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Frederica von Stade (born 1 June 1945) is an American former classical and show music singer.

Early life
Von Stade was born in Somerville, New Jersey on 1 June 1945, the posthumous daughter of the 1941 US Polo Champion Charles Steele von Stade, who had been killed in action fighting with the US Army in Germany during World War II. She spent her earliest years in Somerset County, New Jersey and, later, in Greece and Italy, where her stepfather, Horace Fuller, worked as a US diplomat.

She began her education at Stone Ridge School and Holy Trinity School in Washington DC, where her mother, Sara Worthington Clucas von Stade, worked as a secretary for the CIA. When her mother relocated to Oldwick, New Jersey, she transferred to Far Hills Country Day School, where she took part in musical theatre productions mounted by Betty Noling. From there she proceeded to the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Noroton, Connecticut. She was introduced to opera in 1961 at the Salzburg Festival, where she saw Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Christa Ludwig in Der Rosenkavalier.

After graduating, she spent a gap year in Paris before beginning work as a salesgirl in Tiffany's, New York City. She began her career as a performer acting in summer stock and singing in nightclubs and in industrial musicals. She enrolled at the Mannes College of Music in 1966, where she studied opera singing under Sebastian Engelberg.

Career
After appearing as a semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1969, von Stade was engaged at the Met as a comprimario by Rudolf Bing. She made her debut there as the Third Boy in Die Zauberflöte on 10 January 1970. She embarked on a career as a freelance singer in 1972. She made her debuts in San Francisco and Santa Fe while still under contract at the Met, appearing as Sesto at the former and as Cherubino at the latter in 1971; her other notable US debuts were as Cherubino in Houston and as Rosina in Washington DC in 1973, and as Cherubino at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1987. Internationally, she debuted in Paris and at Glyndebourne as Cherubino in 1973, as Cherubino in Salzburg in 1974, as Rosina at Covent Garden in 1975, as Rosina at La Scala in 1976, and as Cherubino in Vienna in 1976 also. Her recording of Joseph Haydn's Harmoniemesse—taped under Leonard Bernstein in 1973—was the first item in a discography that ultimately reached three figures, and a telecast of Le nozze di Figaro from Glyndebourne in 1973 initiated a television career that saw her making many appearances on screens in America and across the world.

With a slender physique and a lyric voice on the borderline between soprano and mezzo-soprano, von Stade was frequently cast in such trouser roles as Hänsel, Idamante, and Octavian. Her physical beauty also made her much sought after in starring female roles like Angelina, Charlotte, Lucette, Mélisande and Penelope. Her repertoire was notably eclectic, ranging from the baroque era through the bel canto and Romantic periods to the music of the modern age: she created roles in operas by Dominick Argento, Lembit Beecher, Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Thomas Pasatieri, Conrad Susa and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Her appearances in musicals by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim reflected a love of musical theatre that had begun in her earliest childhood. She also worked extensively as a concert artist, particularly in her later years, most notably in works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gustav Mahler, Hector Berlioz, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Her recital work was no less diverse, featuring songs from England, Ireland, France, Italy and Germany as well as many written by her American contemporaries.

Personal life
Von Stade married Peter Elkus, then a singer and subsequently a music teacher, in 1973; their daughter Jenny was born in 1977, and their daughter Lisa in 1980. The couple were divorced in 1990, and von Stade married Michael Gorman, a businessman, shortly afterwards. Von Stade is a practising Roman Catholic. The charitable work that she has undertaken throughout her career has involved her in a variety of programmes, most of them concerned with either education, healthcare or homelessness.

Select discography

 * Argento: Casa Guidi, cond. Eiji Oue
 * Berlioz and Debussy: Les nuits d'été and La damoiselle élue, cond. Seiji Ozawa
 * Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne and Triptyque, cond. Antonio de Almeida
 * Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande, cond. Herbert von Karajan
 * Heggie: Dead Man Walking, cond. Patrick Summers
 * Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel, cond. John Pritchard
 * Kern: Show Boat, cond. John McGlinn
 * Mahler: Symphony No. 4, cond. Claudio Abbado
 * Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Rückert Lieder and other songs, cond. Andrew Davis
 * Massenet: Cendrillon, cond. Julius Rudel
 * Massenet: Werther. cond. Colin Davis
 * Monteverdi: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, cond. Raymond Leppard
 * Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, cond. Georg Solti
 * Ravel: Shéhérazade and other songs, cond. Seiji Ozawa
 * Rodgers: The Sound of Music, cond. Erich Kunzel
 * Rodgers: My Funny Valentine, cond. John McGlinn
 * R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier, cond. Edo de Waart
 * French Opera Arias, cond. John Pritchard

Select videography

 * Bernstein: On the Town, Barbican Centre
 * Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel, Metropolitan Opera
 * Mozart: Idomeneo, Metropolitan Opera
 * Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne
 * Rossini: La Cenerentola, La Scala