Opera Singer. A mezzo soprano, she is remembered as a premier exponent of roles both Italian and Germanic. Raised in northern Mexico, she was trained at the National Conservatory of Music and made her 1945 professional bow at Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes as the Singer from Puccini's "Manon Lescaut". Oralia refined her art, adding new roles to her repertoire, and on March 7, 1951 was the jealous Princess Amneris in an (in)famous Mexico City performance of Verdi's "Aida" in which Maria Callas interpolated a high E-flat at the end of act 2, a stunt which ignited the crowd but resulted in Mario del Monaco, her Radames of the evening, never speaking to her again. She made her 1953 European debut in a recital at London's Wigmore Hall, bowed that same year at La Scala Milano as the Princess de Bouillon from Francesco Cilea's "Adrianna Lecouvreur", and was first heard at Covent Garden, London, on January 27, 1955 as the fortune teller Madame Sosostris from Sir Michael Tippett's "The Midsummer Marriage", a spoof of Mozart's "The Magic Flute". Over the years Oralia appeared throughout Europe in such roles as Azucena from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", La Cieca of Ponchielli's "La Gioconda", the witch Ulrica from Verdi's "Un Ballo en Maschera", Isabella in Rossini's "L'Italiana in Algeri", Mistress Quickly of Verdi's "Falstaff", Erda from Wagner's "Ring Cycle", Arnalta of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, Preziosilla in Verdi's "La Forza del Destino", and the title leads of Rossini's "La Cenerentola", Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila", and Bizet's "Carmen". A company member of Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Dusseldorf, from 1960 on, she continued performing on both sides of the Atlantic, earned rave reviews at Glyndebourne with Arnalta and Mistress Quickly, and was, in addition to her operatic work, a busy recital artist, her repertoire including Verdi's "Manzoni Requiem", Mozart's "Requiem", and Brahms' "Alto Rhapsody" and "German Requiem". Oralia bade farewell to the stage in 1982 in the same theatre at which she had commenced her career singing the alto part in Verdi's "Requiem"; she lived out her days in Milan and died of the effects of advanced age. At her death a portion of her legacy of studio and 'live' recordings remained available including the Mexico City "Aida", probably the highest-selling 'pirate' disc in history.