Rita Gorr

Rita Gorr (18 February 1926 – 22 January 2012) was a Belgian operatic mezzo-soprano. She possessed a large, rich-toned voice and was an intense singing-actress, especially in dramatic roles such as Ortrud (Lohengrin) and Amneris (Aida), two of her greatest roles.

Life and career

Gorr was born Marguerite Geirnaert into a working-class family in the industrial town of Zelzate, near Ghent, Belgium. After leaving school she worked as a nurse, where the family who employed her discovered her singing and paid for her first lessons. After vocal studies in Ghent with Vina Bovy, and in Brussels with Jeanne Pacquot d'Assy and Germaine Hoerner, she won first prize at the vocal competition of Verviers in 1946, and made her professional debut at Antwerp as Fricka in Die Walküre the same year. She became a member of the Opera of Strasbourg from 1949 to 1952. She won another first prize at the vocal competition of Lausanne in 1952. That year she made her Paris debuts at the Opéra-Comique as Charlotte in Werther on 6 March 1952, and at the Paris Opéra on 31 October as Magdalena in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; further roles in Paris included Dalila in Samson and Delilah, Venus in Tannhäuser, Mère Marie in the French premiere of Dialogues of the Carmelites (later in her career she sang Madame de Croissy), Carmen, Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande, Amneris in Aida, Eboli in Don Carlos and Marguerite in La damnation de Faust.