Lina Cavalieri was born on
Christmas Day at
Viterbo, some north of
Rome. She lost her parents at the age of fifteen and became a ward of the state, sent to live in a
Roman Catholic orphanage. The vivacious young girl was unhappy under the strict discipline of the nuns, and at the first opportunity, she ran away with a touring theatrical group. At a young age, she made her way to
Paris,
France, where her appearance opened doors and she obtained work as a singer at one of the city's
café-concerts. From there, she performed at a variety of
music halls and other such venues around
Europe, while still working to develop her voice. She took voice lessons and made her opera debut in
Lisbon, Portugal, in 1900 (as Nedda in
Pagliacci). The Russian
Prince Alexander Bariatinsky was deeply in love with Lina, and they had an open affair, but never became husband and wife as his parents and Tsar
Nicholas II himself strongly opposed this marriage. In 1904, she sang at the
Opéra de Monte-Carlo then in 1905, at the
Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, Cavalieri starred opposite
Enrico Caruso in the
Umberto Giordano opera
Fedora. From there, she and Caruso took the opera to
New York City, debuting with it at the
Metropolitan Opera on 5 December 1906. Cavalieri remained with the Metropolitan Opera for the next two seasons, performing again with Caruso in 1907, in
Puccini's
Manon Lescaut. She became one of the most photographed stars of her time. Frequently referred to as the "world's most beautiful woman", she was part of the
tightlacing tradition that saw women use
corsetry to create an "hour-glass" figure. During the 1909–10 season, she sang with
Oscar Hammerstein's
Manhattan Opera Company. Her first marriage long over, she had a whirlwind romance with
Robert Winthrop Chanler (1872–1930), a member of the
Astor family and Dudley–Winthrop family. They married on 18 June 1910 but separated by the end of their honeymoon, and their divorce became final in June 1912. After the divorce, Cavalieri returned to Europe, where she became a much-loved star in pre-revolutionary
St. Petersburg, Russia. Other operas in her repertoire included
La bohème,
La traviata,
Faust,
Manon,
Andrea Chénier,
Thaïs, ''
Les contes d'Hoffmann (as the courtesan Giulietta), Rigoletto, Mefistofele (as both Margarita and Elena), Adriana Lecouvreur, Tosca, Hérodiade (as Salomé), Carmen (the title role), Siberia, and Zazà''. '', with Lina Cavalieri, Raymond Bloomer (on one knee) and Robert Cain. During her career, Cavalieri sang with other prominent singers, including
Giuseppe Anselmi,
Mary Garden (the world premiere of
Massenet's
Chérubin, 1905),
Mattia Battistini,
Titta Ruffo,
Feodor Chaliapin,
Nikolay Figner,
Antonio Scotti,
Vanni Marcoux,
Giovanni Zenatello,
Tito Schipa, and the French tenor
Lucien Muratore, whom she married in 1913 after his divorce from soprano
Marguerite Bériza. After retiring from the stage, Cavalieri ran a cosmetic salon in Paris. In 1914, on the eve of her fortieth birthday – her beauty still spectacular – she wrote an advice column on make-up for women in
Femina magazine and published a book,
My Secrets of Beauty. In her Parisian Institut de Beauté, she licensed Parfums Isabey Paris and not only sold Isabey perfumes, but also developed in 1926 a range of beauty products. The same year, she launched her own perfume, called "Mona Lina", apparently inspired by
Leonardo da Vinci's
Mona Lisa. In 1915, she returned to her native
Italy to make motion pictures. When that country became involved in
World War I, she went to the United States, where she made four more
silent films. The last three of her films were the product of her friend, the film director
Edward José. Almost all of her films are considered
lost. After marrying her fourth husband, Paolo d'Arvanni, she returned to live with her husband in Italy. Well into her sixties when
World War II began, she nevertheless worked as a volunteer nurse. Cavalieri was killed on 7 February 1944 during an
Allied bombing raid that destroyed her home in
Florence near Poggio Imperiale, where she had been placed under police surveillance because of her foreign husband. Hearing an American bomber nearby, Cavalieri, her husband, and the servants ran to the air-raid shelter in the grounds, but Cavalieri and her husband were delayed because they were collecting her valuable jewellery from the house. Both Cavalieri and her husband were killed running to the air-raid shelter, while the servants inside the shelter all survived. == Legacy ==