Frances Ginsberg

Frances Ginsberg (March 11, 1955 – December 24, 2010) was an American opera singer. Opera News magazine described her as "a lirico-spinto soprano of striking temperament whose vivid style made her an audience favorite at New York City Opera and other U.S. companies in the 1980s and 1990s."

Life and career Ginsberg was born to Jewish parents in St. Louis, Missouri in 1955. In 1973, she graduated from Ladue Horton Watkins High School in Ladue, Missouri, and in 1979 she graduated from the University of Kansas with fine arts degrees in theatre and voice. She then pursued further studies at the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Center for American Artists. She later studied opera privately with Carlo Bergonzi, Renata Tebaldi and Eve Queler. She also studied with conductor Marco Munari of La Scala, while living in Milan.

Still a college student, she made her professional opera debut in 1977 at the Santa Fe Opera as the milliner in the United States premiere of Nino Rota's The Italian Straw Hat. Her first major success came in 1986 when she made her debut at the New York City Opera (NYCO) in the dual roles of Margherita and Elena in Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele. She subsequently appeared with the NYCO as Donna Elvira in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni, Mimì in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème, and Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata. In 1990 she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus.