Annetta Casaloni

An Italian contralto who created Maddalena in Rigoletto at La Fenice in 1851. Born Anna Maria Casalone at Mondovì, she studied in Milan with Panizza, made her debut at La Scala in 1848 as Cenerentola, and sang Pierotto in Linda di Chamounix in London the next year. Verdi heard her as Federica in Luisa Miller at Milan's Teatro Carcano in 1850. For some twenty years she sang across Europe and in the Americas, Azucena among her roles. She then taught in Rome and later in Turin, where she died in 1915, with Claudia Muzio among her last pupils.