Violetta Villas, photo: Michał Hetmanek/ Reporter/ East News
Violetta Villas, one of the most extraordinary Polish opera singers, actress, composer and songwriter, passed away on Monday, the 5th of December in Lewin Kłodzki. She was 73.
Violetta Villas was born Violetta Élise Cieślak on the 10th of June, 1938 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Liège.
In 1948 she came with her parents to Poland and settled in Lewin Kłodzki where she began studying music. Young Violetta Villas played the piano and violin.
In 1956 she began studying solo singing at the State Musical High School in Szczecin. She continued her artistic education in Wrocław with a professor Gisela Posh. In 1959 she began classical vocal lessons with a professor Eugenia Falkowska in Warsaw. Her 5-octave vocal range and timbre abilities were significant, worthy of a promising operatic career, but she had decided to pursue more contemporary forms of music, touring and giving vocal performances on stage.
Her voice was characterized as coloratura soprano, she had five-octave vocal range and absolute pitch. She has been nicknamed "the voice of the atomic age", "the singing toast of the continent", "a voice like French champagne","Polish Yma Sumac". Violetta Villas was the first star of the Casino de Paris at Dunes Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas (1966–1971).
Villas was known for her flamboyance and exagerrated appearance, as well as the numerous number-one hits she made. During her career in show business Violetta Villas starred in 6 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded almost 300 songs in 10 languages, including Polish, English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Neapolitan, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese. She is animal rights activist.
In 2011 Villas received the For Merits to Culture - Gloria Artis.
Source: Wikipedia.org