Did you know that the Croatian soprano and one of the greatest opera divas in the history of opera, Milka Trnina, was also called the “Croatian nightingale” due to her beautiful voice? During her successful career, she performed 65 roles and held around 1,200 performances in opera houses in Europe and beyond.

She sang at the coronation of the Russian emperor Nicholas II in 1896, for which the royal couple gave her a brilliant bracelet and a star-shaped brooch made of diamonds and rubies as a sign of gratitude; it is currently kept in the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb. She famously sang the title role in Puccini’s Tosca, but also performed in Wagner’s operas Tannhäuser and Tristan und Isolde.

She was friends with scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla, who held a permanent box at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. While vacationing in Switzerland, a medical condition paralyzed a nerve on her face, as a result of which she ended her career at the height of her fame in 1906. At the end of her career, she devoted herself to teaching (the famous Croatian soprano Zinka Kunc was her pupil) and humanitarian work, and she donated the costumes from her performances to the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. One of the most beautiful waterfalls in the Plitvice Lakes National Park was named after Milka Trnina during her lifetime.

*The citizens of Zagreb gave her this nickname at the welcome ceremony held on 1st March 1898.