As a teenager, Teresa Stratas sang pop songs, but did not study music formally until she saw her first staged opera performance, La Traviata, in her home town of Toronto in 1954 when she was 16. That was it, she knew what she wanted, to sing like that. Without ever having a voice lesson, she auditioned for the Royal College of Music in Toronto, with Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", the closest thing to a classical piece she knew. But the school saw potential, and gave her a scholarship. That was the beginning of her decades long career that included a remarkable 41 roles at the Metropolitan Opera. She sang the standard roles but also those less so, such as Alban Berg's Lulu and Strauss' Salome.
Her acting matched her singing. She was a superb actress, as can be seen in any number of performances on DVD and the internet. This week on The Lyric Stage, we have Stratas in scenes from La Traviata with Fritz Wunderlich, and from I Pagliacci with Juan Pons and Alberto Rinaldi, as well as from Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.