Early Life and Education
Della Chiesa was born into an Italian family in Chicago. Her mother, Dulia (Morelli) Della Chiesa, was an accomplished pianist, whose father had been a conductor in Italy., and who initiated Vivian's training in piano at an early age. Vivian Della Chiesa also studied singing and violin and was, by age 10, interested in opera. She also studied foreign languages, gymnastics and dancing. She attended the Roosevelt High School in East Chicago, Indiana, and the Chicago Musical College.
While in her teens Della Chiesa studied for three years with Marion Claire of the Chicago Opera Company. These lessons were financed by "a rich woman who was a philanthropist.". Studies began with Forrest Lamont, formerly a leading tenor of the Chicago Opera, in 1934, and continued until his death at the end of 1937.
Read more about this topic: Vivian Della Chiesa
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Make-believe is the avenue to much of the young child’s early understanding. He sorts out impressions and tries out ideas that are foundational to his later realistic comprehension. This private world sometimes is a quiet, solitary
world. More often it is a noisy, busy, crowded place where language grows, and social skills develop, and where perseverance and attention-span expand.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories into life with him, he is saved for the rest of his days. And even if only one good memory is left in our hearts, it may also be the instrument of our salvation one day.”
—Feodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881)