Bust-length role portrait photograph in the title role of Bizet's Carmen, signed in full

From the Bender studio in New York. Ca. 253 x 203 mm. Risë Stevens was an "American mezzo-soprano of Norwegian origin. She sang with the New York Opera-Comique before becoming a pupil of Anna Schoen-René. Approached by the Metropolitan, she declined and sailed for Europe to study with Marie Gutheil-Schoder. She then made her formal operatic début in Prague in 1936 as Thomas' Mignon; she also sang with the Vienna Staatsoper and in Buenos Aires. Returning to the USA, she made her début with the Metropolitan on tour in Philadelphia in 1938 as Octavian, appearing a month later in New York as Mignon. She remained with the company until 1961 but also sang with other companies (including Glyndebourne in 1939 and, as Cherubino, 1955). Her warm, lyric voice can be heard on studio and off-the-air recordings of her Cherubino, Carmen, Mignon, Delilah and Octavian." Max de Schauensee and Alan Blyth in Grove Music Online.