The Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé was born in Barcelona in April. She made her debut with Basel Opera in 1956, later making her first appearance at the Vienna State Opera two years later and at La Scala, Milan in 1960. Her North American debut was as Massenet¹s Manon in Mexico City in 1964 but her international emergence came through a concert performance in Donizetti¹s Lucrezia Borgia in New York the following year. Caballé later that year made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera, New York as Marguerite in Gounod¹s Faust in December 1965. Her Covent Garden debut took place in 1972 as Violetta¹s in La traviata in 1972. Caballé has always been admired for the beautiful quality of her voice and the technical finesse of her singing.