and Riccardo Martin, Stéphano's aria ("Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle") from Roméo et Juliette, Siebel's aria ("Faites-lui mes aveux") from Faust, and a number of French and German art songs.