LEXINGTON.- Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez Smith, la actress and soprano famous for her performance in the French film Diva (1981) and who sang throughout the United States in her opera career, died, reported today – February 11 – close to the artist. She was 75 years old.
Funeral services for Fernandez Smith were held Friday at a church in Lexington, Kentucky, where she moved after living for years in her native Philadelphia. She died of cancer on February 2 at her home in Lexington, her daughter, Sheena Maria Fernandez, told the newspaper. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Known as Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, she acted in the film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix dressed in a white tunic and singing the aria in an old theater Well? I’ll go far awayfrom the opera La Wally. That became her signature aria in her 25-year career that took her to the great opera houses in Europe and the center of many celebrations.
Education of the actress and singer
She graduated from the Philadelphia Academy of Vocal Arts and continued her education at the Juilliard School in New York. The makers of Diva They invited her when she sang Bohemian day in Paris and that led to his performance in the film, reported the Inquirer.
“The film gave me a projection that I could never have imagined, and I had to deal with my own fame when invitations to participate in countless operas began to pour in,” he recalled. “My repertoire just wasn’t that good and there was such an expectation to do it all.”
Fernandez Smith spent more time in Kentucky after her (now deceased) husband Andrew Smith returned in the ’90s to direct the singing program at Kentucky State University, the newspaper reported. Lexington Herald-Leader. In Lexington, she was known as an elementary school special education teacher and a member of Main Street Baptist Church, where she worked in the children’s music program.
“Wilhelmenia was always a very quiet person and didn’t crave the spotlight,” Everett McCorvey, director of the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre, told the newspaper. Lexington. “But fame did want her.”
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by a sister, Kerr Brothers Funeral Home in Lexington said on its website.
Source: AP
