"The Wren"

Josephine Tumminia, vocal

Jimmy Dorsey & His Orchestra

1937

Decca 29009

Josephine Tuminia was a coloratura soprano

She was born in 1919 in St. Louis. Her family moved to San Francisco, and she was known as the San Francisco barber's daughter who was discovered by Gaetano Merola and went on to stardom at the Met.

She sang at the San Francisco Opera for several seasons starting in 1935.

In the late 1930s and 1940s, she had a busy singing career that took her around the world.

Returning from Europe and South America in 1940, Josephine Tumminia made brief appearances with the Cincinnati and Chicago companies before her debut with the Metropolitan Opera on February 8, 1941.

She starred as Gilda in Rigoletto, replacing Lily Pons in the cast and playing opposite Lawrence Tibbett.

She dropped an "m" from her last name and became Josephine Tuminia.

This New York Times review of her Metropolitan Opera debut puts emphasis on her birthplace, Saint Louis, but makes no mention of her musical training in San Francisco nor that she first appeared onstage with the San Francisco Opera Company.

Tuminia's voice was not a loud one, which may have prevented her from being more successful on opera stages (she was not as fully audible when sining in ensembles as other sopranos could be).

By 1970 she worked as a salesgirl at Dixson's, a ladies' shop in Hillsdale Mall in the San Francisco area.

She married name was Wiper (her husband was Charles Wiper), but she divorced her husband.

Her most popular recording was a coloratura tour de force called "The Wren" with Jimmy Dorsey's band.

She died on January 19, 1997, in La Selva Beach, California.