Fiora Corradetti Contino was born with Italian opera her blood. Her parents were Italian immigrants who settled in Lynbrook, New York; her father had been a celebrated baritone singer in Italy, performing at La Scala and throughout Europe before fleeing to the United States when Mussolini came to power. She also had an older half-sister who was a celebrated Italian soprano. In 2001, well into her much-lauded conducting career, Contino told the New York Times that when it came to conducting Italian verismo opera she, “just knew how to do it.” Contino studied music and piano from a young age and was so adept that she became a church organist at the age of 12. Although her father died when she was 14, his influence left its mark. He had introduced her to Arturo Toscanini, who, when she finished high school, provided her with a letter of introduction to Oberlin College. She graduated from Oberlin with a degree in piano performance. She went on to study conducting in Europe, at the Conservatoire Américain in Fontainebleau, France, where she won the 1960 Premier Prix Hors Concours in the field of conducting, at the École Normale in Paris, and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Austria. She then received a masters and a doctorate degree in conducting from the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington. Contino had a long and varied conducting and teaching career. She conducted many orchestras and choral ensembles, but became best known as a conductor of opera, particularly late-19th century Italian verismo opera. At the age of 27, she founded the Amherst Community Opera in Amherst, Massachusetts. She appeared as a frequent guest conductor with opera companies, orchestras, and at music festivals throughout the United States. She frequently conducted at Temple Music Festival in Pennsylvania and was the director of the Choral Institute at the Aspen Music Festival. And for 20 years she was the conductor and music director of Opera Illinois, retiring in 2005. She was also conductor and chair of the Choral Department at Indiana University where she had been a student. In addition, Contino taught at many other institutions including Smith College, Bowling Green State University, Mount Holyoke College, the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Texas at Austin. She also ran a private studio in New York City, where she trained opera singers and conductors. Contino’s conducting was much admired throughout her career but many believe that had she been a man she would have achieved a more high-profile position. In 1998, at the age of 73, she made her New York conducting debut at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, conducting Mascagni's Iris (her half-sister’s namesake.) Paul Griffiths’s New York Times review hailed it as, “a luscious and exultant orchestral performance.” After a long and successful career, Fiora Contino died in 2017 at the age of 91. This story is derived from the Wikipedia article “Fiora Contino,” with additional information from the March 15, 2017, obituary in the New York Times by Sam Roberts, “Fiora Corradetti Contino, Opera Maestra, Dies at 91.”

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