He had adopted the surname of Alexander Pushkin's celebrated hero, Eugene Onegin; his real name was 'Lvov', and he was a grandnephew of Alexis Lvov, composer of the Russian Tsarist hymn.

[2][3] She studied in Frankfurt, Munich, and Milan, and also took lessons from famous singers of an earlier generation in Lilli Lehmann and Margarethe Siems.

[5][3] In the 1920s, she spent two seasons at the Metropolitan Opera and one at Covent Garden, singing Amneris (Aida) as well as a variety of Wagnerian roles.

In the 1930s, she sang at Salzburg and Bayreuth Festival, but she was most widely sought after for her concert performances.

She died at Magliaso, in neutral Switzerland in 1943, while the Second World War was raging at its height.