Italian soprano Lucia Naviglio died on April 11 in Bari, due to COVID-19-related complications. She was 63.

She had been hospitalized, much like her husband and mother-in-law, who also died of COVID-19 earlier that week.

She famously managed to kickstart her career by singing “In questa reggia” from “Turandot” without knowing how to read music. Famed composer Nino Rota, who the director of the Bari Conservatory at that time, asked her to enroll in the institution.

From there, she would make her professional debut as Leonora from “Il Trovatore” and would go on to perform lead roles in “Nabucco,” “Carmen,” “Cavalleria Rusticana,” “Samson et Dalila,”  and “Werther” in Germany and France. In the 1990s, she would become a staple of regional theaters throughout Italy.

She appeared in a recording of Mascagni’s “Guglielmo Ratcliff” as well as a recording of “Le salon napolitain de la Révolution à la Restauration.”

At the end of her life, she turned to teaching from home.