Deaths on July 5

Gilda dalla Rizza, Italian soprano and actress (b. 1892)

Gilda Dalla Rizza (12 October 1892 – 5 July 1975) was an important Italian soprano.

Born in Verona, she made her operatic debut in Bologna (the Teatro Verdi) in 1912, as Charlotte in Werther. Especially acclaimed in the verismo repertory, she was regarded as being Giacomo Puccini's favorite soprano, creating Magda in his La rondine (1917). Although he composed the part of Minnie in La fanciulla del West for another soprano, when Puccini saw Dalla Rizza in the part, he said, "Behold, at last I have seen my Fanciulla". She also gave the first European performances of his Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, at Rome in 1919, in the presence of Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy. He also had her in mind for Liù in Turandot, though her voice proved too heavy for the part of the young slave-girl by the time of the premiere.

Dalla Rizza appeared at the major theatres in Rome, Florence, Turin, São Paulo, Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón), Rio de Janeiro, Verona, Naples, Monte-Carlo, Bologna, Lima, Parma, Santiago, Barcelona, Amsterdam, etc. She never appeared in the United States.