Mary Costa, born on April 5, 1930 in Knoxville, Tennessee, is an American singer and actress. After studying at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, she entered the public eye by providing the voice of Princess Aurora in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959). Her operatic debut followed with La traviata at the Metropolitan Opera in 1964, and she went on to perform 44 operatic roles worldwide, including Manon at the Metropolitan and Violetta at the Royal Opera House. In 1961, she recorded Musetta in La bohème for RCA, opposite Anna Moffo and Richard Tucker. Costa’s career earned her a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation in 1989, a Disney Legends award in 1999, and the National Medal of Arts in 2021. She retired from acting in 2014, focusing on motivational speaking and advocacy for child abuse prevention.
