Dicescu Anastasia

About

Anastasia Dicescu, an exceptional soprano born on February 27, 1887, in the village of Gălești, Orhei county, Republic of Moldova, profoundly marked the Romanian lyrical scene with her impressive musical career. She studied singing at the Odesa Conservatory, as well as at the music academies in Saint Petersburg and Rome, making her stage debut in 1908. She excelled in leading roles such as Violetta in "Traviata," Gilda in "Rigoletto," Marguerite in "Faust," and Rosina in "The Barber of Seville," collaborating with masters like George Enescu, Jean Bobescu, and Umberto Pessione, and establishing herself on the stages of Chișinău, Cluj, Bucharest, and other cultural centers. In the Republic of Moldova, the main venue of her activity, Anastasia Dicescu founded the Romanian Musical Society in 1918, which she led as president until 1940, and she was the director of the Bessarabian Opera (1919-1923), as well as director and professor of the opera class at the "Unirea" Conservatory in Chișinău (1919-1936). She worked as a soloist at the Cluj Opera (1919-1935), a professor at the Chișinău National Conservatory (1932-1934), and at the Royal Academy of Music in Bucharest (1936-1942), decisively contributing to the training of generations of Bessarabian lyrical artists and promoting musical education during the interwar period. A descendant of a boyar family from Bessarabia, daughter of Pavel Victor Dicescu – founder of the Moldavian Cultural Society – and Eugenia Teodosiu, Anastasia led a life dedicated to art, marked by her refuge in Romania in 1940 from the Soviet occupation. Unmarried and without direct descendants, she passed away in 1945 in Bucerdea-Grânoasa, Alba County, struck down by tuberculosis, the same illness as Violeta, her favorite role, leaving behind a cultural legacy celebrated today through commemorative plaques and philatelic issues in her honor.