Who was Emperor Maximilian's favorite Mexican singer

María de los Angeles Manuela Tranquilina Cirila Efrena Peralta, then only Angela Peralta, was the most famous Mexican opera singer of the 19th century and sang for the emperors Maximilian of Habsburg and Charlotte who were amazed, after this participation she was named Chamber Singer of the Empire. She was born in Mexico City on July 6, 1845 and was known to her followers as The Mexican Nightingale and in Italy she was called Angelica di voce e di nome (Angelica by voice and name) because of her magnificent voice.

She came from an indigenous family and from a young age she showed her interest in music as well as her great talent as a soprano singer. She worked as a child as a servant to help the family economy. His first performance to the public was at the age of eight with a song by the Italian composer Donizetti.

He studied at the National Conservatory of Music and made his opera debut at the age of 15 playing the character Loonore in Verdi's Il Trovatore, at the Teatro Nacional in Mexico City. A year later he was on his first trip to Europe to perfect his singing studies in Italy. In the foreign country he made his debut at La Scala in Milan on May 13 in 1862, even sang for King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and lasted 3 years on tour where he sang in Rome, Naples, Florence, Madrid, Barcelona, among others.

At the end of 1865, he returned to Mexico at the personal invitation extended to him by Emperor Maximilian, while the country was fighting the French invasion. After the performance for the emperor, he toured Mexico and even opened the Juan Ruíz de Alarcón Theater, which today is called the Degollado Theater in Guadalajara.

With the fall of the Mexican Empire, he stopped in Havana and New York to Europe in 1867 when he was only 21 years old; where he performed on the most important stages of the time. In Madrid, he married his first cousin Eugenio Castera and this helped him stop touring and he devoted himself to composing small pieces.

Four years later, in 1871, he returned to his hometown and premiered Aniceto Ortega de Villar's opera Guatemotzin at the Teatro Nacional in Mexico. It was there that he formed his own opera company. A year later she made a third tour of Europe which lasted until 1876 where she was interrupted by the illness of her husband, who died a few months later.

In 1877 she returned to Mexico and the love relationship she had with her administrator and writer Julián Montiel Duarte became known, which was supposed to begin before her first husband died and caused the public to stop supporting her. On her deathbed, Angela married Duarte for the second time in her life.

In 1883 she was going to perform in the company “The Mexican Nightingale” but Angela was unable to sing as she had caught yellow fever on the ship she arrived on. He died days later on August 30, at the age of 38 in Mazatlán Sinaloa, his remains were transferred to the Rotunda of the Illustrious Persons in April 1937.

Nowadays, several theaters around the country bear her name, as she was the first woman to open the doors to opera in Mexico and is one of the most recognized sopranos in the history of the musical genre.

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