Pilar Lorengar

Lorenza Pilar Garcia Seta (Saragossa, 16 January 1928 - Berlin, 2 June 1996) was a Spanish soprano who used the stage name Pilar Lorengar. She sang mainly opera and zarzuelas, and was known for her full range, youthful timbre and a distinctive vibrato.

Pilar was born in the El Gancho district of Saragossa. At a very young age she participated in a radio programme called Ondas Infantiles, organized by Radio Saragossa. She began formal music lessons when she was fourteen under Margarita Martínez. She moved to Barcelona to study at the conservatory there. To pay for her lessons she began performing in various halls under the name Loren Arce. In Madrid she studied under the lyric soprano Ángeles Otein, and in West Berlin she studied with Carl Ebert and mezzo-soprano Hertha Klust, teacher of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Around 1949 she joined the choir of the Teatro de la Zarzuela. She made her professional debut in 1950 in Oran, Algeria. She made her Spanish debut in 1951 in the zarzuela El canastillo de fresas. In 1952 she sang the soprano part in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and in Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem.

Her international career began in 1955 at the Festival International d'Art Lyrique in Aix-en-Provence, where she sang Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. After that she sang in London, Glyndebourne and Buenos Aires.