Lucine Amara was an American operatic soprano who was born as Lucine Tockqui Armaganian in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1925. She achieved early professional recognition as a member of the San Francisco Opera chorus (1945) and made a concert debut at the War Memorial Opera House in 1946. Amara is famous for her 41-season career at the Metropolitan Opera, where she performed 56 roles across 882 appearances, and for a vocal technique described by The Times as "the greatest lyric soprano of our time". She made a Metropolitan Opera debut as the Voice from Heaven in Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlos (1950). Her frequently performed roles included Micaëla in Carmen, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. She performed internationally at venues including Glyndebourne, the Vienna State Opera, and on tours of Russia (1965) and China (1983). Following her stage retirement in 1991, she served as the artistic director of the New Jersey Association of Verismo. Her discography includes recordings of Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème (1956), Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (1960), and Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin (1965). Amara died in 2024.
![Verdi: Il trovatore [Recorded 1960]](https://cdn-images.dzcdn.net/images/cover/5b6a91c734b8b75bc0cbeba579baa258/120x120-000000-80-0-0.jpg)
![Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann [Recorded 1956]](https://cdn-images.dzcdn.net/images/cover/4268435697970bf118cd2f08d0bc088c/120x120-000000-80-0-0.jpg)
