Irene Pavloska
musical artist
Irene Levi Mesirow (February 17, 1889 – February 12, 1962), known professionally as Irene Pavloska, was a Canadian mezzo-soprano and composer.
Biography
Irene Pavloska was born to affluent Jewish parents Pauline (née Saxe) and David Levi in Saint-Jean, Quebec, and raised in Montreal. She was educated at Dunham Ladies' College in nearby Dunham, the High School of Montreal, and at a boarding school in Frankfurt. She later studied under Edmond Duvernoy at the Conservatoire de Paris.
She first performed with the Montreal Opera Company under the stage name Olga Pawloska in the 1911–12 season, and took on the name Irene Pavloska before touring as Juliska in Sári in the 1914–15 season in New York.
Intermittently between 1915 and 1934 she was associated with the Chicago Civic Opera Company, beginning with her debut as Musetta in La bohème, alongside Nellie Melba as Mimì. Her other notable roles with the Company include Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Olga Sukarev in Fedora, Stephano in Roméo et Juliette, Meg Page in Falstaff, and Princess Clarice in the premiere of The Love of Three Oranges. Outside of Chicago, she notably played in The Firefly in Los Angeles (1921), and sang the title role in the Canadian debut of Rose-Marie at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto (1925).
She died while waiting for a train at Chicago Union Station on February 12, 1962, at the age of 72.
Personal life
Pavloska married New York furrier Abraham Sherwin (né Sheverenski) in March 1909; the two divorced in January 1911.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Irene Pavloska” is musical artist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Irene, Pavloska and musical, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110491702. VIAF identifies the subject as 106912858. The Library of Congress control number is no2010012826. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1962, 1911 and 1914.
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This entry incorporates text from “Irene Pavloska” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.