Anastasia Dicescu
Anastasia Dicescu was a Romanian and Moldovan opera singer, soprano, and music educator. She was born on February 27, 1887, in Galesti. She studied singing at the Odessa Conservatory and later at music academies in St. Petersburg and Rome. She made her stage debut in 1908 and joined the Lyric Romanian Society in 1916.
In 1918, Dicescu helped found the Musical Romanian Society in Chisinau and led it until 1940. She was the first director of the Bessarabian Opera, serving from 1919 to 1923. From 1919 to 1935, she performed with the Romanian Opera in Cluj.
From 1919 to 1936, she also worked as a director and vocal teacher at a private conservatory in Chisinau, later called Unirea. From 1936 to 1942, she was a professor of opera singing at the Royal Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in Bucharest.
With a lyric soprano voice, Dicescu performed leading roles including Violetta and Aida in Verdi's operas, Gilda in Rigoletto, Marguerite in Gounod's Faust, and Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville. She died of tuberculosis in 1945 in Bucerdea Grânoasă.