Opera Singer. She was born in Valencia, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain. Her real name was Lucrecia Borja González de Riancho. She received her musical education at the conservatory of her hometown. In 1908 she made a successful debut as Micaela at the Teatro Adriano in Rome. She was offered a contract at La Scala for the 1910 - 1911 season, at Toscanini's urging. At the same time she was offered an American debut at the Met, but had to defer it for two years as she was under contract with La Scala. She made her debut as Carolina in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto at La Scala, and in the same year she sang Octavian in the Italian premiere of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier. In 1912 she made her debut as Manon Lescaut at the Met. Her other roles included Gilda, Mimì, Nedda, Norina, Micaela and others. In 1915 she had developed nodes on her vocal chords requiring a series of delicate operations, and she passed nearly four years in silence, hoping her voice would return unimpaired. She made her return to the stage at Monte Carlo in 1919 as Mimì, singing opposite Beniamino Gigli for the first time. She returned to the Met in 1921 as Mimì. She was one of the most highly respected and greatly loved singers in the Met's history and after her retirement she was appointed to the Board of Directors, the first singer to be so honored. Her last visit to Valencia was in the occasion of the dramatic floods happened in 1957, when the river Turia was overflowed. She died in May 14 in New York after nearly two weeks of suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. Her body was taken to Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York, where was kept in a holding vault, until october, when was sent to Valencia. According the newspapers, after her velatory in the Palace of Marqués de Dos Aguas, she was buried in the family plot, in November 3, 1960. Posthomously, she was honored with the Gran Cruz de Beneficencia.