The demise was introduced by her son and solely rapid survivor, Alessandro Rossi-Lemeni, who stated the trigger was a cardiac respiratory sickness.

Ms. Zeani was equally at dwelling in the usual Italian repertory, within the lighter Wagnerian soprano roles, within the bel canto operas of Rossini and Donizetti, or in one of many many world premieres that she sang. Essentially the most notable premiere was Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” at La Scala in 1957, during which she sang the function of the unstable and conflicted Sister Blanche.

However her specialty was the function of Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata,” which she sang greater than 600 instances after her first efficiency in 1948 in Bologna, most of them at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. Violetta is a big problem for a singing actress, as a result of each act makes completely different musical and dramatic calls for.

The energetic first act, when Violetta falls in love amid the elegant grandeur of a Paris get together, has many of the excessive notes. Act II is all drama, the character is all of a sudden matured and dealing with essentially the most painful determination of her life, whereas the ultimate act is a protracted demise scene, full with ultimate reunions and spiritual awakening.

In an interview this week, Matthew Epstein, a impresario based mostly in New York with greater than 50 years’ specialty within the vocal repertory and a pal of Ms. Zeani’s, known as her “the most effective all-around Violetta” he ever witnessed. “Vocally, bodily, histrionically, linguistically — she had all of it and she or he embodied the function.”

But Ms. Zeani had an uncommon profession in the US. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in November 1966, only some weeks after the corporate had moved into its huge new Lincoln Middle dwelling.

Preparations had been chaotic. She got here instantly from the airport, had no rehearsal in any respect, and was successfully thrown onto the stage to sing “Traviata” in an auditorium that even the stagehands barely knew. The viewers was ecstatic, however the critics weren’t (though each the New York Occasions and the Day by day Information famous a definite enchancment after Act I).

In any occasion, Ms. Zeani sang solely two of her three scheduled performances and returned to Europe.

In 1967, she sang a single outside efficiency of one other Verdi opera, “I Vespri Siciliani,” with the Met touring firm in Newport, R.I. She appeared in the home solely as soon as extra, when the visiting Rome Opera introduced Rossini’s hardly ever heard setting of “Otello” (written with librettist Francesco Maria Berio) to New York in 1968.

Apparently, Rudolf Bing, the Met’s omnipotent common supervisor, had needed to deliver Ms. Zeani to the US to remain for an prolonged time period, and she or he had refused. She had married the Italian operatic bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni in 1957 and she or he preferred her life in Europe, the place the opera world was extra informal.

“I had no supervisor,” she instructed the Palm Seashore Put up in 2013. “Individuals heard you had been profitable in Milan and so forth, and they’d e book you. After I married Nicola, I used to be not dwelling the lifetime of a fantastic diva. I like a quiet life. In Rome, Nicola and I had been invited each night time to golf equipment and so forth, and I by no means went. I used to be afraid that the cigarette smoke would harm my voice.”

A spotlight of her Italian years was the world premiere of “Dialogues of the Carmelites.” She discovered the composer charming. “He was elegant in all his manifestations,” Ms. Zeani instructed the Fort Lauderdale Solar-Sentinel in 2004. “Quite simple, smiling on the time. If he had one thing to say it was solely to appropriate the intentions of the phrasing.”

“All people was anticipating one thing miraculous,” she added. “As quickly as we began rehearsals, it was really easy to study. The music was like a poem. You realized with curiosity, you realized with religiosity.”

“Dialogues” was an enormous and sturdy success: It is likely one of the solely late Twentieth-century works to enter the usual operatic repertory. Ms. Zeani made her final stage look within the work, when she performed the extra senior function of Mom Marie on the San Francisco Opera in a gala efficiency in 1982.

By then, she and her husband had been newly established as voice academics at Indiana College’s music faculty. She continued instructing there after Rossi-Lemeni’s demise in 1991 and was made distinguished professor of music in 1994. Her pupils included Vivica Genaux, Sylvia McNair, Marilyn Mims, Mark Nicolson and Elizabeth Futral, all of whom went on to sing with main corporations.

After Ms. Zeani’s retirement in 2004, she loved her most thorough worldwide renown. She had recorded sparingly, however outdated clips of her performances had made their strategy to social media and she or he discovered a brand new technology of enthusiastic followers.

“To listen to Virginia Zeani sing — thank God for YouTube! — is to be catapulted again to a time when the Earth was well-populated with massively gifted operatic sopranos whose partisans made the case for his or her favourite’s superiority with the identical fervor baseball followers dropped at the everlasting query of Mantle vs. Mays,” journalist and creator Scott Eyman noticed within the Palm Seashore Put up.

“Her presence on YouTube in a collection of movies made for the Italian RAI community, in addition to lots of bootleg recordings, constitutes a fantastic discovery,” he continued. “Zeani had a darkish, sensuous voice that spanned just below three octaves, shifting simply over the notes with no sense of stress, speaking a ardour that elevates the notes.”

She was born Virginia Zehan on Oct. 21, 1925, in Solovastru, a Transylvanian village within the coronary heart of Romania. Her mother and father had been farmers who quickly moved to Bucharest to pursue a greater life.

A efficiency of “Madama Butterfly” that she heard when she was 9 impressed her to turn out to be an opera singer. Ms. Zeani made her debut in a Bologna efficiency of “La Traviata” at 22. She had instructed the corporate that she had sung the function earlier than, then stitched her personal robe from cloth she had purchased in a road market.

She met her future husband whereas showing with him in operas during which she had solely seen him in full gown in aged roles. She stated she was startled when she realized that he was a good-looking man and nonetheless in his 30s. She accepted his proposal of marriage inside a month.

On the event of her ninetieth birthday, Ms. Zeani gave an interview to the web site Gramilano during which she declared herself completely happy but additionally affected by arthritis and different illnesses.

“After dying so many instances and falling down on stage in La Traviata and so forth, by the top of a life there’s ache all over the place,” she stated. “However I can nonetheless breathe and suppose and love.”