Opera Singer. A lyric coloratura soprano, she is remembered for her European career of the 1940s and 1950s. Raised in the city of her birth, she originally studied piano before beginning the vocal training which eventually took her to Vienna; Alda made her 1937 operatic bow at Ljubljana as Rosina from Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" and was soon heard throughout then-Yugoslavia in a variety of roles including Susanna in Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", Clorinda of Rossini's "La Cenerentola", Gilda in Verdi's "Rigoletto", Norina from Donizetti's "Don Pasquale", and Adina in the same composer's "L'Elisir d'Amore". A member of the Vienna State Opera from 1942 until 1946, she was chosen by Richard Strauss to sing Zerbinetta in a 1944 performance of "Ariadne auf Naxos" marking the composer's 80th birthday, and though Strauss was in Hitler's bad graces at the time the occasion was broadcast and was preserved in a recording later issued by Deutsche Grammophon. Heard in London in 1946 as Norina, she later joined the company of La Scala Milano where she bowed in 1949 as Carolina in Domenico Cimarosa's "The Secret Marriage" and with which ensemble she toured widely as Papagena from Mozart's "The Magic Flute", Nanetta of Verdi's "Falstaff", and Zerlina in Mozart's "Don Giovanni"; Alda sang at Edinburgh in 1949 as Oscar from Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera", at Glyndeborne in 1951 as two of Mozart's girls, Blonde in Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio" and Despina of "Cosi fan tutte", and at the Paris Opera, also in 1951, as Nanetta and as Oscar. In the early 1950s, she made tours of South America and Japan but was never heard in the United States. Retiring in 1955, she spent the rest of her long life on the island of Cyprus except for occasional appearances as a competition judge. Over her last years she was to see renewed interest in her rather significant recorded legacy which includes a much praised "The Magic Flute" conducted by Herbert von Karajan and a number of complete operas cut for Cetra in the 1950s, among them "L'Elisir d'Amore", "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Pasquale", and "La Cenerentola". Alda also made one silver screen appearance in 1943's popular ice skating fantasy "The White Swan". She died of the effects of advanced age with most of her recordings available on CD.