From The Metropolitan Opera Archives:

A Bidú Sayão Album

1902 - 1999

The life of Bidú Sayão as told in a comic book of the 1940s.

Early portraits of Bidú Sayão as Manon (Act I), and as Gilda in Rigoletto.

 

Sayão with Rose Bampton and a poster for their appearance with the New York Philharmonic in Debussy's
La Demoiselle Élue, April 16, 1936.

 

Sayão made her Metropolitan Opera debut on February 13, 1937, as Massenet's Manon.

 

Bidú Sayão as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, the role of her operatic debut; and in her dressing room at the Metropolitan Opera Guild Student Performance of Barbiere. With the students is Mrs. Walter Sands Marvin of the Guild Board.

 

Sayão as Mimi in La Bohème, one of her most beloved roles.

 

A 1940 scene from Don Pasquale with Sayão as Norina and Salvatore Baccaloni in the title role.

 

Sayão in her dressing room before Don Giovanni;
Sayão as Zerlina in 1941, singing "Batti, batti" to the Masetto of Arthur Kent.

 

Bidú Sayão as Susanna in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro; and
with Ezio Pinza as Figaro and Jarmila Novotna as Cherubino.

 

Sayão as Violetta in the garden and the ball scenes from Verdi's La Traviata.

 

Sayão in Roméo et Juliette, and in Pelléas et Mélisande with Martial Singher.

 

Bidú Sayão as Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore, and on Fifth Avenue wearing a hat made from her best-selling recording of Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, composed for her by Heitor Villa-Lobos.

 

Bidú Sayão's favorite portrait of herself.