Her repertoire includes Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Tchaikovsky. Freni was married for many years to the Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, with whom she performed and recorded. Freni was born into a working-class family in Modena; her mother and tenor Luciano Pavarotti's mother worked together and an aunt was the soprano Valentina Bartolomasi. She was a musically gifted child, and when 10 years old sang "Un bel dì vedremo" in a radio competition; the tenor Beniamino Gigli warned her, however, that she risked ruining her voice and advised her to give up singing until she was older. She resumed singing at the age of 17.
Freni made her operatic debut in Modena in 1955, when 19 years old, as Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen. She later married her teacher, the piano player and director Leone Magiera, resuming her career in 1958 when she performed Mimì in Puccini's La bohème at the Teatro Regio in Turin, and sang in The Netherlands Opera 1959-60 season. Her international breakthrough came at Glyndebourne, where she sang as Adina in Franco Zeffirelli's staging of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore; in the Glyndebourne 1960-62 season she sang the Mozart comic roles of Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Zerlina in Don Giovanni.
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