Grace Panvini

Grace Panvini, also known by her married name Grace Panvini Rice and by her birth name Grazia Panvini, was an American soprano, Broadway performer, and voice teacher born on April 6, 1907, in Manhattan. The daughter of Paolo and Concetta Panvini, she trained primarily under Estelle Liebling, who was also the voice teacher of Beverly Sills, and received additional instruction from Vincent Nola early in her career. Vocal coaching from Fausto Cleva and Maurice Abravanel further shaped her development as a coloratura soprano. Her performance career extended from 1931 to 1952, encompassing opera, musical theatre, and the concert stage, after which she devoted herself to teaching and mentoring young singers until shortly before her death on February 12, 1999, in Lighthouse Point, Florida, at age 91.

Panvini launched her public career with a recital debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1931, presenting a program of coloratura soprano arias that Musical Advance described as very successful. The following year she joined the original Broadway production of Music in the Air, the musical by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern, as a member of the Endorf Walking Ensemble. The production opened at the Alvin Theatre before transferring to the 44th Street Theatre and ran through 1933. Kern composed music specifically for her voice to showcase her high coloratura abilities. Following the close of that production, she worked as a singer on American radio.

Her operatic career began in earnest in 1936 when she made her opera debut at the Central City Opera, singing Rosina in The Barber of Seville and Casilda in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers during the same season. In 1937 she undertook a national concert tour alongside baritone Conrad Mayo, with stops in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Alabama, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Maine, performing opera arias and duets. She subsequently appeared with the New England Opera and Cincinnati Opera. In 1938 she performed the aria "Una voce poco fa" in concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under conductor Reginald Stewart, and the performance was recorded for broadcast on NBC Radio. The following year she appeared as a soloist in Toronto's Promenade Symphony Concerts, singing "The Bell Song" from Léo Delibes's Lakmé under the baton of Adrian Boult.

Also in 1938, Panvini created the role of the Marquis in Frederick Loewe's Broadway musical Great Lady at the Majestic Theatre. The production was short-lived, but it marked her second Broadway credit. Her third Broadway appearance came in 1942, when she played Rosina in Once Over Lightly at the Alvin Theatre, an English-language adaptation of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia with a new libretto by Laszlo Halasz. The production had first been performed by the San Carlo Opera Company at the theater of The Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., before transferring to Broadway. Though it failed with New York audiences, it preceded the successful Carmen Jones, which similarly adapted a classic opera for Broadway the following year.

Throughout the 1940s Panvini was a leading soprano with the San Carlo Opera Company, a professional touring organization that performed across the United States. Among her early roles with the company were Micaela in Carmen and Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, both in 1942. Standing 4 feet 11.75 inches tall, a critic for the Washington Evening Star noted that her stature lent particular credibility to her portrayal of the youthful Gilda. She reprised the role of Gilda on tour with the company in 1944–1945, with Carlo Morelli in the title role, Mario Palermo as the Duke of Mantua, and William Wilderman as Monterone. In November 1943 she sang the title role of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at the Broadway Theatre with the San Carlo Opera Company, with Stefano Ballarini as Lord Enrico Ashton.

Panvini continued to perform Rosina across multiple productions and companies. She sang the role under Halasz's baton during the first season of the New York City Opera in 1943–1944 and repeated it to sold-out audiences at Rockefeller Center's Center Theatre in May 1945. With the San Carlo Opera Company in the fall of 1945, she again appeared as Rosina alongside Morelli as Figaro, Palermo as Almaviva, and Mario Valle as Bartolo. In 1947 she performed the role at the Florida Grand Opera with a cast that included Tito Schipa as Almaviva, Virgilio Lazzari as Don Basilio, Lloyd Harris as Bartolo, Ivy Dale as Berta, and Angelo Pilotti as Figaro, and she sang Rosina once more with the San Carlo Opera Company in 1950. In January 1943 she joined a national tour with composer Sigmund Romberg and his orchestra, performing Romberg tunes and German operetta arias with the composer conducting, with stops in West Virginia, Ohio, Texas, South Dakota, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. By April 1944 she was appearing in Cover Girl at Radio City Music Hall.

Panvini retired from performance in 1952 and opened a voice studio in New York City together with her husband, the operatic baritone Curtis Rice. In the early 1960s the couple co-founded the non-profit Lyric Arts Opera Inc., an organization dedicated to staging annual opera seasons with young American singers as a pathway toward professional careers. Several students from the organization went on to secure contracts with companies including the New York City Opera after being seen in Lyric Arts Opera Inc. productions. The organization remained active until 1970. That year, Panvini and her husband relocated to South Florida, where they continued teaching and co-founded the Young Artist Program at the Florida Grand Opera, a company with which Panvini had performed during her career. The couple gave masterclasses to singers associated with that program into the late 1990s.