Montserrat Caballé

Montserrat Caballé i Folch or Folc (full name: María de Montserrat Bibiana Concepción Caballé i Folch (12 April 1933 – 6 October 2018), known simply as Montserrat Caballé, was a Catalan Spanish operatic soprano. She sang a wide variety of roles, but is best known as an exponent of the works of Verdi and of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. She was noticed internationally when she stepped in for a performance of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at Carnegie Hall in 1965, and then appeared at leading opera houses. Her voice was described as pure but powerful, with superb control of vocal shadings and exquisite pianissimo.

Caballé became popular to non-classical music audiences in 1987, when she recorded, at the request of the International Olympic Committee, "Barcelona", a duet with Freddie Mercury, which became an official theme song for the 1992 Olympic Games. She received several international awards and also Grammy Awards for a number of her recordings.

Caballé was born in Barcelona on 12 April 1933. Her family was of humble financial circumstances due to the Civil War. She studied music at the Liceu Conservatory, and singing technique with Napoleone Annovazzi, Eugenia Kemény and Conchita Badía. She graduated with a gold medal in 1954. She subsequently moved to Basel, Switzerland, where she made her professional debut in 1956 as a last minute replacement as Mimì in Puccini's La bohème. She became part of the Basel Opera company between 1957 and 1959, singing a repertoire that included Mozart (Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte) and Strauss (Salome) in German, unusual for Spanish singers, but which proved useful for her next engagement at the Bremen Opera (1959–1962). In 1961, she starred as Iphigénie in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride at the National Theatre of S. Carlos in Lisbon, alongside Raymond Wolansky, Jean Cox, Paul Schöffler and others.