A major link to the Dallas Opera’s earliest days has been broken. Mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato, who sang in the company’s very first staged production, Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri, died in Rome a week short of her 100th birthday. A major international artist, Simionato became associated with Dallas Opera founders Larry Kelly and Nicola Rescigno when they were at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She came to Dallas at their urging and starred in the Rossini opera in 1957 when the Dallas Civic Opera, as it was then known, was getting started. Click here for a full obituary.