Maria Stader

Blessed with a silvery lyric soprano, true in timbre and beautifully trained, Maria Stader was unable to enjoy the opera career she deserved. Only 4'9" in height, she was deemed too diminutive to be a viable figure on-stage. Thus, she was confined to recording congenial opera roles and to making concert appearances. Despite what some might have regarded as a setback, she achieved genuine celebrity and became an artist favored by many first-rank conductors. Orphaned in Hungary during WWI, Stader was brought by the International Red Cross to Switzerland, where she was adopted by...