Vivian Della Chiesa

Vivian Della Chiesa (October 9, 1915 – January 6, 2009) was an American lyric soprano who achieved a high level of popularity in the United States singing on the radio during the 1940s and the early 1950s.

Her mother, Dulia (Morelli) Della Chiesa, was an accomplished pianist, whose father had been a conductor in Italy.,[2] and who initiated Vivienne's training in piano at an early age.

[3] Studies began with Forrest Lamont, formerly a leading tenor of the Chicago Opera, in 1934, and continued until his death at the end of 1937.

[4] In 1935, Della Chiesa entered and won a large contest sponsored by WBBM,[5] the Chicago affiliate of the CBS network.

She also appeared with the company as Adina, (L’Elisir D’Amore), Micaela (Carmen), Marguerite (Faust) and Eudoxie (La Juive).

[6] In 1943, she twice sang under the baton of the composer Italo Montemezzi in his own works - L'Amore dei tre re (Fiora) [7] and, on October 9, in the first performance of L’Incantesimo (Giselda)[8] with the NBC Symphony.

She sang with the San Francisco Opera in 1944 (Falstaff - Alice; Faust - Marguerite) and in 1945 (Boris Godunov - Marina (in Italian with Ezio Pinza); Cavalleria Rusticana - Santuzza; Don Giovanni - Donna Elvira; La Bohème - Mimi).

Opera News considers her to be “best remembered for her 1943 radio concert of Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem" in that series.

She performed the national anthem before the sixth and final game of the 1959 World Series at Comiskey Park in Chicago, not far from where she resided at the time.

“Vivienne Della Chiesa” is listed among celebrity performers at the Deauville, a Miami Beach hotel, in 1970.