[Victoria López García] (b Barcelona, Nov 1, 1923; d Barcelona, Jan 15, 2005). Spanish soprano. She came from a musical family and studied the piano, the guitar and singing at home as well as at the Barcelona Conservatory. After her operatic début at Barcelona (1941, Mimì), she soon became a leading opera and concert singer, internationally as well as in Spain. Having been invited by the BBC to sing Salud in a 1948 studio broadcast of Falla’s La vida breve, she made her début at Covent Garden in 1950, and at the Metropolitan in the following year, and sang regularly in both houses until 1961. Although she successfully tackled the lighter Wagnerian roles, such as Eva and Elsa, she excelled as the more lyrical heroines of La bohème, Madama Butterfly and Manon. At the Metropolitan she was especially admired in her début role of Marguerite, and as Mélisande and Desdemona; and in two successive years (...