'Women singers' conjures up immediately an image of opera divas. But the thought that this is the only arena is far from the truth. The first professional female singers in modern history seem to be the well-educated women of the upper middle class or minor nobility who appeared in the late years of the sixteenth century at the courts of Ferrara, Mantua, Florence, hired to sing in the concerti delle donne, the consorts of ladies. Laura Peverara, Vittoria Concarini Archilei, Virginia Andrea Ramponi Andreini, Adriana basile, Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Anna Renzi, Marie le Rochois, Francesca Cuzzoni, Faustina Bordoni, Gertrud Elisabeth Schmähling Mara, Anna Selina (Nancy) Storace, Giuditta Pasta, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, Lind, Jenny, Pauline Garcia Viardot, Lillian Nordica, Nellie Melba, Jane Bathori, Marian Anderson.