The famed teacher and soprano died at the Allegheny General Hospital due to respiratory failure following a series of strokes. The daughter of the famed opera star and Broadway singer Ezio Pinza, Claudia Pinza taught voice at the Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh.
Before taking on her role as a teacher, Pinza was a singer at the Metropolitan Opera, where she performed the role of Michaëla in “Carmen” in 1948 and was praised as behaving “with the poise of a veteran.” She later went on to sing at the San Francisco Opera in “Faust” alongside her father and “La Traviata” in Philadelphia. After her operatic career, she took on private students such as Vivica Genaux and countertenor Andrey Nemzer. She also ran the Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera, an internationally acclaimed summer training program based in Pittsburgh and Oderzo, Italy, in honor of her father. She was also an active board member of Pittsburgh Opera.
Pinza is survived by her husband, Rolando Bozzolla, her son Samuele Bozzolla and his wife, Nathalie Campanile.