Fedora Barbieri

Billed as mezzo-soprano during her career, Fedora Barbieri might more accurately have been described as a mezzo-contralto, a term reserved for dramatic voices placed slightly lower than mezzo-sopranos and with a darker coloration. While she possessed a strong top register, it could not match in ease or splendor that boasted by Giulietta Simionato, whose career roughly paralleled Barbieri's (Barbieri developed an intense dislike for her rival and unhesitatingly shared that distaste with interviewers both during and after her singing years). Barbieri recorded extensively, someti...