The daughter of Italian parents (both of Tuscan origin), she was born in San Francisco, California.

After World War II, she perfected her training at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, studying with Harold Bauer and Carl Friedberg, and in 1948 she made her debut with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Monteux.

In the early 1950s, she signed with RCA and then Victrola, and recorded many albums performing the compositions of the Polish composer.

During the same time, she met the tenor Daniele Barioni, whom she married on October 28, 1957 in New York and with whom she had a son in 1958.

After a long hospitalization for leukemia at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, she died in July 1966.