Life and Career
Caniglia was born in Naples and studied at the Music Conservatories of Naples with Agostino Roche. She made her professional debut in Turin as Chrysothemis in Elektra in 1930. The same year she sang Magda in Ottorino Respighi's La campana sommersa in Genoa and Elsa in Lohengrin in Rome and made her debut at La Scala in Milan as Maria in Ildebrando Pizzetti's Lo straniero. She sang regularly at La Scala until 1951 in the leading dramatic soprano roles in opera, such as Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Aida, Andrea Chénier, Tosca, Adriana Lecouvreur etc. She was particularly successful in roles from the latter Verismo school.
On the international scene, Caniglia appeared in venues such as the Paris Opéra, Covent Garden, and the Teatro Colón. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera of New York on November 21, 1938, as Desdemona in Otello.
Caniglia participated in the exhumation of a few long forgotten operas such as Donizetti's Poliuto and Verdi's Oberto. She also participated in the creation of many contemporary works: Manuela in Italo Montemezzi's La notte di Zoraima, Milan, 1931, Rosanna in Franco Alfano's Cyrano di Bergerac, Rome, 1936, and the title role of Respighi's Lucrezia, Rome, 1937.
Caniglia regularly worked with the greatest conductors and singers, and left recordings of some of her great roles, notably Un ballo in maschera, and Aida (conducted by Tullio Serafin), Andrea Chénier and Tosca (conducted by Oliviero De Fabritiis), all opposite tenor Beniamino Gigli; La forza del destino (cond. Gino Marinuzzi), Don Carlo, Fedora and Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini, this last conducted by Antonio Guarnieri.
Caniglia was married in 1939 to Italian composer Pino Donati (1907–1975), who was also music director of the Verona Arena, the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and the Chicago Lyric Opera. She died in Rome, aged 73.
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