Leyla Gencer passed away yesterday night, 9th May, at her home in Milan. La Scala was her theatre, but over the years it had become a second home, especially since she was the artistic director of the La Scala Singing Academy, a role that she approached with her natural determination and rigour.

Leyla Gencer was born in Istanbul, Turkey, on 10th October 1928.  The turning point of the youth she spent in a large house on the Bosporus came with the first musical meeting of her life. The distinguished soprano Giannina Arangi Lombardi, then at the end of her career, heard the young Gencer and offered to give her singing lessons. Those lessons were to be decisive for the training of one of the most stirring voices of all time.
 
Leyla Gencer naturally made her way to Italy, where her first performances in various theatres lead her to a crucial audition at La Scala in 1956. Victor De Sabata heard her in Cieli azzurri and was dazzled by her talent. The conductor’s illness prevented him from making her Aida, the role in which he had imagined her, but she performed the world premiere of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites under Nino Sanzogno’s direction. She then had the honour to perform Verdi’s Requiem in Milan’s Duomo for Toscanini’s death, under the baton of De Sabata, who had left his retreat in Santa Margherita for that one event.

Since that time, nineteen roles at La Scala, all characterised by discovery and risk-taking, and a series of fundamental dates, premieres and collaborations with great colleagues and legendary conductors. With Leyla Gencer, last queen, an era in the history of opera comes to an end. Definitively.