Mary Costa (born April 5, 1930) is an American singer and actress, who is best known for providing the voice of Princess Aurora in the 1959 film, Sleeping Beauty. She is also a professional opera singer.

Biography

Costa was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she lived for much of her childhood. She sang Sunday school solos at the age of six. At Knoxville High School (Tennessee), she sang in the chorus. When she was in her early teens, her family relocated to Los Angeles, California, where she completed high school and won a Music Sorority Award as the outstanding voice among Southern California high school seniors. Following high school, she entered the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to study with famed maestro Gaston Usigli. Between 1948 and 1951, she appeared with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on the Bergen radio show. She also sang with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in concerts at UCLA, and made numerous commercials for Lux Radio Theatre.

In 1952, after meeting people at a party with her future husband, director Frank Tashlin, she auditioned for the part of Disney's Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty in Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959). Walt Disney called her personally within hours of the audition to inform her that the part was hers. In 1958, Costa was called upon to substitute for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf at a gala concert in the Hollywood Bowl, conducted by Carmen Dragon. Thanks to glowing reviews from that performance, she was invited to sing the lead in her first fully staged operatic production, The Bartered Bride, produced by the renowned German producer, Carl Ebert, for the Los Angeles Guild Opera. Ebert later requested she appear at the Glyndebourne Festival, where she debuted.

Costa went on to perform in 44 operatic roles on stages throughout the world, including Jules Massenet's Manon at the Metropolitan Opera, and Violetta in La Traviata at the Royal Opera House in London and the Bolshoi in Moscow, and Cunegonde in the 1959 London premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Candide. In 1961, for RCA, she recorded Musetta in La bohème, opposite Anna Moffo and Richard Tucker, with the Rome Opera House Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.

Among roles which she sang for the San Francisco Opera, she was Tytania in the American premiere of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1961), Ninette in the world premiere of Norman Dello Joio's Blood Moon (1961), and Anne Truelove in the San Francisco premiere of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Violetta in La Traviata on January 6, 1964.

Costa impressed television audiences throughout her career with guest appearances on many shows, such as Bing Crosby's Christmas Show on NBC-TV. She appeared with Crosby and Sergio Franchi on The Hollywood Palace in 1970. She also appeared on Frank Sinatra's Woman of the Year Timex Special for NBC, where, with others, she was honored as one of the Women of the Year. In 1972, Sammy Davis Jr. asked her to appear on his first NBC Follies, in which she performed a blues selection with Sammy, backed up by Charlie Parker.

Jacqueline Kennedy asked her to sing at a memorial service for her husband, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, from the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 1963. She sang for the inaugural concert of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1971. In 1972, she starred in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature The Great Waltz, depicting the life of Johann Strauss II. Additional movie credits include The Big Caper (1957) and Marry Me Again (1953).

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