From KUTX:
This Week in Texas Music History is brought to you by Brane Audio.
On Sept. 22, 1920, opera singer Josephine Lucchese made her stage debut in Jacques Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann at the Manhattan Opera House. It was a stirring accomplishment for a Texan of Italian heritage who had received much of her training in her native San Antonio. Lucchese would reach heights in her field that then seemed unattainable for opera singers who weren’t trained in Europe itself.
Lucchese was born July 24, 1893 in San Antonio to, yes, that Lucchese family: Her immigrant father, Sam, founded the legendary Lucchese Boot Company 10 years earlier. Josephine had other gifts, though, taking up the mandolin at 6, the piano at 10, and finding her voice as a singer at 15 under the tutelage of Virginia Colombati.
It was Colombati who sensed that Lucchese just might be too big of a talent even for Texas, and the pair traveled to New York in the late 1910s to continue Lucchese’s training.
