The mezzo-soprano star at the 2011 tribute “Celebrating Frederica von Stade,” which honored her work on and off stage, at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. Courtesy of Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade has had a decades-long career singing on the world’s greatest opera stages. She has performed with every major conductor of her lifetime, she boasts more than 4 million views on a video of her singing an aria from the opera “Rusalka,” and she single-handedly discovered a composer, who recently had an opera produced at the Metropolitan Opera.
Not bad for a singer who couldn’t read music at the age of 20.
