Buried (MP3) Treasure: Lisa Della Casa

As record labels explore the cost effectiveness of the MP3 format, many are digging deep into their archives to find recorded material to re-issue from previous CD incarnations or in some cases for the first time since their original LP release. Click on the Amazon widget to hear MP3 audio samples.

Happy Birthday: Lisa Della Casa

"Waldseligkeit" R. Strauss

Soprano Lisa Della Casa was born February 2, 1919, an Italian-Swiss father Francesco della Casa (an ophthalmologist and theatre man) and Bavarian-born mother, Margarete Mueller, (restauranter) in Burgdorf, Switzerland, she studied singing, beginning at age 15, under Margarete Haeser at Zurich Conservatory and made her operatic debut as the title role in Puccini's Madama Butterfly at Solothurn-Biel Municipal Theater in 1940. She joined the ensemble of Zurich Municipal Opera House in 1943 (staying there until 1950) and sang various parts, from the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte to Dorabella in Così fan tutte. Later, she would of course sing Fiordiligi. After a first marriage to a man who did not share her passion for music, she married, in 1949,

Vilja Lied from Lehár's The Merry Widow

Yugoslavian-born journalist and violinist Dragan Debeljevic, with whom she had a daughter, Vesna Debeljevic. She was famous for singing the music of Mozart and Strauss in opera houses around the world including Zurich, Munich, Vienna, La Scala, Glyndebourne, Bayreuth, Salzburg and the Metropolitan Opera. The title role in Arabella became her signature role in life. She sang it for the first time at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in 1951. Later in her career