Antoinette Miggiani is a Maltese

Maltese people

The Maltese are an ethnic group indigenous to the Southern European nation of Malta, and identified with the Maltese language. Malta is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea...

 operatic soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 and singing teacher

Vocal pedagogy

Vocal pedagogy is the study of the art and science of voice instruction. It is used in the teaching of singing and assists in defining what singing is, how singing works, and how proper singing technique is accomplished....

.

Biography

Antoinette Miggiani was born in Sliema

Sliema

Tas-Sliema is a city located on the northeast coast of Malta. It is a centre for shopping, restaurants and café life. Tas-Sliema is also a major commercial and residential area and houses several of Malta's most modern hotels. Tas-Sliema, which means 'peace, comfort', was once a quiet fishing...

, Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

. After studying piano and voice in her native country, she won a British Council

British Council

The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...

 scholarship to study at London's Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

 in 1958. She was under contract to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 for the 1961/62 seasons following her First Prize award at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society International Singers' Competition. During the 1960s she sang in London, France, Germany and Italy (where she gave several recitals for Italian Radio

RAI

RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...

). She returned several times to Malta where she sang at the Teatru Manoel as Leonora in La forza del destino

La forza del destino

La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...

(1963) and Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana

Cavalleria rusticana

Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...

(1965), as well as a Royal Gala Performance at the theatre for Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

 and Prince Philip

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....

 (1967). In 1968 she undertook a tour of the United States, where she sang both in recital and on the opera stage, including performances as Maddalena in Andrea Chénier

Andrea Chénier

Andrea Chénier is a verismo opera in four acts by the composer Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It is based loosely on the life of the French poet, André Chénier , who was executed during the French Revolution....

at Seattle Opera

Seattle Opera

The Seattle Opera is an opera company located in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1963 by Glynn Ross, who served as the company's first general director through 1983, Seattle Opera's season runs from August to late May, with five or six operas offered and with eight to ten performances each, often...

 with Franco Corelli

Franco Corelli

Franco Corelli was a famous Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976. Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was celebrated universally for his powerhouse voice, electrifying top notes, clear timbre, a...

 in the title role.

Her international career was cut short in 1970, when her parents became ill and she returned permanently to Malta to care for them. However, she continued to sing in Malta in lied

Lied

is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...

er recitals and concerts, and as a soloist in performances of sacred music

Church music

Church music may be defined as music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclestiacal liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. This article covers music in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For sacred music outside this...

, including the Verdi, Mozart, Elgar, and Rossini Requiem

Requiem

A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...

s; Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

's Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater (Dvorák)

Stabat Mater for soli, choir and orchestra is a religious cantata by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. The work was sketched in 1876 and completed in 1877.- Background :...

; and Gounod's Messe solennelle Sainte-Cécile. She also sang in operas at the Teatru Manoel, including the title role of Carmelo Pace

Carmelo Pace

Maestro Chev. Carmelo Pace was a Maltese composer, and a professor of musical theory and harmonics. Born in Valletta, Malta on August 17, 1906, Pace was the eldest of three children...

's Ipogeana in its 1976 world premiere. For many years Miggiani has been a distinguished voice teacher in Malta. Amongst her former pupils are the soprano Lydia Caruana

Lydia Caruana

Lydia Caruana is a Maltese operatic soprano who performs in the opera houses and concert halls of Europe and her native Malta. She has sung in two rarely performed operas by Maltese composers, Carmelo Pace's I martiri and Nicolo Isouard's Jeannot et Colin.-Biography:Lydia Caruana was born in Malta,...

 and baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

Lino Attard. On 13 December 1991, she was awarded her country's Medal for Service to the Republic (Midalja għall-Qadi tar-Repubblika).