Valetta Iacopi
British operatic singer (1904–1977)
Valetta Cecilia Iacopi (28 March 1904 – 9 November 1977) was a British operatic singer of the mid-20th century, sometimes billed as a mezzo-soprano and sometimes as a contralto. Among her many operatic roles was Mrs Sedley in Peter Grimes, which she created in 1945.
Life and career
Iacopi was born in Gatehead in north-east England, the second daughter and youngest of five children of Charles Austin Iacopi and his wife Juliett. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music, graduating in 1927. As a student she played the title role in Carmen, Delilah in Saint-Saëns's Samson and Delilah and Fricka in Wagner's Die Walküre at the Scala Theatre.
She became a leading member of the Sadler's Wells Opera Company, which she joined in 1934. The outbreak of the Second World War prevented Iacopi from going to Italy to sing Azucena in Il trovatore and Amneris in Aida under Tullio Serafin and she remained with the Sadler's Wells company. During the war the theatre was in use as a refuge for people made homeless by air-raids, and the opera company toured nationally. Its return to its home in 1945 was marked by the premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes, in which Iacopi created the role of the troublemaking Mrs Sedley.
Iacopi's other operatic roles included the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, Mistress Quickly in both Falstaff and Sir John in Love, Azucena in Il trovatore, Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus, Magdalena in Die Meistersinger, Suzuki in Madam Butterfly, Flora in La traviata, Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, Annina in Der Rosenkavalier and Waltraute in Die Walküre, At the Royal Opera House she appeared as Mrs Sedley (1948), the nurse in Boris Godunov (1948, 1949 and 1952) and Schwertleite in Die Walküre (1948 and 1954 to 1956).
The public source identifies “Valetta Iacopi” as british operatic singer (1904–1977). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Valetta, Iacopi and British.
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This entry incorporates text from “Valetta Iacopi” 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.