Rita Gorr

That year she made her Paris debuts at the Opéra-Comique as Charlotte in Werther on 6 March 1952, and at the Paris Opéra on 31 October as Magdalena in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; further roles in Paris included Dalila in Samson and Delilah, Venus in Tannhäuser, Mère Marie in the French premiere of Dialogues of the Carmelites (later in her career she sang Madame de Croissy), Carmen, Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande, Amneris in Aida, Eboli in Don Carlos and Marguerite in La damnation de Faust.

In four seasons at the Met, she sang Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Eboli in Don Carlos, Azucena in Il trovatore, and Dalila.

She enjoyed a very long career singing well into her 60s and 70s and her last role was as the Countess in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades which she performed in the summer of 2007 in Ghent and Antwerp.

[4] Although mainly active on stage, Gorr also sang occasionally in the concert hall, in works by Schumann, Duparc and Wagner; she recorded Mahler lieder.

[3] Oresko describes her as giving "the impression of regal grandeur and control by the solidness of her vocal production and a unique gift for instinctive authority".