Irra Petina

Irra Petina, born Irina Stepanovna Petina, was an actress and singer as well as a leading contralto with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She was called the "floperetta queen" by critic Ken Mandelbaum. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Petina was the daughter of General Stepan Petin, Czar Nicholas II's personal escort, and a goddaughter of the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna. She studied singing in New York City with Estelle Liebling, the teacher of Beverly Sills. Her debut role with the Met was as Schwertleite in Richard Wagner's Die Walküre on December 29, 1933. She appeared as Maddalena in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto with Jan Peerce, the marquise of Berkenfeld in Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment with Lily Pons, Mallika in Léo Delibes's Lakmé, Feodor in Boris Godunov, Annina in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, and the title role in Bizet's Carmen. Petina's portrayal of Marcellina in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, won her rave reviews from the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irra_Pe...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)