Montserrat Concepción Bibiana Caballé, opera singer, married with two children, was born in Barcelona on the 12th April 1933. On the 13 April 1953 she sang for the first time in the Gran Teatro del Liceo in an end of term gala, in which she performed Il Ciarlatano.After some failures, she arrived in Basle, where she was heard by the director of the Canton Opera House, who chose her to star in The Magic Flute, and in November of the same year she sang La Boheme.She performed in the United States, France, Germany and other countries, always doing the opera season at the Liceo in Barcelona. She expanded her repertoire and played a part in a great many concerts in the most important venues in the world.The production of Lucrezia Borgia in the Carnegie Hall in New York, on the 20 April 1965, and Faust, in the Metropolitan Opera House, were the definitive confirmation of her rise. Little by little she expanded her repertoire with works such as La Traviata, Salome, Elizabeth I, Turandot, La Favorita, Adriana Lecouvreur, La Serva Padrona, Cossi fan tutte, Lucrezia Borgia, Norma, Aida and others.Here most outstanding success was in April 1984 in the Carnegie Hall in New York. The applause was continuous for almost half an hour. The applause also lasted many minutes in the Pleyel, in Paris.In June 1986, the Spanish soprano was named Dame Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture.On the 22 April 1988 she was paid tribute on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of her official presentation in the Teatro de la Zarzuela, also her fifty-fifth birthday, in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Sofia.She is the holder of awards and trophies which can be counted by dozens, among which the most important are the Medal of the Liceo (1966), the Sash of Isabella the Catholic (1966), world-wide best singer in New York(1968), the Golden Key of Barcelona, the Paris Lyric Record Academy Prize (1971), the Gold Medal for Theatre (1972), the Gold Medal of the Reus Concert Association (1972), the Spanish National Theatre Prize (1971), the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (1973), the Gold Medal of the Catalan Regional Government (1982) and the Gold Medal of Madrid (1988).
