Frances Alda(1879-1952)

Alda, born Fanny Jane Davis, came from a strong musical background. Her maternal grandparents, Fanny and Martin Simonsen, were important opera impresarios in Australasia during the 1870s and 1880s. Five of their children, including Fanny's mother, Leonore, were professional singers, and one, Frances Saville, achieved fame in Europe as a member of the Viennese Hofoper. Fanny's father, David Davis, a merchant, was a gifted amateur musician and some of her paternal relatives sang in J. C. Williamson's light opera companies.

Although Alda spent little time in the country of her birth, she consistently described herself as a New Zealander. After revisiting the country during an Australasian recital tour in 1927, her adherence to New Zealand became wholehearted. She maintained contact with several paternal relatives, and, despite a precautionary acquisition of American citizenship in 1939, she continued to emphasize her New Zealand origins.

For much of her career she was handicapped by her marriage, at New York, on April 3, 1910, to the Met's general manager, Giulio Gatti-Casazza. His need to avoid any hint of favoritism restricted her opportunities, while she felt a continual need to prove her artistic worth - as much to herself as the public. She divorced him in 1928; they had no children. On April 14, 1941, in Charleston, South Carolina, she married New York advertising executive Ray Vir Den. That union was also childless.

Alda spent an affluent retirement, entertaining lavishly at her Long Island home and indulging in her passion for travel. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Venice, Italy on September 18, 1952, aged 73.