Opera Singer. A dramatic soprano who thrilled adoring crowds of 'Magdamaniacs' over a seven decade career, she shall be remembered as the last link to opera's "Golden Age". Born Maria Maddalena Olivero, she was the child of a judge, was raised in Northern Italy, took to music early, studied piano and harmony, and made her poorly-received 1932 professional bow on Turin's EAIR Radio in Nino Cattozzo's oratorio "I misteri dolorosi". After failing in two auditions with the Turin Opera, she received training from Luigi Gerussi, made her 1933 operatic bow in Turin as Lauretta from Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi", and that same year had her La Scala Milano debut as Anna in Verdi's "Nabucco". After refining her skills over the next five years in such lighter fare as Gilda in Verdi's "Rigoletto", Sophie from Richard Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier", Violetta in Verdi's "La Traviata", Mimi from Puccini's "La Boheme", and the title lead of Jules Massenet's "Manon", she scored a major success when she sang the role of the slave girl Liu in the 1938 world premiere complete recording of Puccini's "Turandot" with Gina Cigna (1900-2001) as the Ice Princess. In 1939, Magda first assumed the part with which she would be most identified, that of the tragic title lead of Francesco Cilea's "Adriana Lecouvreur", but following her 1941 marriage to industrialist Aldo Busch she retired, though she did give occasional concerts to aid the war effort. There the matter would have ended and Magda might well have gone-down as a minor footnote in operatic history had not, a decade later, Cilea, who knew his time was short, expressed a desire to hear her as Adriana one last time and talked her into a comeback; Magda sang Mimi on January 20, 1951 then had a triumph as Adriana in a performance which, alas, Maestro Cilea did not live to hear. For the rest of her time before the public, she concentrated on such heavyweight parts as the heroic Minnie in Puccini's "La Fanciulla del West" and the unfaithful Giorgetta from the same composer's "Il Tabarro" as well as the title leads Umberto Giordano's "Fedora", Alfredo Catalani's "La Wally", Pietro Mascagni's "Iris", and Puccini's "Madame Butterfly", "Tosca", "Manon Lescaut", and "Suor Angelica". Not neglecting modern works, she was the lead in Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Medium", sang both Mother Marie and the Old Prioress in Francis Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites", and was said by audiences and critics to be frightening as Kostelnicka in Leos Janecek's "Jenufa" at La Scala. After conquering Europe, Magda made her 1968 American bow with the Dallas Opera in Luigi Cherubini's "Medea" and the next year followed with Kansas City performances of the same piece. She appeared in New York and Philadelphia in Poulenc's one-woman opera "La Voix Humaine" but was not heard at the Metropolitan Opera until April 3, 1975 when she brought down the house as Tosca, in the process earning a half-hour curtain call and countless floral bouquets. She sold out Carnegie Hall and was to sing a total of 10 times with the Metropolitan up thru 1979, all as Tosca, and also in 1979 appeared with the San Francisco Opera in "La Voix Humaine", the piece she used for her 1983 final stage performances. Though 'retired' after her husband's 1983 death, she continued occasional recitals and in 1993 recorded an album of selections from "Adriana". She cut another disc a year later, at 86 was heard in the film "Opera Fanatic", last sang in public at 99, lived out her days in Milan, and died of the effects of advanced age. Her 'official' recorded legacy is rather thin, consisting of complete preservations of "Turandot" and "Fedora" as well as some recital discs, though numerous 'pirates' exist. Looking back at her career, she said: "I never had a voice. What I had was expression, a face, a body, the truth. If one prefers the opposite, that is their right".